Andre Brown Turning NFL Heads

'08 Football27

Let this one be a great testament – and therefore impactful recruiting marketing for recruiting – for Coach O’Brien and staff.

Just a week ago Ken Tysiac posted a blog entry regarding the recent development of NC State’s Andre Brown into a much more complete football player. So, it is only natural that after Brown’s complete performance on Saturday that he would be mentioned in this article in Sports Illustrated as a riser in the 2009 NFL draft.

Andre Brown/RB/North Carolina State: Brown, who instantly impressed NFL scouts as a freshman, has his game back on track after a poor junior season. He’s a big-bodied ball carrier that also produces as a pass-catcher. His two touchdowns and rushing average of 6.1 yards per carry were instrumental in helping the Wolfpack knock off previously unbeaten East Carolina

The following is taken from the N&O’s blog entry last week. I guess I couldn’t agree more with Tysiac’s perspective of the situation because before I remembered to link the entry I had already typed the following metaphor in this entry’s initial draft: “Brown wasn’t hitting the home runs that he used to, but his on base percentage has gone sky high. (If only Billy Beane was an NFL general manager!)”

Brown led N.C. State with 64 rushing yards and four catches for 51 yards in last week’s loss at Clemson. More importantly, he avoided the temptation to bounce out to the perimeter after contact, which has plagued him in the past.

“He was running tough inside,” O’Brien said. “He was getting tough yards. He was going forward. He caught the ball and got hit and made yards after contact. So he was a much more complete back as far as I was concerned Saturday than at any time since I’ve seen him here.”

But last season, he was reluctant to lower his shoulder and get the tough yards O’Brien wanted. To use baseball as an analogy, Brown was swinging for the fences too often and striking out a lot.

“Instead of dancing around and trying to get to the boundary as fast as you can, you go forward, take what you can get and keep the chains moving,” O’Brien said. “Because a lot of times in this league, if you can’t outrun guys bouncing to the boundary, you end up losing yards.”

About StateFans

'StateFansNation' is the shared profile used by any/all of the dozen or so authors that contribute to the blog. You may not always agree with us, but you will have little doubt about where we stand on most issues. Please follow us on Twitter and FaceBook

'08 Football

27 Responses to Andre Brown Turning NFL Heads

  1. Greywolf 09/24/2008 at 1:02 AM #

    I never would have thought it but ECU looked like they had a “drug” problem Saturday. In the OT Andre met the ECU tacklers at the 5 yard line and “drug” ’em into the end zone.

    SFN, delete this if you like but it was at the bottom of the “Yates injury” thread and I thought it was too funny to be overlooked.

    highstick
    Sep 22nd, 2008 at 9:12 pm
    “The pine trees surrounding Kenan would have been prettier except for Yate’s broken tootsie!

    So what’s “Dances with Sheep” gonna do now?”

  2. Ismael 09/24/2008 at 2:10 AM #

    I actually think AB is gonna get better as this season moves along. He looks great running the ball and I don’t know that ive seen him have a negative run since the early part of the Carolina (south) game. He is very much the prototypical NFL running back. Jason Swepson (cool name) has alot to do with that, kudos to Jason Swepson.

    On another note, did you see when Eugene got his 3rd or 4th carry, he tried to bounce it to the outside and lost two, and I just thought, just wait till Eugene gets back to form, i think those are just old habits for RB’s in high school where they could just outrun all the refrigerators they played against. Eugene never did that kind of running last year, he was always straight ahead.

  3. SEAT.5.F.2 09/24/2008 at 7:15 AM #

    I have been shocked this season how well we have ran between the Tackles this season. Bedic’s (or JV), Larsen (or Larbee) and Green have been physical all season in the rushing attack. It wasn’t until the ECU game that I thought they created a pocket. Has anyone seen a substitute for Green or McCuller enter the game since Couch went down? Hopefully Roberts has gained the trust of the staff enough to give these guys a rest.

    Brown is a special player, and Swepson is a solid backfield coach. Maybe one of the more underated aspect of TOB/Bible’s team’s up at BC was a steady but not explosive production. A smart QB can use that as an asset and consistently move the chains and get the TOP and field position in your favor. Beck has been the round peg in this square whole.

    Brown can have a really amazing year. I would like to look up his status in terms of career yards as it stacks up among Wolfpack best.

  4. PackerInRussia 09/24/2008 at 7:31 AM #

    A little trash talking before the game?

    GURU ‘U?’ Because of the success against West Virginia the past two years, coaches from different colleges visited USF’s defensive staff in the summer for advice on stopping the spread offense.

    Last week, N.C. State coach Tom O’Brien said he saw no reason to check with USF’s coaches.

