From NFL to UFC: Former Jacksonville Jaguar Austen Lane appreciates coincidental full circle ahead of debut

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Few athletes make it to the professional level. Even fewer are able to make it in multiple sports.

For former NFL player Austen Lane, who played 28 of his 30 career games for the Jacksonville Jaguars, the coincidence is not lost. He makes his UFC debut Saturday in the same city he represented as a defensive end for three NFL seasons.

“To fight in Jacksonville, where my book really started here playing football, now another sport, it’s awesome,” Lane told MMA Junkie and other reporters at a UFC on ABC 5 news conference Wednesday.

Lane (12-3 MMA, 0-0 UFC) has been on the UFC roster since September, but has not competed due to injury. Somehow, the universe had it that his debut aligned with the promotion’s first Jacksonville event in 14 months.

Lane, 35, is a decade removed from his NFL career. The Jaguars have had turnover and turnover again, the familiar faces no longer rostered. Despite this, Lane maintained his presence as an ESPN affiliate sports radio host. The last time the promotion was in Jacksonville was UFC 273 in April 2022. Lane covered the event as a member of the media.

With an analytical and thoughtful sports mind, Lane has realized how a football mentality and muscle memory have worked against him at times. Over the years, he’s channeled the positive tendencies and erased the nontransferable habits from the days when he chased down quarterbacks.

Twenty fights (15 pro and five amateur), eight years, and two Dana White’s Contender Series appearances after he began his MMA journey, Lane will finally make his walk and have his chance to prove on the biggest stage he’s no longer a defensive end who can fight; he’s a fighter through and through.

“When I first started out as an amateur, as a football player, we’re kind of programmed from seven to 10 seconds,” Lane said. “It’s always go, go, go, go, go. That’s kind of how my amateur career started. It was like, ‘Well, there’s a guy in front of me. I better take him out ASAP.’ Then, I realized, as I progressed in my career and guys got tougher and more skilled, you can’t just do that all the time.

“I think with football, you can get away with being a little more emotional. You can have that rage a little more, all that good stuff. I think if you study the best UFC fighters right here now, the champions if you will, they may be emotional outside the cage. They may say the right things on the microphone. But once they step in that cage, they’re very calm, cool, and collected.”

Despite the serendipity of the moment, Lane said he thinks Saturday will just feel like any other fight. He’ll embrace the energy from the crowd that will be heavily in his favor as he takes on New Zealand’s Justin Tafa (6-3 MMA, 3-3 UFC), but it’ll be business as usual thereafter.

“I look at it from the energy of the crowd that’s going to happen on Saturday,” Lane said. “That’s going to be special. That’s going to be a moment. But as far as getting poetic or something big out of it, nah, not really, man. It could be the Vystar Veterans Memorial Arena. It could be in Georgia at a waffle house at 2 a.m. in the parking lot, bro. I don’t really care who I’m fighting. A fight is going to be a fight. So there’s nothing really poetic about it.”

For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC on ABC 5.