Brimmer can save the day

Steve Guiremand

Thursday, Aug. 28, 2003 | 8:35 a.m.

Just call it "The Hit."

Any story about Jamaal Brimmer's remarkable sophomore season at UNLV has to focus on arguably the Mountain West Conference's defensive play of the year by the man who would go on to garner MWC defensive player of the year honors.

It was early in the fourth quarter and the Rebels were holding a 9-3 lead at BYU when Brimmer, a Durango High graduate who once was told he was too slow to play Division I football, came on a blitz from the blind side of Cougars quarterback Matt Berry.

In the matter of a split-second, Brimmer launched his 6-foot-1, 210-pound frame into a crushing hit on Berry. The ball went one way and Berry's mouthpiece went another. Brimmer, meanwhile, alertly scooped up the loose ball and raced 27 yards for the game-clinching touchdown as UNLV won for the first time in Provo since 1981, 24-3.

"He's such an instinctive player," UNLV coach John Robinson, who frequently compares Brimmer to former USC and current Dolphins All-Pro safety Sammy Knight, said. "I think this year he'll get more opportunities for us to use his skills. He's great near the line of scrimmage and he's great at blitzing."

Brimmer, a preseason All-American who is one of 37 players named to the Jim Thorpe Award Watch List, finished with 100 tackles in 2002, including a MWC-leading 17 for loss. He led UNLV and tied for fifth in the MWC with 5.5 quarterback sacks.

Not bad for someone who received more scholarship offers from I-AA schools than I-A. With a 40-yard dash time in the high 4.6s, many schools thought Brimmer was a step too slow even though he was the 1999 Nevada Player of the Year.

"Oregon State tripped me," Brimmer said. "A bunch of I-AA schools. Arizona State and Colorado State recruited me some. But they all backed away from me because of my 40 speed. My coach told me that Colorado State made a statement that I would never play Division I ball because of my speed."

Brimmer, who never ran track while focusing on football and basketball at Durango, used those kinds of statements for motivation. And still does.

"It was all constructive criticism," he said. "That was inspiration for me. There's still some people who feel the same way about me."

One of them isn't Robinson, who heard similar comments about Knight, a player he recruited to USC and has gone on to become a Pro Bowl player in the NFL.

"He's not fast but I guess sudden is the right word," Robinson said. "Whenever he gets an opportunity to make a play, boy does he take advantage of it. I think he'll start to crack the national scene more as a defensive player before he's done here."

He already has. Besides making a handful of preseason All-American squads, Brimmer was recently rated the 78th best player in college football by ESPN The Magazine. College Football News listed him as the nation's 36th best player heading into last spring's practice.

Brimmer, wary because of the fall from grace of former UNLV quarterback Jason Thomas following a spectacular sophomore season, refuses to get caught up in all the hype.

"I need to still improve on a lot of things," he said. "I still need to work on my timing blitzes up. I also want to help in coverage and being around the field a lot more, not taking plays off, stuff like that. I want to do whatever it takes to get this team back to a bowl game. That's first and foremost."

That probably means a lot more blitzes like the one that sent Berry's mouthpiece into orbit and resulted in Brimmer's first college touchdown.

"Yeah, it's tailor-made for me," Brimmer said of the switch to a more of a New Mexico-style blitz package. "It will be a whole new look for me. I'll look like I'm coming and then we'll have other guys coming instead. Hopefully we'll confuse the other team and be all over the field causing turnovers. That's our No. 1 goal ... to force more turnovers this year."

"Last year's defense was tailor-made for him, too," Robinson said. "We just didn't send him enough."

Don't try telling that to Berry or BYU fans. Berry has since told media members that the mouthpiece was actually in the frame of his helmet when he was hit, not in his mouth. Whatever, it will go down as one of the all-time great hits in UNLV football history.

"I don't know if he had it in his mouth or not," Brimmer said with a smile. "I just made a play. I hope it doesn't go down as the best play I've made here. I hope that there's still more to come that turn out to be maybe even better than that one. But I'll never forget that one because it resulted in my first college touchdown in a key situation. That is always going to make it special."