LSU football linebacker Princeton Malbrue suffered a season-ending torn ACL during the season opener against the USC Trojans last September, which completely blindsided and prematurely ended this athlete’s aspirations of putting together a productive season.
Entering his third season in the purple and gold after transferring from Northwestern State, the Carencro-native was emotional coming to terms with this devastating, life-changing injury.
“I have never in my life missed a year of any type of sport, yet again football the sport that I’ve been playing all my life,” Malbrue said. “The doctors and trainers saw [my knee] and basically solidified an ACL [injury]… my heart dropped.”
And rubbing more salt into his metaphorical wound, Malbrue finessed his way back to the sidelines on crutches during the second half of the game to witness the Tigers’ suffer its first loss of the regular season by a final score of 27-20.
With his family attending to watch him play under the lights inside Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, emotions quickly escalated amongst Malbrue and his deeply concerned family members.
“After the game, I saw my parents come down [for] the first time. I remember it was just like a full force of emotion had broken out,” Malbrue said. “And we embraced each other, hugged, prayed together, and said everything was going to be okay… I told them that I’m going to fight.”
When facing such an extensive and tedious recovery process to return to the field, Malbrue has developed an interesting pastime to keep his spirits up in the wake of such disheartening unfolding of events:
Content creation.
Boasting over 115,000 TikTok followers and generating more than 9.3 million likes across his extensive portfolio of videos, the reasoning behind Malbrue’s decision to pursue the realm of social media is actually quite simple.
“I remember, at the time, I was, like, really bored. Summer in Louisiana as a football player is terrible,” Malbrue said. “I knew I had to do something else… so my roommate Damian Ramos came to me [and] we made a video that was a linebacker versus kicker throwing challenge.”
After publishing this random challenge video, the success of this content piece spread like wildfire. Malbrue would eventually see himself on the front page of SportsCenter, ESPN, Overtime, and various other prominent sports social media pages with millions of followers.
“After seeing the video on SportsCenter, I was like okay…. lets do another one,” Malbrue said.
Faced with undergoing strenuous rehab sessions to nurture his previously torn ACL, Malbrue constructed a proactive idea for the direction of some of his content moving forward.
Entering uncharted territory in the realm of recovering from an injury of this magnitude, he started documenting his journey on his social media platforms. Immediately, Malbrue started gaining traction and unwavering support from those encountering similar obstacles in their own personal recovery process and from individuals who had already completed the healing process.
‘When I first hurt myself, I did not take into consideration the amount of people out there [who] has been through that same injury process,” Malbrue said.
With this in mind, a couple of people have since reached out to Malbrue personally and described how receiving season-ending injuries (such as a torn ACL) caused them to contemplate harming themselves and potentially committing suicide.
However, seeing his month-by-month journey/progress reassured these individuals that it’s okay to have trouble approaching such an uncomfortable topic and that taking baby steps is necessary to return to health from both a physical and mental perspective.
Moving forward, with the establishment of such an expansive fan base and overall following, endorsement deals and potential sponsorship opportunities are expected to arise in abundance.
Starting in July 2021, student athletes could begin receiving compensation for their name, image, and likeness (NIL). When pitching and negotiating NIL deals, Malbrue represents himself and exemplifies effective leadership skills while developing relationships with organizations.
Malbrue has partnered with the following companies for NIL deals: John Deere, Raising Cane’s, Postgame, Smoothie King, Hollister, Steve Madden, Jewlr, Hey Dudes, Bass Pro Shops, and many more highly reputable companies with extravagant products.
However, one deal that Malbrue has secured is unique.
“I also partnered with Our Mom’s Restaurant and Bar, down here in Baton Rouge, and they gave me my own burger,” Malbrue said. “It’s delicious; [everyone] should try it out.”
Found on the secret menu: The “Brue Burger” consists of a sweet sourdough bun, juicy half-pound patty with condiments such as onion jam, fried jalapeños, homemade barbecue sauce, and fresh lettuce.
Take my word for it, it tastes just as good as it looks.
Expected to be at full strength for the 2025 season, it’s only a matter of time before Malbrue returns to roaming the field and making tackles under the lights of Death Valley.
