How Brylan Green maintains excellence on both the gridiron and the diamond

The Liberty Flames football team is in the midst of one of its best seasons in program history. It’s been a season of surprises, with sophomore quarterback Kaidon Salter taking a giant leap, with new Head Coach Jamey Chadwell leading this team into conference championship contention immediately and with the Flames secondary being one of the league leaders in takeaways. 

The biggest surprise to both the media and the fanbase of those listed above is clearly the Flames secondary, who sources around the team called the “biggest question mark” of this Flames roster going into this season. Now, they’re ranked third in the NCAA in takeaways as of Oct. 29 and are ranked first in the entirety of the NCAA in total interceptions with 16. 

This Flames secondary is a solid unit through and through, but the most impressive seasons have come from junior corner Kobe Singleton, who is a boom-or-bust type of defender that’s lately had more boom than bust, senior strong safety and team captain Quinton Reese, sophomore linebacker/defensive back Jerome Jolly Jr. and, of course, sophomore safety Brylan Green. 

Green, who leads the Flames and is tied for second in the entirety of the NCAA with interceptions (5, which ties the team-high for the Flames last season), has burst onto the scene in dramatic fashion this fall. 

“I played last year, and I wasn’t comfortable, like, being a freshman in the game and the game is a little bit faster, I just had to find ways to slow it down,” Green said. “And then with this new coaching staff, the way that they’re running things, I feel like I’m more comfortable in the positions that I’m in. I could just play free.” 

“Now, obviously, (Green) played some last year, and everybody, the guys that were still here, were high on him, but (our coaching staff) hadn’t seen much,”  Chadwell said after the Flames’ win Sept. 9 over New Mexico State. “And then, this summer, he really started coming into his own. I mean, we think he has NFL potential if he completely commits himself to football.”

Chadwell mentioned Green fully committing himself to football because Green is one of Liberty’s few true multisport athletes. Green, along with tracking passes from opposing quarterbacks as a free safety, takes his talents to the diamond in the spring for the Flames baseball team as a center fielder. His natural ability to track a ball, whether a football or a baseball, has made him a natural at free safety, center field and, most recently, a punt returner for the Flames. 

“Yeah, I’ve been a multi-sport athlete since I could remember,” Green said. “Honestly, it was football, baseball and basketball for the longest (time), and then when I got to high school, it turned into football and baseball.”

Being a student-athlete is already difficult enough, as young men and women have to balance schoolwork, a practice schedule, workouts, gamedays and, ideally, a social life. Having to add another sport to that schedule? Next to impossible. And yet, Green is able to do so. 

 “Yeah, it definitely is (difficult), you know,” Green said. “Trying to balance the schedule, especially with school going on, too. (I) just get with the coaching staff and (form) a plan before we even get into it. I think once we have a plan, it makes everything a little bit more easy.”

Green may be working with the coaching staff for both baseball and football, but that doesn’t make a schedule like his for the faint of heart. He credits his drive and his motivation to his family, but more specifically, his hometown. 

“Coming from a small place, Opelousas, Louisiana – you don’t see a lot of people come out of Opelousas, Louisiana,” Green said. “So just that motivation. And I just want the little kids behind me to just know there is a way you could do this, and it don’t even have to be football. It could be baseball, it could be soccer, it (doesn’t) even have to be sports. It could be something else, you know what I’m saying? Like something academically. Just showing people that there’s always a way to do something.”

The pressure on Green has been a constant since he took up the pads and the mitt. Not only does he put pressure on himself to represent and be a role model to his hometown, there was also pressure from his parents and, most recently, from his Liberty coaches. 

“So, the best way I could explain it is, my dad, he’s a sports guy. He’s going to push me. (There are) days I’m crying, and I’m like, ‘Man, I can’t do this,’” Green said, laughing. “But he’s pushing me, and stuff like that. And then my mom (doesn’t) know a dang thing about sports or nothing like that, so she’s the academic part. She was making sure that whatever I do in the field, that (doesn’t) matter. I got to get my academics straight before I could do anything. And I think those two … You put those two things together, and then you have a great person.”

The aforementioned pressure from Green’s Liberty coaches isn’t the same type of pressure he got from his parents — Green’s coaches want him to pick a side. 

“I mean, we think he has NFL potential if he completely commits himself to football and he’s a natural at catching the ball,” Chadwell said. “That’s why he’s our punt returner, and he just does a great job, and he plays with a lot of confidence, and that’s the thing that he does. And his baseball background is showing off. He can just track a ball.”

Green hears his coaches, but he isn’t ready to commit himself to just one sport yet, even if football seems to be the obvious choice. 

“Even out of high school, there’s been pressure like, man, I need to choose one, but I’m just letting God choose the route that I need to go,” Green said. “It could be football, it could be baseball. I don’t really know. Just trusting in God.”

The pressure may be on Green to make a choice in the coming months, but for right now, his focus is continuing this dominant season of terrorizing opposing quarterbacks. His ability to track a ball has turned him into one of the best cover safeties in college football, and another key to his successes this season has been his ability to read the eyes and tendencies of the quarterback. 

“Just reading my keys, obviously (allows me to make plays), but just being the athlete that I am and just trusting my abilities, Green said. “I know what I can do. And if they put the ball in the air, (I have to be a) center fielder, I got to go get it.” 

Palsgrove is the asst. sports editor for the Liberty Champion. Follow him on X