STORRS – When Bryun Parham made the decision to sit out the remainder of the 2024 college football season and redshirt to preserve his final year of eligibility, he made headlines.
The linebacker from Long Beach, Calif., played more than 1,200 defensive snaps over three years at San Jose State before he transferred to Washington last season and fell behind multiple players on the depth chart. His decision to redshirt and transfer came about a week after UNLV starting quarterback Matthew Sluka became a national story for leaving the Rebels in similar fashion, though Sluka’s decision was reportedly due to unfulfilled NIL promises.
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Parham maintained that his choice was not.
“This is a football and life decision,” he told On3 at the time.
In December, prior to UConn’s Fenway Bowl victory over North Carolina, Parham announced he’d be flying across the country to join a different pack of Huskies.
“I wanted to come here and still prove that I’m the guy I know I am,” he said Tuesday.
Jim Mora’s connections on the West Coast are still paying off for UConn. Mora was a walk-on defensive back and linebacker at Washington from 1980-83, and Scott White, who coached Parham in the linebacker room at San Jose State, served on Mora’s staff at UCLA from 2015-17. Mora also recruited a number of players from Parham’s high school, Long Beach Poly, who put in the good word for him.
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“They always told me that this is a great man to come play for and he treats people the right way, you know his NFL connections,” Parham said. “So I just wanted to come be a part of this family and they welcomed me right in.”
When he was at San Jose State with White, who was still paying attention to what Mora was doing at UConn, Parham was shown clips of the Huskies and developed a respect for Jackson Mitchell, the Ridgefield native who ranks third all-time in tackles (438) over his career in Storrs. After two years of trying to find his place in the NFL, Mitchell turned to coaching and joined Mora’s staff this season as a linebackers assistant.
“We actually played Fresno State in 2022 and I watched a lot of his tape to get an understanding of how I needed to play that game,” Parham said. Mitchell had eight tackles and a sack when UConn hosted Fresno State that season, pulling off an upset for one of the cornerstone wins of Mora’s first year. “He’s been a great mentor and a great guy to all of us.”
One day he wants to become a coach, like Mitchell, but for now Parham has his sights set on making it to the next level.
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The first step in realizing that dream was getting on the field in a considerable role – an opportunity Washington couldn’t offer, but UConn could.
He wasn’t a starter in UConn’s season-opener, but that means very little with the way defensive coordinator Matt Brock likes to rotate players in and out, keeping them fresh while offering the opponent a variety of different looks. In the 59-13 blowout of Central Connecticut, Parham recorded seven tackles, second-most on the team, and a game-high 2.5 tackles for loss. He was the only Husky to record a sack in the opener.
“It was a great first week. I’m just excited to be back playing football, around a good group of people who treat me the right way and make me feel at home. Being from California, I’m all the way on the east coast and they make me feel right at home,” he said.
One of a number of experienced defensive players who joined the Huskies this offseason, Parham has been described as a unique personality. He likes to read about history and calls himself “a chill guy,” but he’s also into music – listening to it and making it, though he says the latter is just for fun and he hasn’t published any songs yet.
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“He’s what you want personality-wise out of a linebacker,” said tight end Alex Honig, who has gotten to know the linebackers by going against them in practice. “I mean, this guy loves football. He flies around, he’s always talking – like in a good way – high-energy. Funny guy, but when he gets serious, he’s a force. And he’s fun to be around. He’s been a lot of spots, he has a chip on his shoulder. You can tell he’s trying to prove himself every day and he loves ball. It’s easy to go to war with guys like that.”
Parham’s services will come in handy on Saturday, as the Huskies’ linebackers look to improve on their consistency and what Mora called a “down-to-down lack of precision or certainty” in Week 1.
Syracuse underwent a major overhaul at nearly every offensive position after winning 10 games last year, specifically on its offensive line, where it welcomed four new starters. The Orange showed they could run the ball with Yasin Willis, who had three touchdowns in their first game, a 45-26 loss to Tennessee, but the Volunteers sacked quarterback Steve Angeli five times.
“We’ve got to get back there and cause disruption,” Parham said.
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“You have to earn the right to get in a position to pressure,” Mora said. “If a team’s running the football at you and getting to third-and-medium, third-and-short, then it’s really hard to get where you can pin your ears and go after them, because it’s not an obvious pass situation. So anytime you get any team in a third-and-longer, then you have a chance to maybe get after them a little bit more. You have to earn that right, and it’s no different this week than any other week. That’s up to us.”
