Inside The Huskies

Germie Is Guy Who Could Make UW Football Healthy Again

New Husky coach appreciates Nevada recruit's unflappable resolve.

Dan Raley

Eighteen months of University of Washington football has brought more losses than wins. A COVID shutdown. The unforgettable shove. A forgettable Apple Cup. No bowl games. One coaching staff replacing another.

Amid all of this Montlake disruption is Jeremy "Germie" Bernard, a player whose nickname was made for a pandemic, a recruiting headliner from showy Las Vegas who likes to entertain, but mostly a guy who knows exactly what he wants. 

The UW's 2022 class, when it's complete, will be known as one that was short on numbers compared to others, handed from one coach to another, low-graded overall.

All of that stuff may someday be overshadowed, if not forgotten, if Bernard is as talented as advertised and appears on video. He certainly has been sold on playing at Washington all along, whether it's Kalen DeBoer or Jimmy Lake in charge. 

Bernard committed on June 30, 2020, as the first player pledged to the 2022 Husky class, and he didn't waver on his college plans one bit.

Not when his Liberty High School teammates Sir Mells and Anthony Jones pulled out of their Husky commitments once defensive coordinator Pete Kwiatkowski bolted for Texas.

Not when a Top 20 UW football team did a face-plant to FCS underdog Montana in the season opener and the program suffered through its first losing record in a dozen years.  

Not even when the school fired Husky coach Jimmy Lake and replaced him with Kalen DeBoer, a move that stands to benefit the Nevada teenager based on the new guy's more wide-open approach to moving the football.

"Him seeing what we're going to do offensively got him even more motivated and excited to be part of it," DeBoer said. "He's such a dynamic guy."

Bernard enjoyed a senior season at Liberty High in suburban Henderson, Nevada, that was as exhilarating as the Huskies turned up flat and ineffective offensively in Seattle.

For his 10-2 team, he caught 53 passes for 956 yards and 12 touchdowns, and rushed for 452 yards and 4 scores.

The 6-foot-1, 196-pound Bernard also returned 3 punts and a kickoff for TDs, and went the distance on an interception return, giving him 21 trips to the end zone.

"He's a very dynamic player, very special," DeBoer said.

As he tries to make UW football whole again, it's not lost on DeBoer that this explosive player named Germie represents somebody symbolic, that Bernard could be someone to eventually build a program around.

The coach appreciates Bernard's durability and physicality as a wide receiver, but mostly he admires the guy's unwavering conviction to what he's doing and where he's going.   

"He's got a maturity about him, a focus about him, where he really understands what he wants to do with his goals ahead," DeBoer said,  "whether it's at this level or beyond."

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Dan Raley
DAN RALEY

Dan Raley has worked for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, as well as for MSN.com and Boeing, the latter as a global aerospace writer. His sportswriting career spans four decades and he's covered University of Washington football and basketball during much of that time. In a working capacity, he's been to the Super Bowl, the NBA Finals, the MLB playoffs, the Masters, the U.S. Open, the PGA Championship and countless Final Fours and bowl games.

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