Nick Herbig, NFL Draft Linebacker Prospect

Okay, what's the number one reason you should try Instacart? Shopping over 1.5 million unique products from over 1,000 retailers and get everything delivered right to your door in as fast as one hour. All in one app.

So you can spend more time with the ones who matter most. Visit Instacart.com to get free delivery on your first three orders. Offer valid for a limited time.

$10 minimum per order. Additional terms apply. Thanks for joining us, getting set to hear his name called in the NFL Draft next week in Kansas City. And that of course is Nick Herbig, who was a linebacker for the Wisconsin Badgers football team the last few years. Nick, appreciate the time. How are you?

I'm great, man. Thank you for having me. You know, this is all a blessing. I'm just thankful to be here, for real.

How crazy is this right now? Because you hear about this process. This is something that you've dreamed about for a long time. And now knowing next week, around this time, you're going to get your NFL future underway.

I mean, I can't even like, I can't really explain it to you, man. It's like a dream come true. You know, I've dreamed about this since I was a little kid. Me and my brother, you know, we've had this dream as far as I can remember, you know, since I started playing football. Now that it's finally here, you know, it kind of just feels kind of so surreal.

You know, next week, just it feels like so far away. But yeah, it's so close, you know, so I'm just excited to see this thing through, man, and figure out where I'm going and what team that I can go help win the championship. Your brother plays in the NFL. Like you mentioned, you grew up in Hawaii. Just kind of take me through your roots, what that means to you, and your journey to get to this point. Yeah, I mean, I was fortunate enough to grow up around all family, man. And that's mostly how it is, you know, where I'm from. It's just faith, family, and football, man. That's all we was about growing up. I grew up around all my cousins, my grandparents, you know, I have both my mom and dad, my two older brothers. And now we played outside every single day, you know, whether it was football, basketball, just making up a game, you know, playing survivor, man, just random stuff, you know, going to the beach, you know, that's how I kind of grew up. We just, we had we had a good time together. We were very close, you know, I was very close to my cousins and my brothers. And, you know, my dad never let us quit anything, you know, once we started it, we had to see it through. So I'm thankful that my parents are hard on me and my older brothers are hard on me because it made me who I am today. Probably some good Oklahoma drills in the backyard, right?

Oh, for sure. My brother, my brother wouldn't even wear his pads. Like we'd all be wearing pads and he would have no pads on. How has Elle says your brother really helped you through this process? I know he was undrafted, but he's gone through the draft process.

He's been in the NFL, on the Jets, on the Eagles, now with the Steelers. How big of a resource has he been for you? My brother is like my backbone. You know, he he's someone I can text call at any time of the day and he's going to he's going to shoot me straight. You know, that's somebody who's who's never going to give me a biased opinion or he's never going to side with me. He's always going to tell me how he feels and what he thinks. You know, his word is like gold to me because now we're growing up like we didn't have nobody like that to look up to or to talk to about this whole process. You know, my brother kind of had to figure it out on his own.

You know, he didn't really have nobody. And now that I have him, just everything that he's learned, man, all the knowledge he's gained and, you know, he's going on year five being undrafted, going year five. I'm so proud of him, man. I'm so happy for him. He works his butt off and he deserves all of it. So just having a guy like that to look up to Madison, seeing what he's went through to get where he's at, you know, it's kind of inspiring me, motivated me, you know, to go beyond that and to be better than him.

But, yeah, he's definitely somebody that has had my back this whole process and he's he's done nothing but help me through it all. Whenever you hear your name get called, if you find out Nick Herberg that you get drafted by the Pittsburgh Steelers, what would that be like for you and your family? Man, that'd be like a I don't even know.

Do like just playing, playing football in the NFL is one thing, but playing with your brother on the same team. And that's a whole different. That's I mean, that's that's stuff that you see in movies. You know, that stuff you see, you read about, like.

Especially being from Kalau, Kauai, like that's like unheard of. You know, that's never happened ever. Like that'd be like we'd be in the history books. That'd be crazy.

You know, and I'd love to be a still man. But my brother, that'd be that'd mean the world to me. I know your brother has been advocating for the Steelers to draft you. Have you had conversations with the Steelers throughout this process? Yeah.

Yeah. I've talked to the linebacker coach, you know, some of their scouts talked to Coach Tomlin, so I kind of got a feel for who they are, how they go about things. They got they know who I am. Obviously, I know my brother.

So. I've had some good conversations with the Steelers, for sure. Nick Herbig here with us. When you look back at your Wisconsin experience, a quick it's crazy how quickly it goes by. How do you look back and reflect on your time in Wisconsin and Madison?

Yeah, I don't think it's really like I would say hit me yet. You know, I haven't really had the opportunity to really look back and reflect on everything I was able to do here. You know, I've I've made such great relationships and bonds and I've met some great people my time. You know, I enjoyed every single second of my time being a badger. And it's just now it's kind of crazy. Like I just try to live in the moment, you know, but eventually I'd like to sit down and kind of just reflect on on my time in college.

And, you know, dissect everything that happened. But and it was it was a great experience for sure. When you look back at your time there on the field, I know you said you didn't have time to really reflect, but in the moment right now, what was your favorite on field memory if you if you give me one? I probably have to say my sophomore year we played Iowa at home.

They were like number eight in the country or something. And, you know, I was I was still trying to make a name for myself, you know, put myself on the map. I'm coming out. I came off a pretty good game. And I remember it's third and long.

We have them back up in their own territory. And coach gave me a signal that like I'm past rushing, like I'm going, you know, and that's that's all I was looking for. Like, yeah, like he's letting me go. You know, I hit one of my favorite when I cross chop and I come around the corner and all I saw was the ball and everything kind of went. Everything kind of was like silent, like it felt like the world stopped for like a split second, you know, and I end up strip sacking him. And one of my best friends, Keanu, recovers it. And that was, man, that feeling was just crazy.

