At first, a small town the size of Brookings is not what a Minnesota "Mr. Football" finalist from just outside of Minneapolis had in mind for college football.

Then Jake Wieneke met South Dakota State coach John Stiegelmeier on his recruiting visit in January 2013, and everything changed on a dime.

All Wieneke's decision to become a Jackrabbit led to was catching more dimes for more yards and more touchdowns than anyone in the history of the program and Missouri Valley Football Conference. 

The 6'4 speedy wideout burst out of the gates and finished runner-up for the Jerry Rice Award (top freshman in the FCS), then teammed with quarterbacks Zach Lujan and Taryn Christion and offensive coordinator Eric Eidsness to re-write SDSU record books and elevate the Jacks from a Top 20 program to a Top 10 juggernaut, a stretch that included SDSU's first MVFC title in 2016 when Wieneke was a junior.

Now a missionary for athletes at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln, Wieneke looks back a career that helped transform SDSU into the powerhouse it is today and shares stories about those prolific quarterbacks and future NFL teammates like Zach Zenner and Dallas Goedert.

His stories are vivid, real, and raw: The Jacks' landmark win at North Dakota State in 2016 — including his game-winning touchdown catch on the second-to-last play of the game — to his career ending in a nightmare loss at James Madison in the FCS semifinals (after which he had perform a random NCAA drug test that dragged out a while), to the moment he decided to retire from football after a few years in the Canadian Football League.

The hour-plus conversation starts with the good-natured Wieneke catching us up on how he got started in his current profession and ended up in Lincoln. The chat ends with how he applies all his athletic experiences to the athletes he now mentors.