Healthy Threat paying dividends for Jaguars

• By PERRYN KEYS
• Advocate sportswriter
• Published: Nov 3, 2009 - Page: 3C

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For three years, he was a whirlpool all-star.

The Southern coaches liked Brian Threat. They didn’t want him in the trainer’s room. They searched for ways to get him on the field. But as soon as they got him there, Threat came right back off, usually with a limp.

Seemingly, if Threat didn’t have some sort of lingering injury, he wasn’t himself.

First, there was a shoulder injury. Then, during his sophomore season, he suffered a pinched nerve.

“I felt it all the way through my neck and down to my fingertips,” he said.

Last season, just as Threat appeared ready to hit top speed, he sprained an ankle, and it never truly healed. Another lost season.

As he sat out during parts of training camp this summer, the Jaguars had to wonder: Could they really rely on this guy?

As coach Pete Richardson joked last week: “Injuries. That’s his M.O.”

No more.

Through eight games, the senior tailback has shed his image as a walking ice pack and replaced it with another one.

Believe it or not, he’s an ironman.

“Basically, I feel good. I’m excited,” Threat said, two days after he averaged 4.1 yards per carry in Southern’s 24-10 win at Arkansas-Pine Bluff. “This is unusual, you know?”

Threat’s team-high 453 rushing yards are more than he had over his first three seasons combined, and they make him the sixth-leading rusher in the Southwestern Athletic Conference — even though he has averaged fewer than 15 carries per game.