SOUTHAVEN, Miss. (AP) - No one will ever be able to accuse Isaiah Brevard of dreaming too small.
A 6-foot-4 receiver from Southaven, Brevard is the sixth member of the Clarion Ledger’s 2020 Dandy Dozen team. Just add that onto Brevard’s growing hype pile. Rivals.com lists Brevard as the best football recruit in Mississippi in 2021. So does ESPN, which also ranks Brevard as the No. 7 receiver in the nation.
But those accolades somehow undersell the future Brevard sees for himself.
“My dream is really simple,” Brevard told the Clarion Ledger. “I’m going to college three or four years. I start getting endorsement deals while I’m in college. I don’t care what round I go in, but every dream I have I’ve been a first-round pick. Made it to the NFL. Had me a family. Everything going good. Twenty seasons in the NFL. I just have to stay on the right course and everything will work out.”
Brevard has been working toward the goal of reaching the NFL since he was 6 years old. He remembers telling it to his mom as a Memphis youngster who just started playing football. It continued when he and his mom moved to Mississippi when he was in the seventh grade.
Once he reached high school, Brevard didn’t have to wait very long. Breavard was called him up to the varsity by the end of his freshman season. Weeks later, then-Mississippi State coach Joe Moorhead became the first college coach to reach out to Brevard.
The athletic side of football always came easy to Brevard. But if you ask Southaven coach Eddie Stevenson, Brevard’s mentality kicked into its next gear not on the football field, but on the basketball court.
“I’d say this past Christmas he really took over the leadership role on that team,” Stevenson said. “That was one of the things that needed to be seen from him the most, going through the maturation process and the growth to become that type of a leader.”
Brevard admits something changed about him playing basketball during the 2019-20 season. He was a junior on a team that didn’t have any seniors. He was the standout athlete. He was playing nearly every minute on a focused, driven team and used his newfound vocality to lead the Chargers to the state playoffs.
Don’t be surprised Brevard had the capacity to lead in him. Stevenson said one of Brevard’s standout traits is how comfortable he is interacting with people younger or less fortunate than him. Brevard often goes out of his way to talk to, walk with or play sports with special needs children and enjoys speaking to the young children who look up to him.
“Growing up, I didn’t have nothing,” Brevard said. “When I get rich, I’m going to give back to the community. I’m going to give back to the poor. I was poor once. I was in their shoes once. And I like to put smiles on people’s faces. I love helping people out because people helped me out too.”
Of course, leadership and generosity aren’t the traits that netted Brevard scholarship offers from Georgia, Florida State, Baylor, Ole Miss and Mississippi State - or led to his July 4 commitment to Oregon. His play on the field contributed to that, too.
Stevenson said Brevard was Southaven’s leading receiver as a freshman despite only playing varsity for the final month of the season. In 2018, Brevard had 32 catches for 713 yards and four touchdowns. He continued that pace with 32 more catches for 405 yards and seven touchdowns in 2019.
Brevard’s goal for 2020, doesn’t have too much to do with building off those stats. Brevard wants to win. If that means catching 100 passes or catching none, he’ll do what he can to deliver some wins to a Southaven program that has struggled through just six wins in the last two years.
That’s what Brevard is working toward in his final high school season. The attention is already there. Now he just wants to justify it.
“Let’s say I go to Wal-Mart or the store or something, there’s always someone coming up to me or asking me to take a picture,” Brevard said. “I’m already taking pictures with fans. Everywhere I go they see me and they like what I’m doing for the community. I can’t stop now.”
The Clarion Ledger annually selects the top 12 senior football players in the state of Mississippi. The players this year were selected based on recommendations from coaches around the state.
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