Like I, I don't even know what to do. Like I got up, I just went up and down, like screaming like that was one of the coolest feelings ever. And then we end up winning that game and the fans storm the field. And it was just it was a great time. And my family was there.

So I'd say that's probably my favorite memories of the Badgers. You could have returned to Wisconsin. Why was the time right to go declare for the draft and explore this next chapter in your life? Yeah, I think I just had a long talk, you know, with people that are close to me, people that I trust, especially my brother. Kind of all felt that, you know, my my time in college was good and it was time for me to move on, you know, the opportunities that the NFL presents to a person and his family is unlike any other. You know, and we felt that I've done done all I could have done in college, you know, and is ready to start the next chapter in my life. I'm ready to go take dreams, man, and provide opportunities for my family. And we just yeah, that was basically it, man. We felt like it was time for me to go, time for me to to take that next step in my career.

Nick Herbert here with us. Let's say I'm an NFL general manager and I come up to you, we have a conversation and I say, Nick, we're thinking about taking you. Why should we select you with whatever pick we have in the NFL draft?

What's your response to that? I'm not I'm not the biggest dude, not the fastest dude, not the strongest dude, but I'm a dog, man. You need somebody who's who's going to run down there, rock somebody on kickoff. You need someone to go in there, man. I'll go catch a pass for a touchdown. I'll I'll go block somebody. I'll run through somebody.

I'll get a sack. I'll do whatever you need me to do. I'm I'm willing to do whatever it takes to get this team to win championships. You know, I'm here to win championships. You know, I'm not I'm not here to just check the box. You know, I'm here to here to go over the top. I'm here to to make history.

You know, and I think that I offer that to to a team for somebody who's going to come in and work hard. You know, somebody who's who's never going to say never. I'm never going to quit.

You're not going to find somebody who works harder than me. I promise you that you said it. You're not the biggest.

And in a lot of these criticisms, it's undersized for the NFL. Why won't that be the way that you're defined? And why are you going to be able to keep on fighting through what people say?

Oh, you're not big enough to play in the NFL. And I've been I've been fighting my brother my whole life and I've been smaller than my brother my whole life. Why am I going to stop now? You know, I've I've always been the underdog. I've always been somebody that that nobody really believed that I'm from Colorado, Kauai, man. I'm not I'm not supposed to be here, but I dedicated my life to this, you know, and I I trusted God with with his plan and I put all my eggs in one bag.

I've I've done everything in my ability to get here. And just because someone's going to say that I'm not big enough for I don't fit the prototypical sizes. To me, that's just crazy, you know, because I'm I'm not a quitter. Like, what is that? What is quitting? No, I'm not mad.

I don't it doesn't make sense to me, but it is what it is. You know, I'm I'm just excited, man. Whoever whoever gets me is getting the dog.

Wrapping up with the curve. This is that Gelb show on CBS Sports Radio. A lot of people grow up and they say, I want to be a professional athlete. I want to be an NFL player one day. You had that dream.

When did you realize that it could be a reality? Because next week you're going to be an NFL football player. I would say probably my sophomore year college, you know, I didn't really like I played football, but I didn't really like actually played so like my junior year in high school. So like my sophomore year in college, I thought I had a pretty decent year and my brother was saying, hey, like some of my coaches are asking about you, you know, there's people from the league asking about you. And I would go up to work out with my brother and a bunch of NFL guys in the offseason. My man, like.

I can do this, like I know I cannot belong here. And, you know, that's kind of when I had the realization, like I really have to do everything in my power to get to get to this point. And I had to sacrifice a lot, you know, so I really think that in 2021, 2021, that's probably the year where the realization hit me that I could go to the NFL. I know family is a big point of emphasis for you.

And you said that's a huge foundation in what you do. But outside of football, outside of family, like what is Nick Herbig like away from from a football field? What are your hobbies? What do you do for fun? I love I love to play video games. I love to hang out with my boys. Like anybody knows me like I'm always with my boys. You know, they keep me grounded. I like to play golf.

I recently just started playing some golf. If I'm home, you know, I like going to the beach, get in the water. Obviously, you know, I kind of grew up going to the beach every day or like going on the lake, like in Wisconsin. Like I go out with my friends on the lake and stuff. But yeah, for the most part, that's all I like to do is just hang out with family and friends.

That's how I get away from craziness. This year for Wisconsin, just to get back to Wisconsin before we let you run. It was kind of unexpected because people weren't expecting Paul Chris to get fired. And then they had that coaching search. They made a great hire in Luke Fickel. We know what he's done in the sport, but a lot of people thought it was going to be Jim Leonard.

How do you kind of look back at the coaching change and now the new leadership that's in charge at Wisconsin? But a lot of people thought it was going to be Jim Leonard, who you know very well. Yeah, I think, you know, man, it's a business, you know, at the end of the day, like they got a family to feed. I got to find everybody got kind of put food in somebody's mouth somehow. No, and I think the quicker I realized that, you know, it's made it easier for me to understand that, you know, there's no emotions or feelings involved.

It's all all business. You know, I think Wisconsin made a great hire. I think Luke Fickel is going to do a phenomenal job being a head coach here for the Badgers. They have a great strength staff.

I've been fortunate enough to work out with them. And I just think the culture they're building on is still the same. You know, there's still Wisconsin, you know, we're still hard nosed, blue collar grinders, you know. And I think Coach Fickel is just emphasizing that and building on it and figuring out ways how he can elevate it.

But I think Wisconsin Badgers will be really good this year. Well, you have a heck of a story. We can't wait to hear where your name is going to be called. And good luck and really enjoy this. Appreciate you doing this. Thank you for having me.