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- Thread starter ScriptOhio
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ScriptOhio
Everybody is somebody else's weirdo.
Hunter Welcing - 2025 - Football - Northwestern Athletics
Hunter Welcing (84) TE - 2025 Graduate Student: Hauled in four receptions for a career-high 81 yards against Michigan (11/15). 2024 Redshirt Junior: Played i...
Hunter Welcing
- Height: 6-3
- Weight: 250
- Position: TE
- Class: Graduate Student
- Hometown: Deer Park, Ill.
- High School: Lake Zurich
Hauled in four receptions for a career-high 81 yards against Michigan (11/15).
2024 Redshirt Junior:
Played in all 12 games … Named Academic All-Big Ten … Recorded his first-career reception with a 20-yard catch against Eastern Illinois (9/14).
2023 Redshirt Sophomore:
Appeared in eight games, seeing action in 53 snaps, primarily on special teams … Named Academic All-Big Ten.
2021 Redshirt First-Year:
Played in four games and redshirted.
2020 First-Year:
Did not see game action
Receiving Statistics
2024
12
1
20
0
20
0.1
20.0
1.7
2025
13
28
296
2
36
2.2
10.6
22.8
Total
25
29
316
2
36
1.2
10.9
12.6
Receiving Statistics
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Captain Buckeye
Assistant Coach
Well we certainly have a push for older more veteran players. Anyway I’d imagine this confirms what Birm thought that we likely should expect Klare to go pro.
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ScriptOhio
Everybody is somebody else's weirdo.
Yeah, it's his 7th year.....
A breakout hero: The story of Hunter Welcing’s six-year ascension
Welcing has found his role this year, and he’s taking full advantage.
www.insidenu.com
A breakout hero: The story of Hunter Welcing’s six-year ascension
Welcing has found his role this year, and he’s taking full advantage.From one catch in four years to 23 catches in one year, Hunter Welcing has walked an arduous journey. But he’s emerged from it a Wildcat star.
After years of battling injuries and limited playing time, the graduate student tight end has suddenly blossomed into one of Northwestern’s most dynamic offensive weapons this season. With 23 catches for 268 yards, Welcing is now a key fixture of a Wildcat offense that just a couple months ago remained uncertain about the role tight ends would play in Zach Lujan’s playbook.
“It’s been kind of a long time coming,” Welcing said. “But I feel very grateful to get to this point and be able to showcase the player that I am.”
As the season began, Welcing ensured his name would be hard to overlook. His first career touchdown catch against Western Illinois signified him as an asset to quarterback Preston Stone. He’s maintained a high level of consistency, catching a pass in ten of the 11 games he’s played this season.
Welcing’s touchdown haul against Purdue earlier this season led to a more profound role. Two weeks ago against Michigan, Welcing unleashed a breakout performance — leading the ‘Cats offense with a career-high four catches for 81 yards against one of the best defenses in the country. Despite the loss, his effort earned him a place on PFF College’s Big Ten Team of the Week.
Then, this past weekend in a pivotal match against Minnesota, Welcing made arguably his greatest play as a Wildcat. With the game tied and the ‘Cats facing a 3rd-and-10 with under two minutes to play, quarterback Preston Stone fired a pass to the tight end. Although he caught the ball short of the sticks, Welcing used his physicality to fight his way for the first down, carrying multiple defenders with him.
It was a pivotal moment in the game, and a culmination of preparation that began years before that catch was made.
Welcing acknowledged the significance of these milestones and the emotion that comes from them. While he takes time to recognize his accomplishments, Welcing never stops looking for the next chance to make an impact.
“Knowing the road was so long to get to this point, it makes those moments a little bit bigger and more emotional,” Welcing said. “In the moment they’re obviously big, but I’m also focusing on the next play. Getting that next play is one of the biggest things to look forward to.”
Welcing committed to Northwestern on March 9, 2019 as a 17-year-old, dubbed by scouts as one of the best high school tight ends in Illinois.
But football wasn’t always Welcing’s dream job. From the time he was four years old, he hoped to be a professional hockey player, with aspirations of earning a college scholarship and eventually making the NHL.
As Welcing got older, his dreams shifted from the ice to the turf. In his sophomore year at Lake Zurich High School, a friend encouraged him to try out for the football team.
It wasn’t long before he fell in love with the game. A summer of conditioning and weeks devoted to building muscle pushed him from drive to execution. He soon became a team standout and three-star college recruit.
Welcing’s high school success also came with its share of adversity, however. Just three weeks after committing to NU, he tore his ACL during a spring seven-on-seven tournament, causing him to miss the first half of his senior season.
“There’s definitely a lot of life lessons in there, kind of going to the injury history and whatnot,” Welcing said. “But I feel like a lot of the injuries kind of made me more grateful, and ultimately my hard work got me to this point.”
Welcing entered college in 2020, amid a crowded Wildcats tight end room where crafting a niche proved formidable.
He appeared in just four games in 2021 as a redshirt before an injury knocked him out for nearly all of 2022. Welcing carved out a special teams role in 2023, playing 53 snaps across eight games. He found consistent playing time as a junior last season, where he appeared in all 12 games and recorded his first-career reception with a 20-yard catch.
Even in those small moments, head coach David Braun noticed something special in Welcing. The coach’s offseason evaluations reinforced to him that Welcing deserved a bigger role in the offense this year.
“I think there was this moment where we thought we could have found ways to utilize him more last year,” Braun said. “And to his credit, Hunter has had quite a journey, a lot of things to overcome, including injury. His consistency over the course of the last year-and-a-half, in terms of his practice habits, he’s given us no choice but to position him for not only more opportunities to be on the field but more opportunities in the passing game.”
Those opportunities were fought hard for, and Welcing is doing his work justice.
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A former hockey player, he must be a tough SOB. And the fact that he also went to Northwestern and became all conference makes it all the better.
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