College Career
Russell redshirted during the 1997 season. He took over as San Diego State's starting quarterback in the second game of the 1998 season (replacing injured starter Spencer Brinton). Russell quarterbacked the Aztecs the rest of the season and led them to the Las Vegas Bowl, the school's first bowl appearance in seven seasons. Notably, he totaled five rushing touchdowns in the season, the most by an SDSU quarterback since 1981.
Russell began the 1999 year as the team's starting QB but was asked to switch to safety, a natural fit for his skill set, allowing JUCO transfer Jack Hawley to assume QB responsibilities. Because of his excellent athleticism, Russell immediately became the starter at free safety where he played alongside safety Will Demps. In his first game as a defender, he made 10 tackles, including three straight solo stops. His senior season (1999) was solid, he made 68 tackles (41 solo), recovered two fumbles, and intercepted one pass. For his efforts, he was named All-Mountain West Conference.
Read more about this topic: Brian Russell
Famous quotes containing the words college and/or career:
“We talked about and that has always been a puzzle to me
why American men think that success is everything
when they know that eighty percent of them are not
going to succeed more than to just keep going and why
if they are not why do they not keep on being
interested in the things that interested them when
they were college men and why American men different
from English men do not get more interesting as they
get older.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)
“From a hasty glance through the various tests I figure it out that I would be classified in Group B, indicating “Low Average Ability,” reserved usually for those just learning to speak the English Language and preparing for a career of holding a spike while another man hits it.”
—Robert Benchley (1889–1945)