Sure thing, and welcome to the board
I'll admit I knew little about Jackson as well. I believe he first surfaced as a tough freshman (or sophomore?) runner in 2004, backing up Cory Ross - but 2004 was a very, very forgettable year here, and I don't remember much of it. The next year he was basically out with injury.
At the beginning of 2006, we had four talented guys at RB - Marlon Lucky, our much-anticipated 5-star RB then in his sophomore year; Cody Glenn, a big, bruising back who had proven himself in short yardage situations. Incoming also was Kenny Wilson, a speedy, exciting juco back who broke off an insane 60-yard touchdown run in practice that involved shaking just about every defender on the field...Jackson was kind of an afterthought, at least initially.
There were some nice, feel-good reports about how he was picking up the system fast, had advanced in leaps and bounds - this was when he was considered, at least I believe, as the #4 back out of those 4. Of course we all thought we had a 4-man horse at running back; just that Jackson would have been the 4th and it was really nice to hear that even he had come a long way. Essentially, "Man, this is going to be Marlon's breakout year; Glenn's a beast, Kenny's tearing it up...and oh, look, Brandon Jackson's much improved too."
The first few games were basically rotation (serious RBBC) between the four guys; they all had 100-yard games within the first few weeks, if I'm not mistaken. Then as conference play wore on, Jackson started carrying more and more of the load, eventually taking over as starter and carrying the team through the rest of the season. He was an incredibly tough runner (I think Lucky and Wilson were regarded more as our speed/elusive guys) with the knowledge of the offense and blitz-picking skills that we needed for our offense. Essentially, he came from nowhere to become "the whole package" for us.
And I didn't really even know what was going on, even during the season - had no clue just how far he had progressed (only that he had taken over the majority of the RB load), until he declared for the NFL draft.
From an NFL standpoint, there are injury concerns and of course he's unproven...I've heard questions about how much a dominant O-line skewed his highlight reel...but all that aside, you're getting a solid back and an outstanding guy. I've heard others on the board saying he may be the most complete back we've *ever* produced to the NFL, and that's really saying a lot.
