On the highlight tape, Jordan van den Berg wears No. 70. And ahead of every clip of the next play showcasing van den Berg’s abilities, an arrow points to that No. 70 before the words “wait for it” flash across the screen.
Over the next 4-1/2 minutes, van den Berg, playing middle linebacker, comes crashing into backfields, times snaps to leap over centers and flatten quarterbacks and runs down running backs and throws them for losses in backfields. One snippet has van den Berg picking up an opposing player and pile driving him to the turf.
It’s impressive stuff, even if many of the players he is going against look half his height and weight.
It was all part of a memorable senior season for van den Berg at Providence Christian in Lilburn. But nobody noticed.
“I had zero scholarship offers,” he said.
How van den Berg went from then to now, a Penn State graduate, Georgia Tech’s highest-rated defensive player through four games this season, and a possible NFL prospect, is not a tale of the conventional path.
“Definitely been a wild journey, but every single place has lessons, and I’m thankful for every lesson I’ve learned at every different location,” van den Berg said.
A transition from rugby to football
To understand how van den Berg, now a 6-foot-3, 305-pound defensive tackle, arrived on Tech’s campus, one must go back more than a decade to when van den Berg, his mother and new stepfather moved from South Africa to Atlanta. A rugby player, and a very good one during his youth, van den Berg began to assimilate to American life through baseball and basketball and as a student at Providence Christian.
Football, however, was not part of the equation. His mother and stepfather feared the threat of serious injuries and concussions. They finally relented to van den Berg’s pleading to join his friends on the football field starting with his sophomore year of high school.
Van den Berg began on the offensive line, then moved to linebacker.
“With anything, if you’re an aggressive person and want contact, you’re gonna find success in football,” van den Berg said. “It came to me relatively quickly, thankfully.”
Van den Berg thrived playing his three seasons for the Storm. But playing for a team that was 2-8 in 2019 and 0-7 in region games, and for a program that, “didn’t get a lot of colleges stopping by,” he said, left van den Berg at the first of many crossroads to come.
His high school coaches campaigned for van den Berg by sending his highlight tape to junior colleges across the land. Iowa Western was immediately intrigued.
And van den Berg was excited about the possibility, even if it meant he would join that program as a walk-on and have to move to Council Bluffs, Iowa, a town about 20 minutes east of Omaha, Nebraska.
“We called where we lived ‘The Bricks.’ I had a cornfield right outside my window. It was the traditional Iowa that you would expect,” van den Berg said. “I knew I had the capabilities of playing (Division I FBS or FCS), so I knew I had to pursue it with everything. I was all-in. I had a few other JUCO choices, but I knew that one specifically had the most success and they had really gotten a lot of people to the next level. I felt like it would just be my best option. I was excited. Ready to get out the house and start my career in football.”
Said his father Michael van den Berg: “I thought it was a great move for him to get this positive exposure out there. Going into the middle of Iowa, it must have been daunting at first, but he really took it in stride, and he did great there.”
Credit: Georgia Tech Athletics/Danny Karnik
Credit: Georgia Tech Athletics/Danny Karnik
Move to Iowa led to FBS scholarship offers
Interest and scholarship offers from smaller FBS programs began to trickle in for van den Berg during Iowa Western’s spring practice in 2020. Van den Berg said power-conference teams started to reach out after his first game with the Reivers — he had three tackles (two for a loss) and a sack against Snow College.
Less than a year after leaving Providence Christian with no scholarship offers, van den Berg now had programs such as Iowa, Nebraska and Penn State knocking on his door. It didn’t take long for him to make a decision on what was next.
“When he was doing his campus visits, and when he got to Penn State and got to be at the stadium, he walked on to that field he said, ‘Dad, this is the school where I wanna go,’” Michael van den Berg recalled.
Van den Berg would become a three-star recruit at Iowa Western. He played in only five games and made 20 tackles there, but stood out enough to earn a spot on the Penn State roster.
But despite all the potential, van den Berg never truly became an impact player for the Nittany Lions. He played in 28 games and totaled 26 tackles, with one of his better performances coming against Arkansas in the 2022 ReliaQuest Bowl.
Off the field, though, van den Berg’s prowess continued to create conversation. He was named to The Athletic’s list of college football “freaks” for reportedly benching 455 pounds, back-squatting 690, running a 4.74 40-yard dash, clocking a shuttle drill of 4.2 seconds and jumping a vertical of 31 inches.
So there was no question what type of physical talent the Jackets were getting when van den Berg decided to transfer from Penn State to Tech.
“He’s what you want in an interior defensive lineman. Every play is a street fight to him,” Tech coach Brent Key said. “I think he’s taking that approach of every play being a street fight and has added the technique and the fundamental part to it. For a man his size and his strength, he’s got good twitch. He’s been able to affect the quarterback probably more times than you would think, so we got to continue not just having him in position to stop the run, but in position to generate pass rush or occupy two blockers and have someone else get the one-on-one.”
After Tech tour: ‘It’s the place where he needs to be’
Van den Berg has a modest seven tackles (two for a loss) through four games for the Jackets this season. But Pro Football Focus has rated him as Tech’s top defender by more than six points. He’s also rated as Tech’s best run defender, and currently he’s rated the sixth-best interior defensive lineman (with at least 100 snaps played) in the entire nation.
Putting up those types of outings is exactly why van den Berg said he wanted a fresh start at his hometown school. He said he knew developing his game under Tech defensive line coach Jess Simpson was going to be key for him reaching new heights on the field.
“GT stand’s for ‘God’s time,’” Michael van den Berg said. “It was something as a family — we prayed so hard. He said, ‘Dad, I wanna get more exposure, I want to get more playing time and I’m going to enter the transfer portal.’ But the fear of the unknown ... we prayed very hard as a family. We waited and we waited and eventually we went on the campus tour of GT, and it was just amazing. It’s the place where he needs to be.
“He feels so comfortable. Family is everything to him, and he’s just so blown away by the support he’s getting from the coaching staff, the education he’s getting, the beautiful stadium. You can’t ask for much more as a young man.”
Pursuing a master’s degree in management, van den Berg, who has one season of eligibility remaining after this one, leads Tech (3-1, 1-1 ACC) into a crucial league showdown with No. 19 Louisville at 3:30 p.m. Saturday on ESPN2. That will be the next immediate step in his football future, a future he hopes includes playing in the professional ranks and then one day becoming a coach.
Until then he’ll continue to believe in himself while making those most important to him, his family, proud.
“We were scared as a family (when he went into the transfer portal),” Michael van den Berg said. “Here he had graduated, he got his degree and he’s like, ‘Nah, I want more.’ For him to take that bold step and to get an offer from Georgia Tech, it’s just a blessing. We couldn’t have asked for more as a family. He’s so happy. The coaching staff, the atmosphere, the way we’ve been treated, the belief in him, it’s been phenomenal.”
