For Jaylen Mack, CCSU Is the School That Took a Chance on Him When No One Else Would
There’s no shortage of good football players to come out of the St. Louis area, and there’s no shortage of conferences with Missouri comfortably in their footprint for football. You would think that with the OVC schools clustered in the area that the top players would be comfortably locked down, and we’d never see any of them out east.
You would think.
And yet CCSU was the first Division I offer for RB Jaylen Mack. Mack had only been named player of the year in his conference, put up staggering rushing numbers for two years straight, thrived as a four down back, and even showed receiving chops out of the backfield.
I can’t explain why this is how it all went down, but the Blue Devils are sure happy it did.
Mack, a senior from Liberty North in Lake St. Louis, MO, racked up over 1,700 all-purpose yards this season with 1,070 rushing yards and 411 receiving yards. He also became Liberty North’s punt returner. In other words, he was the guy they gave the ball to when they needed things to happen. He did pretty well with it.
We had the chance to catch up with Mack to ask about how he’d fit in at CCSU and what brought a running back from Missouri to Connecticut.
On the latter point, relationships are everything in recruiting and there was a big one that brought him to CCSU. Mack credits his relationship with RB coach Canaan Brooks at CCSU as being pivotal. One particularly important point? Brooks is from St. Louis and obviously has a lot of comfort with the schools in the area. He recruited the St. Louis running back and having a home connection always gave CCSU the edge, although Mack was impressed by the culture overall as well. “Having that tie with him, with him being from St. Louis and recruiting the St. Louis area a little bit,” Mack said, “it kind of shifted me a little more that way.”
My eyes lit up when I saw the receiving numbers along with the rushing yards. It looked like an Elijah Howard statline, which is something that apparently the CCSU staff noticed, too. When Mack saw the schemes, he immediately felt comfortable stepping into that kind of role. “Watching them play, analyzing their schemes, I feel like I fit that perfectly and I'm excited to be a part of that,” he said.
A back who wants to be on the field for every situation, Mack compared his game to powerful backs like Bijan Robinson and Jahmyr Gibbs. It’s a good comparison to have. He’s shown the ability to brush off the first tackle and keep moving forward. When the weather gets cold, that’s an important skill to have.
And as for what it meant to get the D1 call from the Blue Devils?
“The school took a chance on me when nobody else would. So I owe them the world for that,” he said.
He’ll start repaying CCSU for their faith in 2026.
