Sixth-year senior Jalen Wayne has seen his fair share of coaches and teammates, and there have been a lot of relationships for the wide receiver to keep track of throughout his collegiate career. These connections have helped Wayne reached the status he now has as one of the best wide receivers in South Alabama's short history.
 
However, it could have turned out very differently.
 
According to Wayne, football wasn't even his first sport of choice. "I was always a basketball player," he said. An injury he suffered in middle school almost drove him away from football for good.
 
"I hurt my knee in the eighth grade, and I was playing both football and basketball all the way up to that point," Wayne said. "But when I did that, I switched to just basketball because I didn't want to get hit like that anymore."
 
For three years, Wayne stayed away from the gridiron, and he was making a name for himself on the basketball court when he got some advice from friends that would turn out to shape the rest of his future.
 
"It was my friends and peers that told me I should go play football," according to Wayne. "They felt like with my size it would be good for me to play receiver, so I started playing football again my senior year of high school."
 
Head Coach Kane Wommack is one of the many who was thrilled with that decision by Wayne. "It's been really cool to be a part of his recruiting process," Wommack said. "He was a scout team guy for us in 2017. He was so athletic and so gifted when he first got in the program that I wanted to get him on defense and move him to safety."
 
"Coach Wommack switched me to defense when he was the defensive coordinator my freshman year," Wayne affirmed. "After the switch, I started trying to learn the defense for three or four weeks. Then, I finally got the confidence to tell Coach that I didn't like it and they switched me back."
 
Now the head coach of the Jags, Wommack is happy Jalen showed that confidence. "He needs the ball in his hands and he certainly made the right decision."
 
Moving back to receiver proved to be a challenge in its own right for Wayne.
 
"I was playing slot receiver my sophomore year, and Kawaan Baker switched to playing slot receiver," Wayne said. "You know who KB is, so it wasn't that easy trying to get on the field behind him, so I redshirted that year."
 
Although going against each other for playing time, Wayne, Baker and Jalen Tolbert became a tight-knit group in the wide receiver room.
 
Wayne recognizes how much that relationship has meant to him and to his career.
 
"For KB and Jalen to open their arms and bring me into the trio and mold me into who I am was great for me is something I never took for granted," Wayne added.
His relationship with Tolbert became particularly strong and important to him.
 
"I learned a lot from both of them, especially from Tolbert," Wayne said. "I learned that you need to have tunnel vision. There's a lot of stuff that you don't need to worry about and a lot of stuff you do need to worry about when it comes to the game of football. He was really good at differentiating the two and making sure that we were focused on the game. He was also really big on scouting the corners and understanding their tendencies, so he was really intellectual in his approach to the game."
 
In fact, Wayne still talks with Tolbert regularly, and he has his eyes on Tolbert's name in the South Alabama record books. "I know I'm not going to get his career yards, because that is untouchable. I am trying to take his touchdown record right now."
 
His relationship with his teammates wasn't the only one that Wayne began to cultivate during his sophomore year. A family member whose resume on the football field speaks for itself: former NFL receiver Reggie Wayne.
 
Jalen says he first found out he was related to the All-Pro receiver during the 2007 Super Bowl, when Reggie caught a 53-yard touchdown pass from Peyton Manning. Although they are technically second cousins, Jalen calls him uncle because he has become like a father figure for him.
 
"We actually connected my sophomore year," Jalen said of he and Reggie. "Since then, he's been building up on me and stacking information in my mind. Every weekend, he'll text me about the defense I'm going up against and how to prepare. He's another strong connection that has been in my life."
 
Along with the NFL Hall of Fame finalist, another former great wide receiver is teaching Jalen how to improve his performance. Wide receiver coach Michael Smith, who played for four years at Kansas State and was a two-time All-American at the position, has been on South Alabama's staff for the past two seasons and is making a huge difference for Jalen.
 
"My relationship with Coach Smith is a big one. He has taught me so much this season," says Wayne. "He shows us his film all the time. It's good to see a coach like that. It's so much easier to learn from a guy that can pull up their stuff on YouTube and you can see what they did."
 
"He is a pleasure to coach," Smith said. "He's tuned in. He's really quiet in meetings, but he pays attention and puts himself in position to perform at the level he is performing this year."
 
Smith's history has also created a lighthearted rivalry between the two. Wayne says he is the better receiver of the two, but Smith isn't sold on it quite yet. "He's got me on touchdowns, but not until he catches 179 passes for 2,457 yards will he be better than me."
 
Wayne has become the connecting piece from the successful wide receiver groups of the past to the current group, and his head coach recognizes the positive impact he is having so far this year.
 
"The previous wide receiver room set a culture of great players that could execute and do things at a high level, and there was confidence in that" Wommack said. "The confidence that you saw in Kawaan Baker and then Jalen Tolbert has carried into Jalen Wayne. Now, it's in Caullin Lacy and Devin Voisin. I think Jalen is continuing that mindset in the wide receiver room of how locked in you have to be and how detailed you have to be to execute in this offense."
 
