Jayon Brown is ready.
He sits in a locker room tucked beneath the Rose Bowl bleachers, checking every aspect of his uniform to make sure he’s prepared. As the junior linebacker rests in front of his locker before UCLA football’s homecoming game, he feels a slight twinge of nerves while reflecting on the task at hand.
Recently thrust into the starting lineup and onto the national stage by the injury to standout linebacker Myles Jack, Brown faces the pressure of filling in for a projected first-round draft pick.
In this, his fourth start of the season, Brown does his best impression of Jack, recording 18 tackles as the Bruins beat the Colorado Buffaloes 35-31.
Brown has long been waiting for this pressure. A three-star recruit out of Long Beach Polytechnic High School, the linebacker joined a Bruin program that was stacked at his position, with the likes of Anthony Barr, Eric Kendricks and Jack headlining a high-profile unit of talent.
“I’ve been waiting to get some serious time like this since I was a freshman so I’m living the dream right now,” Brown said. “I just want to keep getting better and winning games.”
The UCLA defense has been oft-derided and highly scrutinized this season, a by-product of a high volume of injuries. Throughout the turmoil, Brown has emerged as a force, recording double-digit tackles three times and helping to anchor a stretched-thin defense.
“Guys are going to get hurt. Guys are going to get dinged up in games,” coach Jim Mora said in September. “You’ll have adversity. It’s how you handle it that defines you.”
Brown plays what the team refers to as “Jack” linebacker on the outside of the formation but is often shuffled inside to play “Mike,” filling in at whatever position needs a healthy body.
“I think Jayon’s done a tremendous job, he’s gotten better each game, his game’s gotten better. We ask him to do a lot of different things,” said defensive coordinator Tom Bradley. “He plays all the positions at linebacker. It’s not easy. … I’m proud of the way he’s developed and hopefully he’ll continue that development.”
Following last Saturday’s 17-9 upset of Utah, Brown sat at the press conference podium, holding court.
“My fellow Americans …” he began, before breaking out in laughter. “I’m not used to this.”
For the past two seasons, Brown wasn’t the one fielding questions. He wasn’t an instantly recognizable headline-maker like Jack or Kendricks. But he was chipping away, waiting in the wings.
The media swarming Brown after the Utah game peeled off following three minutes of questions, but the junior remained where he sat, thumbing through the stat sheets. Seeing that he was credited with a sack, he stood up jubilantly, arms raised above his head. Brown had left the game with an injury midway through the third but returned to finish out the contest, producing 10 tackles.
“When he went down, that’s when my breakfast started to come up,” Bradley said. “Because what’s happened to us at the linebacker position in the past. With everybody getting hurt he’s had to take on a lot of responsibility, not just physically, but mentally.”
Brown learned that mental toughness gradually, while biding his time on the sidelines. Brown said he models his work ethic after that of Kendricks, who was a second-round NFL Draft pick last year.
“I just learned from the guys in front of me … see how they approach practice, look at their work ethic,” Brown said. “It’s working out good for me.”
Brown’s competitiveness, however, was there from the very start. The linebacker started playing football in first grade at the age of 8, taking the field at both running back and linebacker.
“There was one game that I got, we were playing some team that had like a Steelers (uniform),” Brown said. “I was at running back and I got the ball and I think I scored for like a 70-yard run, it was pretty sick.”
Brown has made plenty of highlight-reel plays since then. As a freshman Brown was named all-conference honorable mention and won Pac-12 Player of the Week honors for a forced fumble and fumble recovery in 2013.
Brown was only credited with two tackles his sophomore season due to the coaching staff’s uncertainty as to whether he could make it as a linebacker. Standing at 6-feet, 220 pounds, the junior couldn’t physically size up with teammates like Kenny Young, a 6-foot-1, 235-pound player who out-competed Brown for the outside spot at the 2014 spring training.
Ever since being given a chance in the starting lineup, Brown’s game has reached new heights.
“I feel more comfortable now than I did in past games,” Brown said. “I’m still getting used to things, I’m seeing things faster, reacting faster.”
Even with his newfound success, Brown is ready for more. He’s still looking for his first career interception and criticizes himself for not racking up more tackles for loss.
The junior states adamantly that UCLA has the ability to go the distance, with every intention of winning the Pac-12 championship Dec. 5 – a title match the Bruins can reach with a win this weekend.
Regardless of what remains to come, Jayon Brown is ready.