- The Kaysville defensive end led the Big Sky in tackles for loss and left Weber State a two-time All-Big Sky pick — 138 tackles, 30 TFL, 12.5 sacks — before transferring up to Wyoming for 2025.
- Jackson Gilkey, Brayden Wilson, Weber State Football connect back to Weber State University and the wider football picture.
- The story is backed by 2 sources and a visible last-verified date.
May 19, 2026
June 3, 2026
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Brayden Wilson led the Big Sky in tackles for loss as a Weber State Football defensive end in 2023, racking up 16.5 TFL — a total that also ranked 11th nationally across all FCS football. He added 7.5 sacks in the same season, earned All-Big Sky honors, and started 11 games. The Kaysville, Utah, product spent his Weber State years giving the Wildcats a Davis County route into the program's defensive front before taking that résumé up a level.
His full Weber State career line — 138 tackles, 30 tackles for loss, and 12.5 sacks across a two-time All-Big Sky run — places Wilson among the program's most-productive defensive linemen of the era.
Kaysville to Ogden
Wilson is from Kaysville, Utah, the Davis County city that sits between Salt Lake County and Weber County. His prep football came at Farmington High School, the relatively new Davis School District program that opened in 2018 and quickly built up its football pipeline.
The drive from Farmington High to the Weber State campus measures roughly 20 minutes north on I-15. That makes Wilson one of the program's clearer in-state developmental routes — Davis County prep football to Ogden's FCS program.
Davis County's football corridor includes Davis High, Northridge, Layton, Syracuse, and Farmington. The county has produced consistent college football signings over the past two decades, and Weber State has been one of the regular beneficiaries of that pipeline. Wilson's emergence as a Big-Sky-leading TFL producer adds the most recent name to the corridor's college lineage.
The 2023 season
Wilson's breakthrough season was 2023. The Big Sky's tackle-for-loss leader from that year, his 16.5 TFL placed him atop the conference's defensive disruption stat and ranked him 11th nationally across FCS. The 7.5 sacks tied him for the conference's top defensive-end sack-production tier.
The second-team All-Big Sky selection followed. Big Sky All-Conference selections are voted by the league's head coaches, which means the rest of the conference's defensive coordinators identified Wilson as one of the league's best defensive ends after a full season of game-planning against him.
The 11 starts in 2023 represent a full conference workload. FCS programs typically play 11-game regular seasons, which means Wilson started every available game during the breakout campaign.
The career production line
The full career line earns the placement, and it tells the same story across phases: a defensive end producing tackle-for-loss totals at that rate carries particular value in modern college football, where the position has become more specialized around pass-rushing rather than run-stopping. Wilson's production showed up against both the run and the pass — TFL totals include both run stops and pass-rush negative plays.
For the Big Sky specifically, defensive-end production matters because the conference's offenses lean heavily on quarterback-run and play-action concepts. A defensive end who can disrupt those plays before they develop forces the offense into more predictable looks for the rest of the defense.
The move to Wyoming
Wilson's Weber State career closed with a transfer up a level. He left Ogden for the University of Wyoming, joining the Cowboys' Mountain West program as a senior defensive end for the 2025 season — the FBS step an FCS résumé like his is built to earn. Weber State's own 2025 defensive coverage noted his departure, alongside fellow defensive end Kemari Munier-Bailey, as one of the offseason's significant losses.
The transfer is the natural endpoint of the Davis County-to-Ogden story: a local prospect develops at the FCS level, leads his conference in a marquee disruption stat, and uses that production to move into a Mountain West program. Wilson did the developmental work at Weber State; Wyoming is where the next chapter plays out.
The Davis County football pipeline
Davis County produces FCS football signings at a higher rate than any other Utah county that does not house an FBS program. Weber State has been one of the regular beneficiaries, but BYU, Utah State, Utah Tech, and SUU have all signed Davis County products over recent cycles.
Farmington High specifically opened in 2018 and has built up its football program quickly. Wilson is among the school's earliest All-Big Sky honorees, which helps cement the program's reputation inside the Davis School District network.
The local recruiting reach also matters for Weber State. Wilson's name on the All-Big Sky team is the kind of recognition that helps the Wildcats' staff close the next round of Davis County prep signings.
Key facts: Brayden Wilson
- Player: Brayden Wilson, defensive end
- Hometown / prep: Kaysville, Utah — Farmington High School
- Weber State career: 138 tackles, 30 TFL, 12.5 sacks; two-time All-Big Sky
- 2023 peak: Led the Big Sky with 16.5 TFL (11th in FCS) and added 7.5 sacks
- Now: Transferred to Wyoming (Mountain West) as a senior defensive end for 2025
- Pipeline: Among Farmington High's earliest All-Big Sky honorees (school opened 2018)
What's next
The next measurement window is the FBS jump itself — whether Wilson's Big Sky disruption production carries against Mountain West offenses at Wyoming. A defensive end with 30 career TFL and 12.5 sacks at the FCS level arrives at the higher level with a proven role, and his 2025 Cowboys snaps are the next concrete data points.
The Davis County development story is on the record either way. Weber State built the résumé that earned the move, and Wilson's name on a two-time All-Big Sky line is the kind of recognition that keeps helping the Wildcats' staff close the next round of Davis County prep signings — even after the player who set the example moved on.
