QB Brock Berglund committed to playing football at Kansas

By Matt Tait     Jul 8, 2011

Joel Reichenberger, Steamboat Today
Valor Christian quarterback Brock Berglund, right, scrambles away from Steamboat defenders in this 2009 photo from the Class 3A state championship football game in Aurora, Colo. Berglund signed to play football at Kansas University on Jan. 4, 2011.

For weeks, the here-today-gone-tomorrow status of Kansas University freshman quarterback Brock Berglund has been one of the most talked about topics within the KU football community.

By now, many have made up their minds — fairly or not — about who and what they believe Berglund is — savior, flake, future star, immature headache.

It is, of course, too early to tell which of those, if any, are accurate descriptions of the three-star, dual-threat QB from Highlands Ranch, Colo., but the one thing we can say for sure is Berglund seems determined to play football at Kansas.

Through all of the mystery and head scratching that came with him graduating high school early only to miss spring drills and then showing up for summer workouts only to return to Colorado again to tend to personal matters, one thing I never questioned was his commitment to KU.

Throughout the last six months, Berglund consistently has labeled himself a KU football quarterback. From the day he committed to the day he signed and then again when he arrived on campus early last winter, Berglund has projected the kind of genuine enthusiasm about becoming a Jayhawk that you just can’t fake.

Late Thursday night, he hammered home that commitment one more time, via text message, when he sent me an unsolicited note that simply read: “100% a Jayhawk.”

There was nothing more than that, and the text did not come in response to any type of question. Just 12 characters and a couple of spaces that confirmed, loud and clear, that, despite all the stops and starts to his much anticipated college football career, one thing has remained consistent: Berglund wants to play football for Turner Gill and Gill wants Berglund to play football for him. It’s not likely to happen as quickly as either of them had hoped since Berglund already has missed so many valuable days this offseason, but there does seem to be a bond there.

If there weren’t, why else would either man have anything to do with the other at this point? Wouldn’t it simply be better — not to mention easier — to part ways and move on?

Maybe that’s what Berglund’s trying to do here. Maybe he is trying to move on. He’s no fool. He knows there are doubts about him because he didn’t participate in spring football, and he also knows the rumors about his absence have captivated the KU football family, from his teammates who have been here busting their butts in the spring and summer all the way down to the fans who have posted what seem to be daily status checks on various message boards.

Maybe he’s tired of that just like the rest of us are. Maybe he’s finally ready to put everything else behind him and start playing football. It won’t happen overnight, but, in time, I believe his teammates will accept him and he will dig himself out of this hole and build the kind of relationships that make college football so great.

Berglund’s a smart guy. He reads playbooks like they’re magazines, breaks down film for fun, was a two-year starter on back-to-back state championship teams and finished high school with a 3.1 grade-point average. He knows what 100 percent means. Now he just has to transform his words into action.

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Written By Matt Tait

A native of Colorado, Matt moved to Lawrence in 1988 and has been in town ever since. He graduated from Lawrence High in 1996 and the University of Kansas in 2000 with a degree in Journalism. After covering KU sports for the University Daily Kansan and Rivals.com, Matt joined the World Company (and later Ogden Publications) in 2001 and has held several positions with the paper and KUsports.com in the past 20+ years. He became the Journal-World Sports Editor in 2018. Throughout his career, Matt has won several local and national awards from both the Associated Press Sports Editors and the Kansas Press Association. In 2021, he was named the Kansas Sportswriter of the Year by the National Sports Media Association. Matt lives in Lawrence with his wife, Allison, and two daughters, Kate and Molly. When he's not covering KU sports, he likes to spend his time playing basketball and golf, listening to and writing music and traveling the world with friends and family.