More On Austin Brown: Video Analysis

Sunday we found out that we have a new recruit for the 2012 class, Austin Brown from Meridian, Id and talked a little bit about him, but we didn’t really know much about him. We finally have some video on him and I have an analysis of him as well. first the video, then the chalk-talk.

First, there are some more telling highlights on Austin’s Hudl Page as well, so you can see a bit more of what he’s all about off the line. Not necessarily a “Wow” player right now, but pretty solid and a body that could add some strength and maybe 10-15 lbs.

PLUS: Watching these highlights, Austin has a huge upside because of where he can get with good coaching. He is already a player that finds the ball well, is very sure handed and can tackle the heck out of the football. He’s not very polished as far as technique, but if you look at his further away highlights on the Hudl page, he has an explosiveness about him when he finds the football and is athletic enough to close the distance quickly. Angles are decent (although I think he could do better in space) and he’s a good edge player, meaning you don’t find the ball outside of him too often in HS because he plays very well in contain. Finally, Brown has a nice extension of his arms and hands well before the blocker can get into his body, creating a nice cushion to be able to throw him to either side.

MINUS: Austin doesn’t have a ton of speed and isn’t great on angles in the open field (although as I said before he’s pretty decent in general with angles), so that is something he’ll have to work on because that’s where you could see the edge contain get lost a little bit. He’s also a bit of a stand up, flat footed defensive player off of the line, which he gets away with because of his size in HS but he’ll have to address in a hurry at the college level. Once the ball is in the area, he does well to get to it, but he doesn’t “win” his matchup until that time. So he needs to really work on his first step exploding forward and “shooting the gap” as opposed to standing up to get into the backfield because at the college level, you will find that standing up gets you stonewalled or pancaked to the side you’re not supposed to be on. This of course reminds me of our recent defensive linemen, where they would stand up too much, which creates holes and is the general reason why teams already run the ball down our throats at WSU.

So there’s a quick breakdown on Mr. Brown, who we should see in the lineup probably starting in 2013 after a redshirt season. Can’t wait to see him progress and hopefully make an impact down the line.

Go Cougs!