dudes

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Wednesday Presser 10-26-16: Don Brown
Adam Schnepp •

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[Fuller/MGoBlog]

“How’s it goin’? Lousy out there, eh? It’s that fall football weather. I love it.”

You’ve got to be pretty pleased with where things are right now with this defense.

“You know, it’s been a good seven weeks. Going through some learning curves and not everything’s perfect. You kind of ride the wave. You know, we had three bad plays last week. [mimics shooting self in neck] Bmmf. Not a good thing. You don’t want to give up any.

“We didn’t do a good job fitting up one of the runs on the long zone, and we let #5 out. Obviously two pass plays. They got Ben Gedeon matched up with #11, who’s a very good player. So whoever arranged that matchup for us is an idiot. It happens to be me. We’re hoping—it’s one of those scenarios where you’re in one of your zone blitzes and you’re anticipating getting there; through protection they did a good job getting it picked up a little bit. And then obviously I’d have liked to see us play that ball a little better in the endzone, but it is what it is and we move on.

“Again, nobody’s perfect. We’ve got some work to do. Helpful we brought a bunch of guys. But at the same time, I thought they did a good job of saying on third down, let’s get into vacant and get the ball out. But at the end of the day, they threw the ball 15 times, we had one sack and seven quarterback knockdowns, and six of ‘em weren’t very friendly so it takes its toll and it impacts the completion percentage for sure. Once again, we got off the field on third down about as well as you can.”

You mentioned letting #5 out. You had a #5 that chased him down. Can you talk about the effort on that kind of play?

“Yeah, you know, and it’s funny. It’s a great pickup by you. We talked about it yesterday in our defensive meeting. Sometimes those kinds of things happen, and when they do, you’ve got to go run ‘em down and start all over again, and we were able to get that done and then get off the field with no points. So, huge play by our #5. And again, he’s coming from the backside, so that’s all effort and energy right there to get there, but it’s a great point.

“We were in a five-man pressure, and like I tell them, if we give up something in a five-man pressure, guess what? The next play I guarantee you will be a five-man pressure, so you might as well just get used to that because we’re not going to back off. We’re not going to go, ‘Oh, that didn’t work!’ We’re just not going to do that.

“Great job on his part. I thought he played really well during the course of the game. We bounced him around pretty good positionally and he just continues to—it’s like I said the last time, we ask him to do a lot. Just proud of the way he’s been able to handle concepts. Obviously he’s doing a lot of jobs on a lot of sides of the ball, so it’s pretty interesting.”

[After THE JUMP: …about 20 years ago I used to say, ‘Will you just be a guy!’ As times have gotten modern…]

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98

Don Brown And The Dude Hierarchy
Ace •


This is the look of a man seeing far too many Guys.

In college, my friends devised a system for evaluating the social contributions of the people we encountered. While based on the standard ten-point scale, it was a binary system. Greatly enjoyable people to be around were "tens"; people who actively detracted from a given situation were deemed "fours"; not everyone fit into these two categories, but they were the only two that were necessary to point out. You're a ten, you're a four, or you're just there.

Don Brown, Michigan's new defensive coordinator, tweeted yesterday for the first time since October—and, since that tweet was clearly a misfired DM, really for the first time since August. He's not a man to preoccupy himself with the frivolity of social media, not even on such momentous occasions as taking a prestigious new job that pays nearly seven figures. His handle is "@FBCoachDBrown" because he's first and foremost a football coach; his bio reads "Michigan Defensive Coordinator" because he has to put something in that field.

This is a man who generally takes a Ron Swanson approach to social media. Yesterday's tweets highlighted the lone, glaring, glorious exception.

Brown's timeline is almost exclusively dedicated to acknowledging top practice performers. They are divided into two categories: Dudes and Guys. Being a "Dude of the Day" is the highest honor one can receive in this system, which originated at Boston College:

The message boils down to three words: Be a dude.

It started with defensive coordinator Don Brown.

"That's his saying all the time, be a dude," Addazio said. "And what being a dude is is being a baller. You know? Just being a real baller. Just being a dude.

"Be great. Be a baller. Be great at what you are. Just don't be average."

Guys are players who have yet to become Dudes—note the "NOT DUDES, BUT GUYS" line in the above graphic—but are on their way. Nobody else is worth mentioning. You're a Dude, you're a Guy, or you're just there.

