No more thinking: Pierson-El ready to fly

By Brian Rosenthal / Huskers.com

He’d stumble out of his release point. He’d go too fast. He’d mess up.

Then, he’d get frustrated, knowing something was missing, something was wrong.

No, this isn’t the confident player De’Mornay Pierson-El remembered, the one he knew he needed to be to contribute to Nebraska this season.

You want confidence? Confidence is when Pierson-El doesn’t even think.

He just goes.

“If I don’t think,” Pierson-El said, his voice trailing, his eyes gazing and his grin widening. “… oh, man.”

Herein lied the problem: Pierson-El, coming off a serious knee injury that cut short his sophomore season last Oct. 31, was thinking too much. Yes, he’d been physically cleared to return to the football field, but what good would it do him if Pierson-El wasn’t, you know, Pierson-El?

We’re talking about the electric playmaker who dazzled his freshman season with three punt returns for touchdowns, and pushed his career receptions total to 35 before his awkward landing in the back of the end zone at Purdue’s Ross-Ade Stadium.

That’s why, as recently as Aug. 20, before the Huskers had a major fall camp scrimmage, Pierson-El was still seriously considering redshirting his junior season.

“Honestly, it came down to me being comfortable,” Pierson-El said. “I knew my body was right. Mentally, for the most part, I was there, as long as I didn’t overthink things, I would be able to play.”

Then, Coach Mike Riley saw Pierson-El run a fly sweep. He caught a bubble screen. Then he caught a touchdown pass.

“I didn’t even talk to him afterwards,” Riley said, “but that night when I was watching, I said ‘this guy is gonna wanna play.’ And he does, he’s ready and he’s been totally cleared. He has looked, to me, more and more comfortable and confident every day.”

So Pierson-El, the 5-foot-9, 185-pound junior from Alexandria, Virginia, will play receiver and serve as Nebraska’s top punt returner when the Huskers open the season Saturday night against Fresno State at Memorial Stadium.

Husker fans may recall two seasons ago when Nebraska played at Fresno State, and Pierson-El burst onto the scene with punt returns of 86 and 51 yards in a 55-19 victory at Bulldog Stadium.

“It was a good thing, but it’s a different year, different team,” Pierson-El said of playing Fresno State in 2014. “I’m a different person, different beast. I got to go out there and show and prove that nothing is changed and I’m a better DP than I was then.”

Pierson-El worked arduously in the offseason, after extensive knee surgery, to prepare himself for this very return. Hot tubs, cold tubs, ice baths, leg presses, squats – and a machine called a BFR, or blood flow restriction machine.

“It’s the machine that actually got me back,” Pierson-El said. “That’s what got me ready to play before the season and everything.”

The BFR uses a Doppler-instrumented device to measure an athlete’s limb occlusion pressure, either upper body or lower body, using an FDA-approved tourniquet. The goal is to create a hypertrophic and strength response by working muscles at low resistance loads while blood flow is restricted. 

“By restricting blood flow, it creates a hypoxic environment within the muscle that allows for anaerobic metabolism to take place, which in turn recruits large, fast twitch muscle fibers,” Nebraska athletic trainer Mark Mayer said. “This same effect is produced lifting heavy weight through a full range of motion, which injured athletes can’t do immediately. BFR therapy allows for these gains to happen without putting the affected joint or muscle under any undue stress due to the lighter loads being used.”

The extensive therapy and rehabilitation allowed Pierson-El to be cleared 100 percent for the start of fall camp.

It didn’t guarantee he’d play this season.

Knowing and understanding the offense wasn’t an issue, even though Pierson-El had played only four games as a receiver under new offensive coordinator Danny Langsdorf.

Pierson-El had still attended meetings and helped players on the side, talking coverages and conversions and releases with teammates, especially Alonzo Moore.

“You still had to know the playbook,” Pierson-El said. “I don’t think it’s knowing the offense as much as it’s just getting out there, getting comfortable, getting going.”

Which, until the week before that decisive Saturday scrimmage, Pierson-El wasn’t feeling.

“The week that all that happened, I was just frustrated with it all,” he said. “I just sat back, let everything go and just have fun on the field. In that week, it all came on Saturday, just with the preparation, teammates behind me and everything.”

Earlier that week, during one-on-ones, Pierson-El was working on releases and suddenly felt the exact same feeling he’d felt before he got hurt – the same kind of feeling he had when receivers coach Keith Williams first arrived on campus and was introducing his players to his techniques.

“You know how you pop a bone or you pop your back, and it just pops right back into place and you just – bam! – go? I went to do a certain move that he teaches us, and I did it exactly right,” Pierson-El said. “The DB missed, and I was gone. I was like, ‘OK.’ It wasn’t until I did it on the left side, which is the side with my knee, when I did the same exact thing, and it was actually quicker. I was actually faster and quicker with it.”

He told coaches he was “starting to get in my groove,” and the proof was in the practice film. Coaches could see it, and told him to build on it. 

“It all hit me,” Pierson-El said. “I just let loose; relax, have fun and don’t overthink things.”

He talked to his older sister the Friday night before that scrimmage; Saturday came, Pierson-El had a good warm-up, got a good stretch, “and it was on.”

Still, he had a final decision to make. He talked to Riley for 30 minutes, and to Langsdorf for another 15. He called his sister again, and his high school coach.

“I prayed on the situation,” Pierson-El said. “I cried on the situation.”

He then headed to the gym to clear his head.

“I was on the treadmill jogging for 30 minutes,” Pierson-El said. “Kind of at the end of that workout, I knew what I wanted to do. I called my high school coach one more time, and that kind of sealed the deal that I would be playing.

“Then I told Coach Riley, ‘I’m all in, whatever you need me to do, I’m here. I just want to play. I want to be a threat. I want to be in the best position to help this team, no matter what that is. I want to be out there. I want to be used.

“I know every day practice in crucial to me, because it means a lot more because it’s perfected my game. It’s one step closer to where I want to be and where I want to go. I really appreciate practice a lot.”