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Nebraska football pursues Ohio recruit Noah King


Nebraska football has routinely played Big Ten football games in Ohio, but it hasn’t signed a high school prospect from the state in years.

Cincinnati-area defensive back Noah King could be the player who changes that fact.

The 6-foot-3, 187-pounder — a three-star according to On3, 247 Sports and Rivals — is in Lincoln this weekend for an official visit, hoping to see what Nebraska has to offer, and how the coaches connect with him.

So far, King said Wednesday, he’s liked chatting with Husker defensive backs coach Evan Cooper, who offered King on June 6.

“With coaches, you’ve got to build a relationship,” King said. “They have to want to know about you, and I actually asked a lot of questions about him. I asked about his football career, stuff like that.”

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King, who previously played at Fairfield High School north of Cincy, described himself as an “under the radar” prospect who had respect in the city but little profile outside of it. Until he started playing with TMP Elite on the OT7 7-on-7 league — “I was covering 5-star dudes,” King said — and started running sub-4.5 second 40-yard dashes at camps.

One of those sub-4.5 times, King said, came at an Under Armour camp. Speed like that immediately gets the attention of college coaches, who want the tallest, longest, fastest players possible in the defensive backfield, the better to smother opposing receivers and reduce open passing lanes for quarterbacks.  

“I just want to play defensive back,” said King, now at Hamilton High School. “Corner, safety, anywhere in the defensive backfield. I’m so versatile. I’m a 6-foot-3, 190, a bigger dude. But I run that 4.4 (seconds) in the 40, so I don’t have to be stuck somewhere. They know that about me and that’s what they like.”

Oregon State has been aggressive in its pursuit, King said, as has Kentucky, where he’s being recruited by Vince Marrow, a former Nebraska staff member and longtime confidant of the Pelini and Stoops coaching families out of Youngstown, Ohio.

When Marrow worked for Bo Pelini, Nebraska frequently pulled talent from the state. Several of those players — Braylon Heard and Courtney Love among them — eventually transferred to Kentucky to join Marrow.

After NU fired Pelini, the Huskers landed Tony Butler in 2016 and Matt Sichterman in 2017 out of Ohio. Once Nebraska fired Mike Riley, the Huskers’ efforts to recruit Ohio effectively stopped; Scott Frost made inroads in Michigan, but generally preferred to recruit the southeastern states.

Matt Rhule has his preferred recruiting areas, too — but one of those is Pennsylvania, where he played college football and coached at multiple schools, including Temple. NU has, in short order, landed several prospects from the state, particularly Philadelphia.

Ohio produces even more three-star prospects. In the 2024 class, according to On3’s industry service, the state had 114 recruits with three-star grades. Of the top 25, Ohio State got seven, Michigan landed four and Kentucky and Purdue landed three each.

King’s commitment to a school could come before July.

“My decision will come later this month,” King said. “A week or two.”





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