EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the first story in a two-part series. Part II will publish on Aug. 18.
ASHLAND — Nathan Bernhard is ready to stand tall under a massive microscope.
It’s highly likely that no athlete in Ashland County history has entered their sophomore year of high school with more eyes on them than the 6-foot-5, 220-pound Bernhard, who will pilot the Ashland football team as its quarterback beginning Friday against River Valley.
If the offers from Penn State in February, Iowa State in June and University of Louisville recently didn’t raise enough eyebrows, his multiple visits to Ohio State in recent months — including action in the Buckeyes one-day camp in front of head coach Ryan Day — certainly did.
A 16-year-old for a little over a month now, Bernhard just got his driver’s license. Fair or not, in an era of social media and college football hysteria, he will be dissected and analyzed, studied and scrutinized.
“(The attention) comes with the offers, it comes with all the recognition, so it’s to be expected,” said Bernhard, who has a 4.0 GPA. “I’ll get used to it.”
Playing at that upper level, means an athlete must be able to handle all the pressure, said Arrows head coach Scott Valentine, who has returned to lead the program after doing so from 2002 through 2018.
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“Part of that’s going to be the growth process and learning. There’s going to be scrutiny all the way through,” Valentine said. “Where he’s at now and the whole rest of his career, that’s what’s going to happen.”
Bernhard’s stats as freshman
As a freshman in 2022, the right-handed Bernhard got playing time in five games, but missed six weeks due to a fractured fibula that is now fully healed. He played with a brace for the final three weeks and was largely immobile, but still started Ashland’s last two games, including their playoff loss to eventual Division II state champion Toledo Central Catholic.
He rounded out the season throwing for 1,267 yards and eight touchdowns while completing 65 percent of his passes. Valentine said Bernhard was the first freshman starting varsity quarterback at AHS since he originally became head coach in 2002.
“I’ve always said that I just don’t know whether freshmen are physically or athletically ready to play at the varsity level,” Valentine said. “If we ever had a (freshman who we thought could play), we usually bumped them up in practice to see, but we really never had a guy we felt was going to be that guy.”
Bernhard said he’s almost solely been a quarterback since he first played tackle football in fourth grade. By the end of middle school, he stood 6-foot-4 and weighed 170 pounds and had started working out with quarterbacks coach Brad Maendler.
“It’s not often you see a true freshman get a Big Ten offer.”
Jason goings, ACS athletic director
Based out of Hudson, Maendler worked with Drew Allar, who threw for more than 9,000 yards and 97 touchdowns at Medina and will likely start this season as a sophomore for a Penn State team ranked No. 7 in the country.
Maendler’s confidence in his potential was one of the first things that made Bernhard believe his dream of playing in a Division I, power-five conference could become a reality.
After Bernhard received his Penn State offer in February, Maendler told Ashland Source he felt the Ashland quarterback has the potential to follow Allar’s path to the college game, specifically mentioning his maturity and drive.
Of course, with social media doing its thing, Bernhard’s name already has entered into the next vortex of online expectations even before his first in-game sophomore snap.
At least one release says he is among the Top 10 players to watch in Ohio this season. Another says he could end up being the state’s best quarterback in the Class of 2026.
Like Maendler, Ashland athletic director Jason Goings felt the Penn State offer was a rare start of big things to come, telling Ashland Source at the time, “It’s not often you see a true freshman get a Big Ten offer.”
“Yes, our program is going to garner a lot of attention,” he said. “But Nathan’s offer, it’s systematically going to help other players. He will be under a microscope, and so other players will also be on the radar.”
Despite all the online noise, it will be critical for Bernhard to keep a day-to-day perspective. After all, he can’t sign a national letter of intent until December of his senior year, so any offer he gets before then is not much more than a college letting him know they’re watching him closely.
Advice from former Arrows
Former Ashland quarterbacks Taylor Housewright and Marcus Fuller both went through different variations of what Bernhard is experiencing on the college recruiting scale — albeit slightly later in their high school careers.