    “Did you watch them against Oregon?” said O’Brien, referring to USF’s 56-21 Sun Bowl loss. “Go look at that game. That was the spread that they were defending. I’m not saying anything about South Florida’s defense, but if they’re the gurus, we’d better go somewhere else.”

    USF defensive coordinator Wally Burnham responded to O’Brien’s quote Tuesday.

    “Here’s the way I feel about it,” Burnham said. “He’s right, we’re not gurus. On the other hand, we try to handle things professionally and not say anything … with class, not say anything about anyone else’s coaching staff. He can say what he wants to.

    “The other thing, I forget what bowl game they were in. That’s all I’ve got to say.”

    http://www2.tbo.com/content/2008/sep/24/sp-mompremier-shaken-after-injuring-neck/
    Article found on packpride.com

  5. Par Shooter 09/24/2008 at 8:05 AM #

    I listened to the audio and TOB was laughing as he said it and it really sounded like he was mocking the reporter more than anything. Intended to be harmless but looks worse in print than it sounded. I guess their defensive coordinator takes his title very seriously since he seems pretty defensive on this one. It was near the end of the PC and he’d endured about 1,000 stupid questions from those bonehead reporters. It doesn’t really matter – it’s not like they weren’t going to bring their best anyway.

  6. RAWFS 09/24/2008 at 8:08 AM #

    That’s a surprising bit of talk from Coach O’Brien. The quote from the article sounded more (dare I say it?) Chuck-like than TOB-like.

    One might infer a lot of things about that, and I am sure the ‘bottom of the story’ would be pretty darned interesting.

  7. GAWolf 09/24/2008 at 8:32 AM #

    I love the comment about staying classy and then taking a walking away cheap shot. It’s like my wife saying, “I’m not going to say anything else about it, but….” It’s a ridiculous way to approach an argument/discussion. If you’ve got something to say, say it. Don’t try to church it up with a facade of how noble you are. Now he looks like a wuss, a holier-than-thou liar, and an idiot.

  8. Noah 09/24/2008 at 8:33 AM #

    I have mentioned this before, but I have a friend who works in the scouting department for the Panthers. Before this year, he told me that NFL folks didn’t like Brown’s tendency to bounce around. They thought he needed to be more of a “downhill runner.”

    You hear that a lot. It means, “Get your ass up into the hole and take what you can and stop dancing in the backfield.”

    Some guys, like an Anthony Barbour or an Antone Smith at FSU, you want to get outside. That’s where they do their damage. But Brown needs to get into the line, even when there’s not a hole, and get the two or three yards that he can.

    He’s doing that MUCH more this year and it looks like scouts are noticing.

  9. GAWolf 09/24/2008 at 8:34 AM #

    And the really funny thing is… we don’t even run the spread… so it’s not bulletin board material but rather pointless, worthless dicta. And I think that’s the point TOB was trying to get to the reporter who asked the completely irrelevant question.

  10. Ismael 09/24/2008 at 9:39 AM #

    Some USF-homer on the tampa newspaper website took Ray Michel’s comments totally out of context and was trying to make a big deal about it, i tried to set’em straight, bunch of homer’s. They might be akin to EZU fans, an up-and-coming program whose fans act like they’re Notre Dame of the last 50 years or something.

    Reading those TOB comments, i actually couldn’t believe they were from him, but if he sounds sarcastic/joking as others suggest, then i could totally see it. In the interview on WRAL he had glowing things to say about USF and how they are big time and said the coach was doing a great job – what you’d expect. I don’t care about USF anyways – “Go Deep Harrison”.

  11. phillypacker 09/24/2008 at 9:41 AM #

    Regardless, TOB has no business insulting other coaching staffs. Sets a poor example for his players and reflects poorly on the university. Period.

  12. Noah 09/24/2008 at 9:42 AM #

    O’Brien wasn’t insulting anyone. He was joking arounda at a presser.

  13. stormin norman 09/24/2008 at 9:44 AM #

    Don’t give too much credit to anybody but the Lord and Andre Brown. If we give him a chance, he could get 1000 yards. I remember when we signed him (the second time) with Baker, everybody was singing Baker’s praise. I talked to the NCHSAA official, he said “Baker is unbelievable, but he is NO Andre Brown”. AB is doing what he is told about staying inside the tackles, but make no mistake – he is a stallion. His 16 yard run to the outside against ECU was incredible. If he could landed on his feet when he leaped them and continuing run – it could have been a play of the year. Instead, he just lined back up and went for another 10.

  14. primacyone 09/24/2008 at 9:54 AM #

    I had a vivid flashback of Ted Brown when Andre made those last two runs versus ECU.

