Provo • About five or six games into this season, Brayden Cosper knew it was time.
The nagging injuries started to mount. They weren’t season-ending injuries, like they had been in the past. But they were enough to make him realize his body could no longer do it.
It was at this point the fifth-year junior decided whenever BYU played in its bowl game, that would be his final game, too. This Saturday, against SMU, his career will come to an end.
“I was coming into this year seeing how it goes, seeing how my body felt,” Cosper told The Salt Lake Tribune. “I think at the midway point, just with some of the past injuries I’ve grinded through, I thought it would be better for me to hang it up. Just take care of my body at this point.”
It ends an up-and-down career marked by tantalizing upside and devastating injuries. Now, Cosper is taking stock of it all on his way out.
Cosper came into BYU as a highly-touted recruit who headlined the 2018 signing class with Zach Wilson and Dax Milne. He was the top-rated receiver in the state of Utah that year, according to the recruiting service Scout. At Bingham High School, he won two state championships and expectations followed him into Provo.
But in college, the talent was mostly masked by injuries until this season.
He tore his ACL his freshman season and then tore his meniscus and had a micro-fracture the year after. In 2020, he played in 10 games sparingly and logged four catches. And then in 2021, he was out again with a broken wrist.
This year, for the first time in his career, he played in every game. He finished with 27 catches for 351 yards and a touchdown. Often, with injuries to the receivers, he was a main target for quarterback Jaren Hall.
“It is a huge accomplishment for me and my life to play this season and finish this season,” Cosper said. “Regardless of how many catches and how many yards.”
But in reflecting on his career, Cosper admitted it took a long time for him to come to acceptance. Given the expectations he came in with, he looked at his career at some points and struggled to wrap his head around it. He knew some people would label him as a failed college football player.
“I think it a funny one,” Cosper said of his career. “From the outside looking in, I think you would probably say, ‘Definite failure.’ You know, looking at production, injuries, contributions and expectations I had coming in. But I think it is always funny looking back now that people would see this as a failure. Because, up until this point in my life, this has been by far my biggest accomplishment.”
Cosper saw team psychologist Tom Golightly throughout the years to help navigate his own thoughts and expectations in football. He talked with his parents at times, too. Now, he says, he is in a much better place to end his time in college.
“Definitely had some issues with it mentally, going through it all,” Cosper said. “I realized I needed to work through that and go get help. With mental health and all that stuff, it was big for me. Big for me as a person, too.”
He understands there will be some who will always look at his career and say it was a letdown. Before the bowl game, he sits at 31 catches for 387 yards in five years. He played in 16 games.
But Cosper is at peace. For him, that is what matters.
“This is my takeaway: Learning to stay in the moment, be grateful,” he said. “Things people might see as a failure, for you, it might be the biggest triumph.”