The current trio of wide receivers is helping lead a prolific offense at South Alabama. Against ULM earlier this season, the three became the first trio of wide outs in program history to each record 100-yard efforts in the same game.
 
"It reminds me of when Baker, Tolbert and I were playing," says Wayne. "It's definitely fun. I didn't really see it looking like it does right now, but [Voisin and Lacy] have grown way faster than I thought they would this season."
 
Wayne's evolution into a leader not only among the receivers, but the entire team, goes hand-in-hand with his on-field production.
 
In fact, it's not really something that Jalen himself couldn't have really predicted happening until it showed up this season.
 
"I never saw it coming. I had to try and be better and see what I had to fix," he said. "After I fixed all the things about myself, I started to see it more clearly that I could become what I am today."
 
"To watch his maturity and see how the production on the field is responding to that maturity I think is really special," said Wommack. "He's setting the example for the next generation. The consistency that he brings every day, those players look to a guy that is producing at a high level and that has played a long time in this building. Especially when they see him produce on gameday, and then he does the same consistent job over and over again. He does the little details, he shows up on time, takes care of his body and he stays locked-in mentally at practice."
 
Wommack isn't the only coach that has seen Wayne's leadership improve this season, as Smith has seen it as well. "He's learned how to be a leader. Knowing when to speak, what to say, how to say it and when to say it in front of others or privately. I think that's something he took from Tolbert and Baker."
 
Another coach that has helped Wayne reach new heights this season has been offensive coordinator Major Applewhite.
 
"Coach Applewhite has a standard, and I definitely don't like letting him down," Wayne said. "I knew the first season might be a little rocky. I could see glimpses of us being great, but I knew we would need more time. This season, with the standard that we have, we know we are better than everybody. Coach Applewhite and Coach Smith tell us to go out and get what's ours every weekend. The whole team has fallen in love with the process."
 
Something that has made the standard set by the coaches more attainable for Jalen has been the addition of quarterback Carter Bradley. "[Bradley] is detail-oriented. He calls me almost every day," Wayne explained. "We talk about plans, what throws he sees that are going to be open and what plays he thinks are going to be big shots or touchdowns."
 
The strong relationship between Bradley and Wayne, and by extension the rest of the receivers, has led the Jaguars' offense to 32.3 points per game and 265.4 passing yards per game.
 
"Having a dude like that, who can put the ball at every spot on the field; it just makes it exciting," Wayne said. "He's the first quarterback I've had that really connected with me like this."
 
That relationship has certainly provided dividends for the Jaguars this season. With at least four games left in a Jaguar uniform, Wayne will certainly leave his name etched among the wide receiver greats at South. Entering Saturday's 4 p.m. contest versus Texas State at Hancock Whitney Stadium, Wayne already ranks among the career leaders in several categories as he is third in receptions (140), fourth in 100-yard receiving games with four and eighth all-time in all-purpose yards (1,769).
 
In South Alabama's come-from-behind victory at Georgia Southern last weekend, Wayne (1,833) passed Baker in career receiving yards to move into second place in the category. His first-quarter touchdown put the Jags on the board and was the 12^th receiving touchdown of his career, tying him with another Jaguar great, Gerald Everett, for fifth all-time in the category.
 
This fall, Wayne leads the Jags and ranks seventh in the Sun Belt in receiving yards (670), eighth in receiving yards per game with 74.4, and his seven touchdown receptions are tied for second-most among league receivers.
 
Wayne and his teammates have helped lead the team to the program's most wins since the 2010 season and the most since transitioning to Division I, become bowl eligible for the first time since 2016 and just a half game back of Troy in the SBC West Division standings.
 
Wayne recognizes how much the friendships he's developed with others have positively affected both his career and his growth as a person. He says that the standard Wommack and Applewhite hold him to has helped him grow into a better person.
 
Once his playing career is over, Wayne wants to create more positive relationships by being a local basketball coach.  
 
"I definitely want to come back to this city and coach high school basketball," Wayne says. "I know so many kids around this city and they look up to me. I used to coach AAU basketball with a friend, and it's fun and something I would like to get into."
 
It hasn't always been easy for Jalen. He admits he's had to go through a lot of tough growth to get to this point. "I've had a long career," Wayne says. "It hasn't always been the greatest moments, it hasn't always been in my favor, but my mom has always taught me to stick through stuff. I just kept doing that and it got me through it."
 
Jalen Wayne's ability to stick through the challenges and the relationships he's had in his development have turned him into one of the best wide receivers in the history of South Alabama football.
 
But Wayne isn't satisfied with just that. He still has his eyes set on making it to the NFL, following in the footsteps of "Uncle Reggie" and putting into question who the better "Wayne" is.