Briscoe’s journey full of twists, turns
Jeremiah Briscoe sat on his couch, scrolling through Twitter when his football career changed again.
The news came in a text message: “Team meeting at 1 o’clock.” His heart sank. Briscoe was a quarterback at the University of Alabama-Birmingham — the school that made headlines last year for cutting its football program.
He would have to start over again. A new program. A new coach. New teammates.
But the reality is that long before Briscoe received that text message, he learned how to deal with a sport in which nothing is certain and everything is constantly changing.
Briscoe, 22, is a backup quarterback in his second year of eligibility at Sam
Houston State, but his journey from being ranked by ESPN as the 18th-best quarterback in the nation as a high school standout at Stratford to Huntsville began by starting over.
Connor Wood was the national recruiting poster child in 2009. He had an arm. He had the offers, nearly 80 of them. He was the second-best quarterback in the nation, according to Rivals. For a year at Second Baptist, Briscoe backed up Wood and also doubled as one of his wide receivers. In the fall of 2009, Briscoe never started but played in several games.
That spring, with Wood committed to the University of Texas, Briscoe went with his Second Baptist quarterbacks coach Keith Blackmon to a camp at Baylor.
Briscoe slung his cannon of an arm. He turned heads. Baylor offered him a scholarship without the sophomore starting a high school football game.
Briscoe committed to Baylor, but the offers kept coming. He wishes now he hadn’t made such a big deal of the process.
“He had just got done watching Connor get recruited,” Blackmon said. “Connor could have gone anywhere in the country. I think Jeremiah wanted that. He just didn’t want to go to one school. He wanted everybody to wine and dine him.”
For his senior season, Briscoe transferred to Stratford under Eliot Allen, who had coached Andrew Luck. He threw for 1,863 yards, 12 touchdowns and three interceptions that fall. He also pitched for the baseball team, posting a 2.40 ERA and striking out 55 in 48 innings.
Then came an offer from Arkansas. Briscoe flipped his commitment to the Razorbacks because he had developed a bond with then-offensive coordinator Garrick McGee.
That would change soon, though, when then-Arkansas coach Bobby Petrino was placed under NCAA sanctions in spring 2012. In December 2011, McGee was hired at UAB to be its football coach, so Briscoe headed to UAB in the spring of 2013 and played baseball.
That summer, Briscoe had shoulder surgery. His arm couldn’t handle two sports, so he had to choose.
“It was a really hard decision for me,” he said. “I’m better at baseball than I am at football, but football is where my heart is and what I wanted to do.”
Sad news at UAB
The surgery, though, caused him to redshirt his first football season that fall.
That season, McGee’s second at the helm, the Blazers went 2-10. On Jan. 9, 2014, McGee left UAB to be an offensive coordinator at Louisville. Two weeks later, Bill Clark was hired at UAB.
Last fall, Briscoe passed for 361 yards and three touchdowns in six appearances as UAB’s backup QB. He started one game, against Arkansas. The Blazers finished 6-6.
Then came Dec. 2, 2014. The day Briscoe received the fateful text: “Team meeting at 1 o’clock.”
When he and roommate Cameron Blankenship arrived at the athletic facility, the atmosphere was emotional.
“That meeting was something I’ll never forget for the rest of my life,” Briscoe said.
UAB president Ray Watts told them the school had decided to eliminate the football program in order to save money.
“People just had so much hate,” Briscoe said. “I hate using that word, but there was so much hate, so much sadness, so much uncertainty. You almost felt like you’ve been robbed.”
Everyone was crying — players, coaches, Briscoe. The meeting got so tense that Briscoe said Watts had to leave before the end of it.
Then it sunk in. It was the week before finals and change was pressing on Briscoe again. He needed to figure out his next move. Where would he go?
He had to get out of his apartment lease, his bills, his life in Birmingham.
Just like in high school, offers poured in.
This time, Briscoe wanted to make the right decision. His biggest offer came from Florida. He contemplated it. Briscoe wanted a school that had the engineering technology major he wanted, with an offense he knew he could excel in and that was close to home.
Florida wasn’t that. Sam Houston State was.
There was just one problem. The Bearkats had a quarterback with whom they were happy.
Sam Houston State coach K.C. Keeler always believed a team with two quarterbacks was a team with no quarterbacks.
But in 2015, Keeler has two quarterbacks, and both are capable of winning for him. They’ve proved it.
Briscoe can throw the ball like, well, Andrew Luck; Jared Johnson can run the ball like Cam Newton.
Johnson, a junior, knows the offense better. Meanwhile, Briscoe is learning his fourth offense in as many years.
“I’m in a system that fits me,” Briscoe said. “I’m still working out some kinks, but I think I have a really bright future here. Another two years in this offense, there’s no telling what can happen.”
Keeler called Briscoe a “bright football player.”
“I think these two guys start for 95 percent of the FCS schools in the country, and a lot of FBS schools,” he said.
A redshirt sophomore on the field but a senior in the classroom, Briscoe earned the nickname “Dad” from the team.
“I’m an older guy, and I don’t really want to go out and do a whole lot of things,” he said. “When I cut my hair off and they could see my receding hair line, it sealed the deal.”
Briscoe even started this season against Lamar.
“It was definitely something that I’d been working for, but it’s not something I thought about a whole lot,” he said. “I try not to be selfish and think about me, but what’s best for the team.
“It’s great we have two quarterbacks that can start. The other team has to prepare for two totally different things.
“It’s been fun.”
‘A blessing in disguise’
Briscoe’s goals are the team goals: to go 1-0 each week until the Bearkats (7-3, 6-2 in Southland Conference) win a national championship and eventually become the starter. In the six years since he was offered that scholarship to Baylor, he has wondered what it would have been like had he remained committed to the Bears.
“All in all, I’m a firm believer that everything happens for a reason and God has a plan,” he said. “It’s truly been a blessing in disguise just being here.”
Briscoe’s family has been able to see him more because Houston is only an hour away from his new home. UAB announced in June that the university will bring back the football program in 2017, but nothing is pushing Briscoe out of Huntsville.
He is on track to graduate in the spring and is planning to work on a master’s degree. His maturity is what Blackmon has seen grow the most. Briscoe’s journey has hidden a talented quarterback, but that isn’t what’s fueling him.
“I’m not a big ego kind of person,” Briscoe said. “I know what I can do. … I think my best football is still to be played.”
“It’s definitely taught me patience. I wouldn’t change any of it.”