Never Think You’ve Arrived – Stanford University Athletics

MICHAEL WILSON was a freshman scholarship receiver in 2018. Like everyone else, he made note of Tremayne’s exploits on the scout team.

“What he was doing in the first week of training camp, against some scholarship freshman DB’s … We were all sitting around and saying, ‘This man should be on scholarship,’ “ Wilson said. “You just know right away. It’s very easy to tell within a week if a walk-on is going to be able to get a scholarship. Not only did he have the talent – you could see the potential in him – but he also had the work ethic and the character.”

Tremayne and scout team quarterback Dylan Plautz had a quest to “embarrass” the defense and teamed together to regularly make spectacular head-turning plays against the first team.

“For someone who didn’t have a lot of film, he came in right away and there wasn’t a big difference between him and the other incoming freshmen on scholarship,” Shaw said. “He could hang with them. And just the number of acrobatic catches he made on a weekly basis … It was one of those things where the guys were like, ‘Oh, he just made two more today.’

“We guessed right.”

Tremayne and Wilson followed senior receiver Trenton Irwin around, “like little ducklings,” Wilson said, because they saw how hard Irwin worked and used him as their example.

Tremayne separated himself by exceeding expectations at every level, by maximizing what he could get out of his body through hard work. The other reason for his rise was talent.

“Everyone has a calling card in football — this is their trade and this is what they do exceptionally well,” Wilson said. “And from the first moment I played with Brycen in the first training camp practice, you immediately knew his calling card: He’s a magnet to the ball. Every ball that he thinks he should catch, he catches.”

Tremayne earned his scholarship before his sophomore year, before even catching a pass in a game. He gained 25 pounds between seasons and was exceptionally stronger. Tremayne first made an impact as a special teams “demon,” as Shaw described, and next as a red-zone threat much like J.J. Arcega-Whiteside before him, a big receiver with the ability to outjump and outfight a defender for the ball, or draw a flag in the process.

“Any ball that gets thrown at me is a good ball,” Tremayne said. “I don’t care where it is, I’m going to try to catch it. If it’s behind me a little bit and I don’t catch it, it’s my…