Pat Harty of the Press-Citizen wrote an article this week about Jordan Bernstine, a highly touted recruit from Des Moines Lincoln.  I’ll be the first to admit that I hadn’t paid much attention to him, for a couple of reasons.

First, the name ‘Jordan Bernstine’ sounds like a scrawny white kid from a suburb like Clive.  Wrong.  Jordan Bernstine is actually an Oakland, California transplant with a chiseled 5′10″ 200 pound frame.

Second, anyone who grew up around Des Moines knows that Lincoln is basically the equivalent of Temple in the CIML.  Historically, they’re awful.  So bad, in fact, that I assumed they wouldn’t be turning things around any time soon.  Wrong again.  The Bernstine-powered Lincoln Railsplitters are currently 4-1 in the CIML Metro Conference and 7-1 overall.  It looks like they finally have a team (or at least a player) to go with their badass school mascot.

Moving beyond these two false assumptions, I did some research on Jordan Bernstine and came up with a 2005 highlight reel from the Des Moines Register.  Zound and I were both very impressed by his elusiveness and Bob Sanders-esque demolitions of two Urbandale receivers.  In fact, neither Jayhawk receiver got up following the vicious Bernstine tackles.  That’s hitting, kids.  Watch and you shall learn.

It looks like we’ve got a good chance right now, based on a quote from the Press-Citizen article:

“I’d say Iowa leads right now,” Bernstine said. “It’s close to home and my mom wants me to stay close to home.”

Thank you, mom.

Keep an eye out for this recruit…he could be a good one.