Housewright, who led the Arrows to a 24-3 combined record his junior and senior seasons, was contacted by Akron and Ohio, among others. He eventually became a three-year starter at Ashland University.
Now, he’s entering his third season as the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at Division I Montana State.
“My best advice is care about your teammates and work extremely hard,” Housewright said. “Worry about today and enjoy being a teenager.”
He said his approach to all the attention was to keep it simple and just focus on winning.
“(Bernhard) needs to make as many mistakes as he can so he can learn from them,” Housewright said. “Playing quarterback is a marathon of mistakes and trying not to make the same mistake twice.”
Like Housewright, Fuller said things like social media and recruiting sites weren’t as big when he was coming through Ashland, where he led the Arrows to back-to-back regional championship game appearances in 2009 and 2010.
He had an offer from Colgate and drew interest from a handful of other Division I schools, including Duke, but decided on Brown University, where he was a two-year starter.
“On Fridays, (all the scrutiny and recruiting thoughts) never crossed my mind,” Fuller said. “The priority at the time was always just trying to win as many games as I could in the orange and black.
“That would certainly be my advice to anyone in the same position. You just don’t get those crisp nights at Community Stadium back.”
The Ohio State aspect adds an extra layer of attention that Bernhard will have to constantly navigate. Annually among college football’s elite programs — and with a rabid fanbase spreading coast to coast — the Buckeyes’ following is on another level entirely.
If OSU begins to show a deeper interest, the pressure could only build for the Ohio kid.
“Like anything, (quarterback) is about the right fit,” said Valentine when discussing what Bernhard will need to consider when picking his college. “For your career to go well, you’ve got to be in the right fit with the right system that’s going to help you with the talents that you have.”
‘Family has helped shape me’
What could keep all of the Ohio State chatter from becoming overwhelming is the Bernhard family’s deep love and appreciation for the school. Nathan’s brother and sister, Nich and Natalie, both graduated from Ohio State, and his father, Dr. Matt Bernhard, received his doctorate there.
“(Playing at Ohio State) was definitely a dream as a child,” Nathan said. “You grow up a Buckeye fan. … That comes with it, being a family from Ohio and fans of Ohio State.”
Family is the aspect that might just be the biggest key to helping Bernhard get through his high school career. All of the Bernhards have been through the athletic gauntlet; the four siblings have to be in the running for the record for most varsity letters at Ashland.
All multi-sport standouts, oldest brother Zach had 10, Nich had eight and Natalie had seven. Nathan, who said he plans to follow in those multi-sport footsteps throughout high school, already has three after competing in football, basketball and track last year.
Their parents, who both went to Crestview, were no different. Matt was a quarterback who earned nine letters for the Cougars before playing football at Ohio Northern University, while Tricia tallied the most letters of all with 11 before a volleyball career at Ashland University.
“My whole family has helped shape me,” Nathan said. “That’s a big part in what developed my work ethic; just to know what to do when you get here.”
Older brother Zach has been a huge resource, having been the quarterback for the Arrows’ 2011 OCC-winning, playoff-qualifying team.
At 6-2, 210 as a senior, he received college football interest from a few smaller Division I schools and even visited Northwestern before accepting a scholarship to Ashland University, where he played linebacker.
“From a very early time, I told Nathan, ‘It’s social media, it’s getting a quarterback coach,’ ” Zach said. “We all have kind of been telling him all these things, so it’s taken off quicker than we thought it would because of all that stuff.”
Zach believes Nathan’s maturity and work ethic will need to be his guides. He also said the best thing to do in terms of the college path is to try to differentiate between the schools that fit him best and truly want him, and those which might have a more passive interest.
For now, the season’s kickoff is finally near. At the end of the day, Nathan Bernhard is a 16-year-old trying to win games as an Arrow until graduation.
“On Friday night, you’re really just thinking about the task at hand,” he said. “You’re not thinking about the crowd, you’re just thinking about what you’ve got to do on the field.
“I’m more focused on us having the best season that we can.”
