Iowa defensive end Drew Ott rates as one of college football's most unique characters.

He hunts giant snapping turtles and went airborne last year over the hood of a Buick. Ott shuns television and learned to lift weights in a farmhouse basement called the Snake Pit.

Read all about Ott in this story.

Another interesting fact about the returning second-team All-Big Ten defensive end: He could have landed at another Big Ten school.

Like most Nebraska-raised kids, Ott grew up with a dream to play for the home-state program. Memorial Stadium rises from the plains less than 90 miles east of the farm on which he lived. The Huskers were regularly on his mind.

So when Iowa defensive line coach Reese Morgan first visited central Nebraska to take a look at Ott as a junior in the spring of 2011, Giltner High School coach Jeff Ashby posed a scenario for Ott.

"If you get a full ride to Iowa, would you walk on at Nebraska?" Ashby said. "He said, 'I'm going to walk on at Nebraska.'"

Over the next few months, that all changed. Iowa came through with the scholarship offer in June, just as Ott and Ashby traveled to Lincoln for the Huskers' camp. Ott performed well, Ashby said, impressing the Nebraska coaches.

But coach Bo Pelini, short on scholarships in the 2012 class -- the Huskers signed just 17 that year and only one Nebraskan -- told Ott that they wanted to evaluate Ott for two or three games in the fall.

Ashby was miffed. What can you learn from a couple of games against eight-man competition that Ott failed to show at camp?

"I said, 'Look, this kid's going to the NFL,'" Ashby said.

Ott soon accepted the Hawkeyes' offer, but he stayed open to the Huskers, visiting Nebraska for the season opener. Ott was named Gatorade Player of the Year in the state and a Parade All-American. He added offers from Kansas State and Ohio and invitations to visit several other schools.

But no one from Nebraska came calling.

"I think if they just would have drove out to Drew's house," Ashby said, "if they just would have shown him some love, he would have walked on.

"Anyway, I think it bothered everybody else more than it bothered him."

Ott's parents said he long put the situation aside. Clearly, Ott finds motivation from other sources.

"We've talked about it a ton," said Ott's father, Dan. "And we're all really glad he went where he is."