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Tuesday, June 27, 2023

With the Dos Equis guy gone, Duck DT Casey Rogers is the most interesting man in the universe


Ordinary guys have hair. Casey Rogers has a mane.

Like Aristotle, da Vinci, Einstein, Mozart, Nicola Tesla, Oprah Winfrey, Paul McCartney, Jimi Hendrix, and Elvis, Rogers is left-handed. 

Casey Rogers made the All-Academic Big Ten team three years in a row at Nebraska, 2019, 2020 and 2021, named to the Nebraska Scholar-Athlete Honor Roll five times, Fall 2018, 2020, 2021; Spring 2021, 2022. He left Lincoln with a degree in journalism and mass communications, which he earned in three years.

Though Rogers lists Syracuse, New York as his home town, he was born "about 500 yards" from The Horseshoe in Columbus, Ohio where the Buckeyes play, a week before Christmas in December 1998. As a sophomore with the Cornhuskers in 2020 he played most of the game at #5 tOSU, tallying four tackles.

He told Lindsay Kramer of Syracuse.com, "I can’t believe that they didn’t give it to me, but I had a sack on Justin Fields. They said that he made it back to the line, but if you watch it on TV, he didn’t make it back to the line. The home team does the stats, so they needed to protect Justin. That was the first game of the year, and I was kind of like, ‘Here we go. This is the start of it, so let’s keep going.’ That was kind of the coming out party. That was, ‘Alright, I can bang at this level.’”

At Westhills High School in Syracuse, Casey Rogers was 6-5, 260, an All-American lacrosse player who scored 62 goals and compiled 79 points as a senior. His father was defensive coordinator for the Syracuse University lacrosse team from 2008-2021, winning national championships in 2008 and 2009.

He carries a lacrosse stick in his car wherever he goes. Coming out of high school he had a full ride to play for the Orangemen but passed it up to pursue a dream of playing Division One college football. With only two offers, from Western Michigan and West Virginia, he decided to spend a developmental year at a New England prep school, Avon Old Farms School in Avon, Connecticut.



Rogers played both ways for The Winged Beavers. They went 8-1, losing the New England championship bowl to undefeated Choate, where John Kennedy played end in 1932.

He told Nolan Weidner of syracuse.com,  "One of the reasons I went to prep school is to get more exposure. Because I made that flip from lacrosse to football, I needed more exposure. The opportunities are starting to come, and day-by-day more are coming."

"I guess I've always been a college football fan," he said. "Those two sports have been anchored in my head. I just couldn't see letting football go."

After the year at Old Farm Rogers visited Ohio State and Alabama, gaining offers from  from Temple, California-Berkeley, Rutgers, Pittsburg, Vanderbilt, Oregon State, Indiana and Virginia. 

"I think that shows how much I love the game - by de-committing from the type of school Syracuse is at lacrosse," he said. "I told Coach (Nick) Saban this when I was in his office. I gave up a Division I scholarship to play lacrosse at the best college lacrosse school in the country just so I could play football. I don't think a lot of kids would do that.

"I took a chance. I want to be successful."

After three years at Nebraska Rogers drove across the country to join former Nebraska line coach Tony Tuioti at Oregon. In his first year as a Duck he had his best season of college football, finishing 10th on the team with 34 tackles, 3.5 tackles for loss, two pass breakups and a fumble recovery while playing in all 13 games. 

He was playing his best football at the end of the year with four tackles and a pass breakup against North Carolina in the Holiday Bowl, including a key stop at the goal line to force a field goal.

Along with Steven Jones, Mase Funa, Brandon Dorlus, Popo Aumavae and Bo Nix, he decided to run it back.

Casey Rogers' best friend on the team is Jackson Powers-Johnson. To the Powers-Johnson family, he's practically an adopted son.



Casey Rogers vacations in Hawaii.


Lebron James and Lady Gaga are also left-handed. 

Posted by Dale Bliss at 5:20 AM

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