Penn State Sports Magazine
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2 2 N O V E M B E R 2 0 2 1 W W W . B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . C O M A few minutes later, with the Badgers even more desperate to erase Penn State's six-point lead, Mertz tried again to find a receiver over the middle. This time it was Brown's turn. He had dropped a potential interception earlier in the game, and as he saw the ball headed toward him at the goal line, he told himself, "This is definitely mine." Brown caught it as the final sec- onds ticked away, clinching Penn State's 16-10 victory. The win in Madison was a euphoric moment for the Nittany Lions, and it was the chemistry and camaraderie between their two starting safeties that allowed the team to finish it off. Brisker and Brown had been team- mates at Penn State for a little over a year. Before that, they had played together at Lackawanna College in Scranton, Pa., and over the course of their parallel ca- reers, they had de- veloped the kind of rapport that allowed them to collaborate on game-saving plays like the ones they made in Madison on opening day. Brisker is a dedicated student of the game, the kind of player who can spend hours watching film and use that knowl- edge to get in the heads of opposing of- fensive coordinators. A former coach once said of Brisker, "He calls out things before they happen." It's a useful skill in his line of work. Brown, known to friends and team- mates as "Tig," a reference to Tigger the Tiger from the "Winnie the Pooh" car- toons, is a more intuitive player, a high- energy guy who just seems to have a feel for where the ball is going to go and has the motor to get there quickly. Brisker had already finished his first season at Penn State when Brown joined him last year. This fall, they've been two of the top performers on a defense that, through six games, was allowing an aver- age of only 13.8 points, second-best in the Big Ten and fifth-best in the FBS. "Tig, that's my brother," Brisker said. "We came from the same college, so the chemistry is just different back there. We're always on the same page. In prac- tice we're always trying to make each other better. We're not going to [go easy] on each other, or anything like that. We're always going to compete and try to bring out the best in both of us." "When we met each other, we instantly bonded," Brown added. "Over the years, playing together, working out with each other, pushing each other through adver- sity, it just pulled us closer as brothers. And we're going to continue to be broth- ers from here on out. It's a permanent thing with us now." Brisker had come to Lackawanna from the Pittsburgh area. He'd been an all-state performer at Gateway High in Monro- eville and a two-time team MVP with dreams of attending Penn State. But he needed to improve his grades before the Nittany Lions could take him, so off he went to junior college. In Scranton, it didn't take Brisker long to get acclimated. He benefitted from the academic discipline that has been a hall- mark of the Falcons' program under coach Mark Duda, and his two-year playing ca- reer was one highlight after another. He was a first-team All-Northeast Football Conference choice in 2017 and '18, and a first-team NJCAA All-American as a sophomore. "Athletically, there's really nobody who compares to Jaquan Brisker," Lacka- wanna assistant coach Josh Pardini told Blue White Illustrated following his com- mitment to Penn State in 2018. "He just needed some guidance. He needed some- body to put his arm around him, which our staff did, and show him the right way to do things." Brown, a Trenton, N.J., native, was a year behind Brisker, arriving at Lackawa- nna in 2018. He'd been lightly recruited coming out of Central High. Despite winning first-team all-state honors as a senior, the only four-year school that pursued him was Division III Montclair State. But he was confident that he would find a way to prove himself at the college level, and the coaching staff at Lackawa- nna was more than willing to give him that chance. At his first scrimmage with the Falcons, the coaches gave Brown a shot at replac- ing a starting safety who was struggling. Brisker, coming off a freshman season in which he totaled 54 tackles and four inter- ceptions, approached his new teammate with some straightforward advice. "I just remember telling him, 'Let's go, this is your time,'" Brisker recalled. "I wanted him to feel comfortable. With how he played in high school, he could play here his freshman year in junior col- lege. When he stepped on the field, there was no time to think, it was time to go." Brown wound up playing cornerback that first year and impressed his older teammate. "He had a couple of interceptions and made a lot of great plays," Brisker said. "He's a football player. Once he got comfortable, he let his instincts take over." To Brown, Lackawanna was offering more than just a platform to showcase his talents. The school didn't have the kind of resources that Power Five pro- grams are able to use to guide players along a step-by-step development track, and while some might have seen that as a disadvantage, to Brown it was just the opposite. It was an invitation to take re- sponsibility for his own progress and en- sure that he was making the most of his junior college experience. "Lackawanna shapes you as a man early," he said. "It's not like [Penn State] where you might come in as a fresh- man and they kind of guide you through everything. When you go to Lackawa- nna, you have to become a man as soon as possible, right on the spot, because there are a lot of grown-man decisions you have to make. You have to be able to manage your time, your body, all that on your own. "Growing up extremely fast at Lacka- wanna helped me mentally and physi- "When we met each other, we instantly bonded. Over the years, playing together, working out with each other, pushing each other through adversity, it just pulled us closer as brothers." B R O W N , T A L K I N G A B O U T B R I S K E R