SCRANTON, Pa. — Before he was sending Terry Smith his highlights in hopes of landing a Penn State scholarship, Jaquan Brisker was a 10-year-old football player tagging along with his older brother to the field.
Rather than watching from afar, Brisker decided to become a water boy for Gateway High School, a task that initially came with trepidation.
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“Everybody was like, ‘Coach Terry is really strict,’ and stuff like that, so I was a little nervous, real scared,” Brisker said. “I’d always get him Gatorade and stuff and make sure I was on his good side.”
Brisker now laughs about his early encounters with Smith, the former Gateway head coach and the Nittany Lions’ current cornerbacks coach and defensive recruiting coordinator. Smith kept the lines of communication open with Brisker last year after the safety took the junior college route to Lackawanna College. Heading into his second year in Scranton, Brisker gave the Nittany Lions his verbal commitment in May and plans to complete the fall and spring semesters at Lackawanna before arriving in Happy Valley in May.
Penn State was among five schools that initially recruited the 6-foot-2, 195-pound safety out of Gateway, but interest slowed when Brisker’s academics stalled. That left a Toledo scholarship offer as the best one on the table. After a two-hour conversation with Lackawanna head coach Mark Duda less than a week before signing day, Brisker, who hadn’t taken the SATs, realized he needed to go the JUCO route.
“I’m sitting there talking to him and the questions he was asking me were direct,” Duda recalled. “Like, he didn’t care what color our helmets were or any of that. It was, ‘Can I go from here to somewhere else?’ It was like he was 35 years old. It was refreshing.”
Brisker has held up his end of the bargain. He intercepted four passes last season, was named a team captain this year and ultimately achieved the goal of most JUCO players by accepting a full FBS scholarship.
“I sent out like a paragraph to all the coaches who recruited me in high school, and I just let them know that I was coming to Lackawanna,” Brisker said. “Coach Terry responded back and he said, ‘We’ll keep an eye on you.’ Then camp came and I sent my film once camp was done to Coach Terry, and then every scrimmage, game or whatever, I just kept sending my film out and he kept an eye on me since then.”
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Lackawanna teammate Anthony Whigan, an offensive tackle, verbally committed to Penn State last week and plans to enroll at Penn State in January. Brisker kept reminding Whigan of why he picked Penn State hoping to win him over, too, and now the tandem will continue to play together after this season in Happy Valley. Brisker will have three years to play two seasons at Penn State.
Duda compared the build and speed of Brisker to of one of his former players, Los Angeles Chargers rookie Kyzir White, a hybrid safety/outside linebacker who played at West Virginia. Brisker has the speed to play in the secondary and doesn’t shy away from contact — which became clear during a visit to Lackawanna’s first week of camp.
“Right now I’m focusing on like Nick Scott’s position at strong safety,” Brisker said of Penn State’s current starter. “I just told Coach (Brent) Pry and Coach (Tim) Banks that I can play both safety spots, and wherever they need me, I can play.”
There’s a reason why Alabama extended Brisker an offer and why West Virginia, Pitt, Temple, Penn State, Mississippi State and Ole Miss were among others that did the same. Brisker’s familiarity with Smith gave the Lions the inside track, and it didn’t hurt that he had played 7-on-7 with Nittany Lions safety Lamont Wade, trained with former Pittsburgh Central Catholic standout turned Penn State lineman C.J. Thorpe and knew running back Miles Sanders.
As a high school recruit, Brisker sat in the stands during a White Out game against Michigan and hoped he’d get an offer to play at Penn State. Finally receiving and accepting that offer and being able to return closer to his hometown of Monroeville has Brisker excited about the coming years. First, though, he’s ready to finish what he started at Lackawanna.
“He’ll be as dominant of a player as there is in junior college,” Duda said. “He’s gonna have a fantastic year, and he’s very level-headed.”
