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University of Washington football followers knew him as Jaivion Green, but he's much less formal now at Stanford, answering simply to Jay.

No matter what you call him, he's been a productive defensive back.

Green has gone from a two-year reserve cornerback for the Huskies and become an eight-game starting safety and nickelback in his second season for the Cardinal (4-7 overall, 3-5 ACC).

On Saturday, the Houston product scooped up a fumble and returned it 49 yards for a second-quarter touchdown for a 7-0 lead in a 31-10 win over California in Palo Alto.

The play was especially memorable because Andrew Luck, the former Cardinal and NFL quarterback and now Stanford general manager, was doing an ESPN TV sideline interview at the time and broke away to exhort Green on as the defender raced past him.

Green came to the UW as part of Kalen DeBoer's first recruiting class in Montlake and appeared in nine games as a freshman in 2022 and all 15 on the way to the CFP national championship game as a sophomore.

In fact, he was the only Husky from Houston on the roster when his team played Michigan in his hometown with everything on the line.

Shortly after DeBoer left for Alabama, Green was part of the player exodus out of the UW and he ended up at Stanford.

Yet he appeared in just four games for the Cardinal in 2024 before he was lost for the season with a lower-body injury that wasn't spelled out.

The 6-foot-3, 215-pound Green was able to obtain a medical redshirt because he didn't surpass the maximum number of games he could play and preserve another year of eligibility.

For the UW, he ironically had a Husky-best 3 tackles in a 42-33 victory over Stanford in Palo Alto in 2023. Similarly, he had his biggest hit at the UW on a Cardinal wide receiver (shown above) in a 40-22 victory in Seattle.

Green was an interesting player for DeBoer's staff because he wasn't heavily recruited, but he was pressed into duty right away as a freshman cornerback because teammates such as Jordan Perryman and Mishael Powell became injured and held up well.

He always has been known as someone who plays fearlessly. He ultimately was rewarded at the end of the 2022 season with the Travis Springs Award, given to the Huskies' top freshman player.

This article first appeared on Washington Huskies on SI and was syndicated with permission.

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