Huskies' Well-Traveled Bernard Prepares for Michigan State Reunion

The UW wide receiver spent his freshman season with the Big Ten team.

Excuse Jeremy "Germie" Bernard if he has trouble keeping everything straight regarding his extensive college football travels. It's almost as if he needs passport stamps to explain it all.

A year ago, the talented wide receiver showed up at Husky Stadium with Michigan State to face his former team .

Next Saturday, Bernard returns to Spartan Stadium in East Lansing, Michigan, as a pass-catcher for the University of Washington — to once again take the field against his former team.

The 6-foot-1, 203-pound Bernard from Las Vegas finally appears to have all of his football affairs in order now that he's moved from the UW to Michigan State and back to the UW over the past 21 months.

"Going there, I definitely learned a lot," he said of the Big Ten entry. "I love that school. It's a good program."

Yet it wasn't nearly enough to keep Bernard in the Midwest or prevent him from reconsidering his decision to pass on the Huskies, where he's now become a valued part of Kalen DeBoer's crazy, high-powered offensive machine.

As Bernard gets ready for his Michigan State reunion, he comes off a fairly productive weekend outing against Tulsa. In the 43-10 victory, he scored his first Husky touchdown on a 7-yard, third-quarter pass from Michael Penix Jr. He also nearly broke free on a first-quarter kickoff return in which ran nearly 40 yards only to have it all negated by teammate Voi Tunuufi's blindside block that was flagged. 

In two UW outings, Bernard seemingly has been a big part of all of the creativity and deception, even starting against Tulsa in a customized T-formation that called for four wide receivers and no running backs.

Germie Bernard shown in an early-season Michigan State game in 2022 :: Nick King/USA TODAY Sports

In January 2021, Bernard opted out and signed on with the Spartans because Husky coaching changes kept coming at him even after he had enrolled in school. Chris Petersen's staff initially recruited him, then Jimmy Lake and then DeBoer. UW receivers coach Junior Adams, the point man in his recruiting for Lake and briefly for the current staff, chose to join DeBoer's staff as a holdover staffer only to accept a job at Oregon shortly after Germie was on campus for just a few days, which was the last straw for him.

The wide receiver abruptly turned to Michigan State, his second choice but seemingly a more stable situation for him at the time. He flourished early, even scoring the Spartans' first touchdown of the season on a 44-yard pass play, but his opportunities fell off once the team went in the tank and finished 5-7.

Bernard appeared in 12 games — starting once, against the Huskies no less — and finished with just 7 catches for 128 yards and 2 scores, which seemed like a waste of his prodigious talent.

DeBoer had been on the job for just a month when the wide receiver came to him and asked out of his signed national letter of intent. The Husky coach reluctantly agreed to honor his request and just let him go.

"It was a tough one because he fit everything about us," DeBoer lamented. "We knew what he was talent-wise, even more so as a person, he and his family. Just doing the home visit there in December, I just loved this, as far as 'this is our future, this is a guy who's coming into our program who can do special things.' "

Offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb figured the UW coaching staff earned a second chance at gaining Bernard's services because the Huskies showed good faith in wanting what was best for him by letting him go when they could have done otherwise.

"I think a part of that was there was a recognition later, probably by Jeremy and his family, that they were who they said they were," Grubb said, speaking of him and his coaching peers. "We could have really played hardball there and limited what the kid could do. That's not us, as far as that goes. He didn't know us. We didn't want to force him into a relationship."

For that reason, Grubb now has a player who the assistant coach says could be a full-time running back, with his size and strength, but he much prefers using him in open space.

Bernard goes back to the state of Michigan with 5 catches for 80 yards so far, hauling in a 36-yarder against Tulsa and a 27-yarder against Boise State. He's also run the ball twice for 8 yards and got his hands on four kickoff returns, popping a 51-yard runback against Boise in the opener that has teams kicking away from him or out of bounds.

With three of his fellow Husky wide receivers having scored rushing touchdowns, Bernard was kidded about not having one himself, though there's no reason to think he won't make that happen soon enough, too.

"I'm grateful and happy to do what I can to help this team anyway possible," he said.

All along, Benard watched as DeBoer's Huskies put up big numbers and flourished with an 11-2 season in 2022, and decided he wanted to backtrack and be a part of that. He entered the transfer portal last winter, asked to return to the Northwest and the the UW coaching staff couldn't make that happen fast enough. 

Bernard certainly has run a complicated college football route that appears to be paying off for him. He's shown you can always go home again, wherever that might be, and however many times. In this case, it's clearly Montlake.

"He's just a different type of player," DeBoer said. "We're so glad he's here."

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