SEATTLE – Jake Browning is as nimble in the pocket as he is with the local media.
It’s part of what makes the senior quarterback for Washington unique. His counterpart three weeks ago, Colorado junior Steven Montez, described Browning as “sneaky athletic” after he rushed for 25 yards on five carries in the 27-13 win.
Browning, a former four-star recruit who holds the record for most touchdown passes thrown by a high school QB, has been thee guy for Chris Petersen since his second season as head coach.
The Coming of an Era…
Before he became the starter as a true freshman in 2015 the QB cupboard was completely bare.
A pair of sophomores, Cyler Miles and Jeff Lindquist, were the most experienced players in the room with Troy Williams, another ex-four-star recruit, the third option with potential for the future.
UW finished 8-5 overall in Petersen’s first season with the heralded incoming Browning set to enroll in January 2015. Even thought he wasn’t on the team in 2014 it did play a slight role into how Browning would choose to handle the pressure that would come over the next four years.
His freshman year UW lost its Pac-12 opener 30-24 at home to California. Browning threw two interceptions in the game – during his recollection at Pac-12 Media Day he said four – and threw for just 152 yards while completing 17 of 28 attempts.
“I remember throwing four picks against Cal my freshman year I just remember being in the dumps,” Browning said of his performance against the Golden Bears in 2015.
The following weekend UW defeated USC 17-12 in the Coliseum. It was the calming, reassuring words of then-offensive coordinator Jonathan Smith, the opposing head coach Saturday against Oregon Saturday, that made the difference.
“He was just like ‘hey it’s going to be better. You’re going to remember this when you play them next, or once the seasons over’,” Browning said of Smith’s response. “You’re going to experience the high of the high, this is the lowest of the low. So I’ll always remember how he treated me, always had my back on stuff like that. Someone I became really close with.”
The Huskies would go on to lose four more games his freshman season to finish 7-6. Browning finished 2015 with 3,110 yards passing, 17 touchdowns, 11 interceptions and a 61.9 completion percentage.
Browning on handling social media: “Okay, I hate you too.”
Having chosen to not participate in camps while going through his recruitment, Browning was never a fan of social media or the hype side of college football. He decided to stay off Twitter during the season early in his UW career and maintained his stance, for the most part.
“It’s like that’s great, you got a platform, but I think for me I’m not going to get all over Twitter because at the end of the day people are crazy,” Browning told TheDawgReport.com at Pac-12 Media Day in July, when asked his thoughts on the impact of social media on recruiting.
“People are going to say some crazy stuff to you, and it doesn’t make any sense. There’s no credibility behind it at all. But they got Twitter and they know my Twitter handle, so they’re going to say “@ blah blah blah. You’re the worst person ever. I hate you.”
Many pundits in college football note that most coaches have their quarterback who has a similar style. Browning couldn’t be more Petersen if his name was Kellen Moore.
His way to handle the venom that enters his Twitter mentions?
“I kind of relate it to – parents are really sane until they start talking about their own kids,” Browning said. “That’s how Twitter is. People are really sane until they can literally type anything they want to because you don’t actually know what they look like.”
“And people will say ‘oh that person has no followers, blah blah’ and it is still kind of weird to have someone you don’t know say I hate you. Well, [chuckles], okay well I hate you too. Whatever. Have a good life.
“And so I just kind of ignore it. Best way to go. Or see some people that it effects him.”
One of those people Browning was referring to was Cyler Miles.
“I think the guy that started before me, I think he read into it a lot and it effected how he played.”
Exploding Without a Bang
Year two proved to be much more than many expected from UW. The Huskies made their first College Football Playoff berth on the shoulders of Browning, then a sophomore, who made the most of the one season he had with Dante Pettis and John Ross.
Both receivers were selected in the first two rounds of the NFL Draft, the latter one of only five first-round picks under Petersen since 2014. The duo combined for 32 TD receptions, 134 receptions and 1,972 yards to lead UW to a 12-2 overall record.
The season ended with a 24-7 loss to No. 1 Alabama in the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl in Atlanta, Georgia. Browning threw two picks, one returned for a touchdown in the second quarter, and finished with less than 200 yards passing for the fifth time in 2016.
However, absent from his sophomore year was any sniff at a Heisman Trophy campaign with his numbers more than adequate enough. Browning finished second in the nation with 43 TD passes, two behind Logan Woodside from Toledo, while being picked nine times in 14 games.
One industry source who has a Heisman vote told TheDawgReport.com in late November that it was “highly likely” that Browning would get an invite to New York with UW having only one loss.
The source added that Browning could have even won the Heisman with “a good campaign”, something that was never under consideration on the UW end.
2016 has proven to be the best year of Browning’s career to date. From a statistical comparison there has been no debating that his sophomore season was the peak.
It certainly caught the eye of Archie Manning, the No. 2 overall pick in the 1971 NFL Draft and director of the Manning Passing Academy. Browning served as a counselor for the summer 2017 before returning this past summer, something that surprised but also impressed Archie.
“Jake had that good year two years ago and I just reached out to see if he wanted to come. He did. We really enjoyed having him,” Manning told TheDawgReport.com in an interview back in August.
“It’s so far for him to come for a three nights, four-day thing. I wasn’t sure Jake would come back. So it made us, made me feel good. Jake is, first of all, he’s just a great young man. You can tell he’s a leader.”
Cupcake Motivation and (potentially) four more games to pen the first sentence of his UW career
Saturday’s home game against OSU marks the beginning of Browning’s final chapter at UW with two more regular season games remaining, and two more potentially after that.
But the senior QB has been motivated by a rather delectable sign since last October. Last season ESPN had rather sharp negative commentary highlighting the Huskies less-than-stellar non-conference schedule.
During the broadcast of the Cal-UW game on Oct. 7, a 38-7 victory for the home team, ESPN used three cupcakes to symbolize their opinion of the slate of games the team had played. There was a sign made that added a fourth cupcake and had E-S-P-N spelled out.
Browning has the sign after former UW defensive lineman Vita Vea, a first-round pick by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the 2018 NFL Draft, passed down the treasure to the senior before the season.
“I do. I do. It’s hanging up in my room. Yes, I do,” Browning said at Pac-12 Media Day on if he still had possession of the sign.
