Jaylen Thomas has built a reputation for making the difficult look routine, and at Washington State that now includes backflips after big plays.
The redshirt sophomore safety from Los Gatos, Calif., has wasted no time becoming a key piece for the Cougars after moving into a starting role. In just two games, he has already shown the kind of range and instinct that can flip a game, and he put it on full display Saturday at Kansas State.
Late in the first half, Thomas tracked Avery Johnson’s eyes, jumped a pass and raced 50 yards for a pick-six that pulled WSU within two scores. Then came the celebration. With a little room in the back of the end zone, he stepped back, launched himself and tucked into a backflip - the same kind of move he says he first tried when he was about 7 years old.
“It was probably off of something too,” Thomas laughed. “My mom was probably scared to death.”
That wasn’t the only interception Thomas delivered in the quarter. Earlier, he snagged another pass for his second pick of the half, making him the first WSU player with multiple interceptions in a game since Sam Lockett III had two against Arizona in November 2022.
He also became the first Cougar defender to have multiple interceptions in a game with at least one returned for a touchdown since Armani Marsh in the 2021 Apple Cup. And with the pick-six, Thomas was the first WSU player to score that way since Taariq Al-Uqdah against Oregon State in 2024.
The performance earned Thomas Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Week honors, and the numbers backed up the impact. He posted a Pro Football Focus coverage grade of 85.9, which ranked No. 12 nationally among all defensive backs in Week 2 of college football.
What makes the start even more interesting is that Thomas is doing it at a new spot. At San Jose State, where he spent his first two college seasons, he played cornerback.
Last fall, he started all 12 games there, finishing with 59 tackles and six pass breakups. But corner was new to him too - he had never played the position before that season.
Growing up, Thomas bounced around everywhere in Pop Warner, taking snaps at quarterback, linebacker and safety. So his return to safety at Washington State has felt familiar in some ways, even if there was still a learning curve.
“It was a little bit of an adjustment, just having more of a role of communicating checks and just understanding formations and what can come,” Thomas said, “as opposed to just focusing on one receiver in man-to-man. So I guess you could see it differently from that angle.
But other than that, I feel like DB is DB. You just make plays on the ball and make tackles when you need to.”
His path to this point has been built on that same willingness to adapt. Near the end of his true freshman season in 2024, as San Jose State prepared for the Hawaii Bowl, coaches approached him about trying corner.
“I was like, ‘All right, any way to get on the field, I’ll do it,’ ” Thomas said. “And then that kinda just fell into the following year, and then I earned a spot to play corner.”
That flexibility helped shape the move to Pullman as well. Thomas was open to changing positions, open to leaving home, and open to transferring to WSU.
The adjustment to the Palouse came with its own challenges, but he said he likes the quieter setting there. Fellow safety Jeremiah Bernard, who spent his first two seasons at FCS Cal Poly, is making a similar adjustment.
The Cougars are 0-2, their first 0-2 start in a decade, but Thomas has given them something to build around. His play against Kansas State stood out in a game where the defense struggled, and WSU now heads into a matchup with FCS Duquesne looking to get things moving in the right direction.
For Thomas, that often starts with a jump - sometimes straight up, and sometimes backward.
“It’s kinda like a competitive edge that we all have,” Thomas said of his team’s defense. “We’re always kinda just meeting with our coaches, and we’re like, ‘dang, he got a meeting in, but I didn’t,’ in that sort of sense.
But we’re all kinda rooting for each other in the same way. So I guess it’s just all just putting it in and knowing that your brother’s putting it in work.
So it’s like, ‘OK, I gotta do my part to get better and be my best.’ ”
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Ashlyn Dvorak was at the center of that effort, turning aside a career-high 13 shots to help keep Washington State in front long enough for the decisive moment to arrive in the 66th minute. The eventual game-winner came off a Seattle U own goal, but the broader takeaway for the Cougars was less about how the second goal went in and more about how they hung on when the match demanded it. [Read more 🡒]