Thoughts on WR Coach Mike Brown
Marcus Freeman has found Chansi Stuckey’s replacement at wide receivers coach and it’s probably someone he would have loved to hire at the start of his Notre Dame tenure.
Mike Brown was on the staff with Freeman at Cincinnati when Brown took over from Joker Phillips in 2019 as the receivers coach. Brown also worked closely with Notre Dame quarterback coach Gino Guidugli at Cincinnati and was on the staff the same time as Mike Mickens, Chad Bowden, Max Bullough, and Brian Mason.
Brown was the first coach mentioned in my potential wide receiver coach candidates last week.
Freeman hasn’t been shy about hiring people he worked with at Cincinnati and it’s easy to see why. These coaches were a huge part of Cincinnati’s success while working for head coach Luke Fickell and they’ve done really well at Notre Dame too.
I think that those judging Brown’s ability as coach from his one year working at Wisconsin are misguided. To call it an unfavorable situation for Brown would be putting it mildly. Wisconsin was making the transition from decades of “man-ball” to an Air Raid scheme under new coordinator Phil Longo.
Unfortunately, they did not have the personnel in place to make that successful in year one and it might not be much better in year two. Longo couldn’t find the right mix of adapting to Wisconsin’s personnel and meshing that with his scheme. Throw in some key injuries and it was a frustrating season for the Badgers on offense.
Brown did have a nice success story in Will Pauling, though. He transferred over from Cincinnati and after catching only 13 balls for the Bearcats, he led Wisconsin in receiving and has really shined as a route runner out of the slot.
Brown did a very good job in his four seasons at Cincinnati, specifically in developing great athletes into productive receivers. His prized pupil was Alec Pierce, a freaky athlete who Freeman had tried to get to move to linebacker after this freshman season.
When Brown came in, he fought to keep Pierce at receiver and it worked out very well for the future second round pick. Notre Dame fans will recall Pierce having a monster game against the Irish in 2021 with six catches for 144 yards.
Pierce was a multi-sport athlete out of high school who was lightly recruited. Brown knew he had the speed (4.41 40) to win on go-routes, but players who can only run go-routes don’t get selected on day two of the NFL Draft. Pierce credits Brown as making him the player that he is today.
Brown was a 5-10 speed receiver and dual-threat quarterback at Liberty as a player in college and that made him uniquely qualified to develop elite track athletes like Tre Tucker (3rd round pick) and Tyler Scott (4th round pick). They were raw athletes who arrived at Cincinnati as gadget types who primarily played running back in high school.
Speed is the primary reason why both became big play receivers at Cincinnati, but Brown did a great job of getting them to harness that speed.
Here’s Tucker pressing the defender with his speed and getting him to open up before breaking inside on his post route.
This is Scott cooking a corner by doing something similar. He accelerates to top speed and then the jab step sells it to get the defender to open up the wrong way.
This one is specifically for my guy Greg Flammang with Tucker beating Kyle Hamilton in coverage, which is something we rarely saw at Notre Dame. Tucker does a great job adjusting to the football and we saw that with him frequently at Cincinnati.
This is what Tucker said when asked about being more than just a speed receiver during the lead up to the NFL Draft.
"Obviously I have speed," Tucker said. "But my coach in college (Cincinnati receivers coach Mike Brown) basically is like, 'You can't just run by everyone. You're going to get to the next level. Everyone's fast, but the really good people who do it at the next level, they're really good route runners.' So I take it very serious. It's very important to me, and it's something that I've worked really, really hard on and all through college."
Players like Jordan Faison and 2024 commits Cam Williams and Logan Saldate should be very excited about working with Brown given his track record in developing speed receivers. Transfer portal receiving target Kris Mitchell also could be someone who could shine while working with Brown.
Whenever someone is making the jump up from programs who don’t recruit at the same level as Notre Dame, it’s going to be an adjustment. It’s going to be wait and see with Brown in that area, although Freeman obviously prioritizes recruiting with his position coaches. The same kind of sentiments were shared about Guidugli when he arrived at Notre Dame and so far, so good for him with landing a commitment from 2025 quarterback Deuce Knight.
I think there is a lot to like about this addition to the staff for Notre Dame and the sooner Brown can officially be added to the staff, the better it will be for everyone involved.
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