When young and eager new football players arrive at Grossmont College’s Griffin field, Coach Michael Jordan said one of his main goals is to mold players into young men.
“At this level of football, we help them mature up and understand that they have to face adversity, to kind of welcome adversity and fight their way through it,” Jordan said.
He didn’t need to have that conversation with Jack Browning. The former Griffin place kicker and punter, now 21 and starting his third and final season at San Diego State University, is aiming for an NFL career. Browning begins the 2023 football season as last year’s Specialist Player of the Year in the Mountain West Conference. He led Mountain West punters with an average of 46.0 yards over 64 punts – ranking third in SDSU history. He placed 28 punts inside the 20-yard line, and 19 punts exceeded 50 yards. His longest was 63 yards.
When Browning arrived on the Griffin football field in fall 2019, Jordan remembers him as a consistent kicker with strength and power who got better as the season progressed. The graduate of West Hills High showed great maturity, was always on time, always worked hard, and was always even-keeled. “He was a guy you could count on,” Jordan said.
Browning follows a long list of Griffin football players who have pursued paths of greatness. Players have moved on to compete for Florida State University, UCLA, Louisiana State University (LSU), Texas A&M, Brigham Young University (BYU), and many other university ball clubs.
Some have reached the pinnacle of football: the NFL. Larry Moore, who played for the Griffins in 1993-94, went on to anchor the offensive line at BYU before playing ten seasons in the NFL for both Washington and Indianapolis, where he was former star NFL player Payton Manning’s Center. Grossmont College alum Brad Daluiso had an 11-year career as a kicker with several NFL teams, ending in 2002, and played in Super Bowl XXXV.
As Browning geared up for his final football season at SDSU, he said he appreciates what he learned at Grossmont College.
“I definitely have gratitude for my experience as a junior college player,” Browning said. “Not too many people get through junior college into the opportunity that I’m in now, so I’m just absolutely grateful for it.”
Early days
Browning comes from a competitive Lakeside family. His two older brothers played football in high school, and his older and younger sisters also played sports growing up. Early on, Browning played soccer, but he soon found the gridiron.
At West Hills High School, football coach Nathan Vale recalled a late-season junior varsity game against Helix High School, with Browning kicking. The game was tied, and on a field goal attempt, the point was missed. West Hills lost that game, and Vale remembers talking with Browning afterward. “Hey, kicking’s tough,” he said. “You’ve got to ride the highs and ride the lows and kind of stay in the middle.”
Despite the loss, Browning was back for more in his junior year. “He never gave up, and he came back the next season to take the job on,” Vale said.
As he’s watched his former player progress in college, Vale said he’s seen where grit and determination can take a person. “He continues to work hard and grind, and not allow himself to plateau,” he said of Browning. “He does the work to get better and better.”
He’s also seen a mental toughness in Browning that has served him well. “They say that 90 percent of kicking is mental, and the other 10 percent is mental,” Vale said.
Browning can relate. “Mentally, it can get lonely,” he said. “As a punter and kicker, it’s almost like a solo job. Yes, you have 10 other guys on the field going for one goal, but what happens on that play is heavily predicted by your performance. It can get pretty lonely, and so you have to be able to deal with this kind of pressure of basically being solo.”
At Grossmont, Browning remembers being impressed by the camaraderie among his teammates. “You’re around guys from vastly different cultures, religions, and societies,” Browning said. “For me, that was something new …I really enjoyed that, everyone coming together on a single team.”
On to SDSU
Browning first started making contact with SDSU in June 2020, during the height of the pandemic when college football was shut down most places. He recorded video of himself punting and kicking, and sent it to SDSU coaches. One day that June, a teammate from Grossmont called him to say he spotted a few NFL kickers training at the SDSU practice field: Jake Bailey, then with the New England Patriots and now a punter with the Miami Dolphins; Joe Cordona, a Granite Hills High graduate and a long snapper with the Patriots since 2015; and Nick Novak, a former placekicker with the San Diego Chargers in 2010 who still lives in the San Diego area.
“Joe, Jake, and Nick were on one side, and being the shy person I am, I went to the other side of the field and just watched,” Browning said. As the pro ball players walked toward his side of the field, Cordona introduced himself to Browning. “Go over to Jake and learn from him,” he told
Browning. That was the start of a friendship with the three players that has shaped his own trajectory in football, Browning said.
Browning earned a spot on the SDSU team in fall 2021, and he contributed as a holder for place kickers. That first season, Browning scored a touchdown on a fake field goal play during a game against the University of Hawaii. Doug Deakin, special teams coach for SDSU, calls the play Browning’s “coming out party.”
“No one touched him,” he said of the 13-yard touchdown run.
Deakin says that Browning is one of those “unicorns” who excels at all three kicking duties as a special teams player: kicking field goals, launching the ball down field on kick-offs, and punting.
Deakin said Browning is a true athlete. He breaks the stereotype that kickers and punters all come from soccer teams and aren’t as athletic as their teammates.
“Jack breaks that mold because he could play a skilled position,” Deakin said, meaning a running back, quarterback, receiver or a defensive player. “He is beating skilled players in runs, he is that athletic,” he said.
Deakin said few players work harder than Browning, citing some game highlights that encapsulate Browning’s professionalism. During a game against the University of Hawaii last fall, the Aztecs were down with less than two minutes left in the game. Browning scored the game-winning field goal. “He never gives off the impression that he’s rattled,” Deakin said. “He is just as cool a customer as it gets.”
In another game, against Middle Tennessee State University, Browning scored a field goal from 53 yards out. “The wind was blowing sideways that evening, and he goes out for a 53-yard field goal, and he hits the net. It would have been good for 63,” Deakin said. Although the Aztecs lost the game, the field goal showed how Browning delivers when the pressure is on.
Aiming for the NFL
Browning is now planning to shoot for a spot with an NFL team in 2024. Like all aspirants, he hopes to get invited to the NFL Scouting Combine early in the year, a week-long showcase in Indianapolis where college football players perform physical and mental tests in front of NFL coaches, general managers, and scouts.
He’ll have another opportunity at Pro Day in the spring at SDSU, when seniors will be able to show their stuff to NFL personnel.
Then comes the NFL Draft, scheduled for April 25-27, 2024, in Detroit, Michigan.
“I think I have the talent and based on last year I’m one of the top in my class as a punter,” Browning said of his chances.
“He has every bit the attributes you would expect a professional to have, the non-negotiables that every professional must have,” Deakin said. “His performance will speak for itself. He’s very much put himself in that position, and I’m expecting another phenomenal year for him because of the work he’s put in. … This guy is very special.”