    One of my most vidid memories of NC State Football was when I was about five or six years old. I believe it was the Peen State game, but Ted ran for a 40-50 yard touch down run. He carried one defender on his shoulder for about 40 of those yards and he drug another defender hanging onto his ankle for about 25 of those yard.

    Everybody in CF, including the remaining players on the field were just standing still watching the whole thing unfold. It was incredible. I remember it like it was yesterday.

    Those two runs by Andre last week were very mucy like the way Ted would run.

  15. RAWFS 09/24/2008 at 10:07 AM #

    Brown and Ted Brown share more than a last name — Andre often does make one recall the greatest running back in the history of the Wolfpack program.

    Andre just needs to keep doing what he’s doing this year and he’ll earn a living playing on Sundays. While he’s turned his feet north and south, he certainly hasn’t lost the ability to break a run off and head to the end zone. In other words, when Andre Brown gets space, he can resemble a Knowshon Moreno as well.

    Speaking of Moreno, anyone who missed his flying touchdown leap against Arizona State last Saturday night needs to Google up a video of it pronto. That run was a work of art.

  16. Greywolf 09/24/2008 at 10:30 AM #

    When Brown cut it up on his OT TD run, on film I didn’t see the seam he saw. No way he would have scored running where I thought he would or could have ran. He truly did look like an NFL RB hitting a seam and blowing through, driving into the end zone.
    BTW I was entertaining myself watching a YouTube bit, “Hardest Hits.” 95% were defensive hits of course. TA McClendon hitting two defenders was in there. Amazing. What a waste.

  17. ChiefJoJo 09/24/2008 at 10:32 AM #

    ^ Not sure about the Moreno comparison. KM is more explosive, and shifty. Probably the best RB in the nation at this point.

    I hope this is Andre’s year. I always thought before this year that he did not play like a big 230-lb back. He has finally made the transition to become a physical downhill runner, and is more of a pass catching threat too (see ECU). The final step to potential NFL success will be for him show he can stay healthy all season. I have no doubts that once the season is over, he we be able to run well in NFL workouts.

    He’s looked a step slow this year, but that may be the injury (limited workouts) that held him out in the spring and summer. Didn’t he run a 4.3-something at the Hargrave combine in ’04? Probably bogus, but I suspect he could run a sub-4.5 with a couple of months of performance training. A good season of durabale physical play plus a sub-4.5 forty might push him into a first day pick (round 3/4).

  18. choppack1 09/24/2008 at 10:36 AM #

    Let’s not forget that Andre was probably very geeked up to beat the Pirates. He’s from Greenville. Regarding Brown – in high school – he was awesome. In the state championship game – he totally shredded a very talented Mt. Tabor defense. In college, he was probably hurt by those 2 breakaway runs early in his career.

    He has looked better this year than in the past. He’s run hard vs. ECU and USC. It would be great if we could get him some space to run Saturday evening, because we’ll need it.

  19. SuperStuff 09/24/2008 at 10:44 AM #

    I can only imagine how much more production AB could have gotten last year and this year if he was 100% healthy.

  20. McPete 09/24/2008 at 11:13 AM #

    i don’t know superstuff, last years’ o-line looked like dog crap. this year i think it’s been much better so far. and as long as defenses have to respect our passing game, it should be a strength for us.

  21. Noah 09/24/2008 at 11:42 AM #

    Andre Brown is the big back that Dick Sheridan was always looking for and never found.

  22. wufpaxno1 09/24/2008 at 12:24 PM #

    choppack1, If Beck can hook up with one of our young receivers deep early, it might loosen things up a bit and give AB the spacing he needs. That and being able to utilize Bryan and Eugene in the flats. Make ’em respect Beck’s arm and then let AB hit ’em hard in the mouth. It may be wishful thinking, but it sure would be nice.

  23. choppack1 09/24/2008 at 1:03 PM #

    Good clarification in that last sentence wufpaxno1.

    But hey, if he plays like he played most of the Clemson, we’ll be OK.

  24. CannonballJunior 09/24/2008 at 1:07 PM #

    Here’s to Andre Brown turning a whole lot more heads the rest of the season – beginning this Saturday night!

  25. aPACKadeez 09/24/2008 at 7:09 PM #

    I know this isn’t even on the subject, but I’m watching ESPN2 right now, and E60 starts and it’s a special all on J-Co. It’s a fantastic story, tells about his family in Birmingham, and how his family had hard times with 13 children. Talks about his good friend Brian and the car accident he was in, which left scars on his wrist and how glass comes up through his skin to this day. Talks about his wife, and how he met her at State, what he did at State and how he played with P Rivers. Then it goes into his faith, and how his wife doesn’t have a uterus and that his daughter is adopted and how much of a family man he is. Great piece.

1 2

Leave a Reply