To me, this confims Don Brown's exceptional coaching acumen as much as anything on his resumé. He understands that a binary system is all that's needed and not everyone must fit into one of the two categories. He also understands the hierarchy of terms of address for men, which while highly context-dependent goes something like this (DON'T @ ME):

  1. Guv'nor
  2. Boss
  3. Good Sir
  4. Dude
  5. Sport
  6. Bro
  7. Buddy
  8. Guy
  9. Champ
  10. Pal
  11. Slugger
  12. Chief

Never call a stranger "chief" unless you want to be righteously punched in the nose.

In conclusion, Don Brown is better than you or me or anyone that isn't Jim Harbaugh at Twitter, and the Era of Dudes and Guys shall be a triumphant one.

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97

More On Don Brown, Coach/Dude
Ace •


Brown is reportedly beloved by his players.

After news broke of Michigan's now-official hiring of defensive coordinator Don Brown yesterday, reactions poured in from various corners of the internet, and I've yet to see anything that even approaches a negative take.

Boston College blogger Bill Maloney is in the bargaining stage:

Brian would take this trade. I'm a little less inclined, as podcast listeners could guess. Maloney was kind enough to email Brian some more detailed thoughts on Brown:

BC fans were pretty familiar with Brown prior to him coming to Boston because he had coached all throughout the region and on teams we faced at UMass and Maryland. His 2007 UMass team gave Matt Ryan a tough time by blitzing from everywhere. 

My one criticism the first two years was that he sort of square peg/round holed Spaz's roster into what he wanted to do.  Spaz ran a more traditional 4-3 cover two and his DBs were almost undersized LBs who were asked to tackle a lot. This led to BC giving up some late leads when the other team figured out the different looks and the DBs got exposed. 

What made this year different is that he finally had great DBs, especially at corner. This allowed him to do all sorts of twists, stunts, blitzs and allow the LBs to focus on run stopping. The DBs were asked to play lots and lots of man. And they played it physically. Brown also sort of coaches a "be really physical on every play because it is not going to get called Pass Interference every time." Maybe that will change if he has elite talent at Michigan, but he did that at UMass and UConn too.

Brown also has good eye for the type of players he wants. I don't know of any Midwest recruiting ties, but if he can find elite corners out of low level, small town New England teams, I think he can adjust. 

This is a big loss for BC. I hope he fits in with Harbaugh and Michigan since it it probably his last stop.

Brown should have no issue deploying his more aggressive schemes with a defensive backfield featuring Jourdan Lewis and Jabrill Peppers.

Card Chronicle gentleman Mark Ennis is happy to see Brown go:

As a Lousiville person, Ennis had to put up with Brown during both his UConn and BC days. A former Clemson blogger for PhilSteele.com piggybacked off Ennis' comments to say he's as good any anyone in the country:

There are many more testimonials from various sportswriters in a post on the board.

247's Clint Brewster passed along this note from a coach who's gone against Brown:

"Very unconventional. Aggressive defense. Really good third down packages. Attacks protections well. BC had the best defense we played against the past couple years"

Yes, a dollar says that coach is Tim Brewster, the FSU tight end coach who watched as BC held Dalvin Cook to easily his worst game of this season.

Despite his Bad Cop countenance, Brown has an engaging personality and is apparently beloved by his players:

Since Brown has spent the entirety of his coaching career at recruiting nonentities—save, I guess, a two-year stint at Maryland—that's as good an indicator as any about his potential impact in that area.

There's ample evidence that Brown will be a very easy coach for fans to support, too. He'll hopefully get active on Twitter again, as his account is internet gold:

During camp he acknowledges a daily #DUDEOFTHEDAY and an occasional #GUYOFTHEDAY; it appears that a GUY is someone who has yet to become a DUDE.

"Be a dude" served as BC's mantra for the last couple years due to Brown's influence:

It started with defensive coordinator Don Brown.

"That's his saying all the time, be a dude," Addazio said. "And what being a dude is is being a baller. You know? Just being a real baller. Just being a dude.

"Be great. Be a baller. Be great at what you are. Just don't be average."

That message found a receptive audience in the Eagles' locker room.

"It just resonated with our team, you know what I mean?" Addazio said. "It just started kinda, 'Hey, be a dude, man. Be a dude.' And then we got going with recruiting and it kinda really caught on."

Expect Michigan's defensive coaches to sound unusually similar to Jeff Spicoli going forward.

MLive's Nick Baumgardner found a couple more of Brown's go-to mantras. One year at UMass he simply yelled "SMASH" at every opportunity—I'll keel over and die if he alters this to "BLUDGEON" at Michigan—and his other UMass slogan suggests he'll fit right in on this coaching staff:

"'Leave Earth' was it one year," recalls Jason Hatchell, who played linebacker for Brown from 2004-07 at UMass. "That basically meant 'don't be normal ... don't be the norm, be better than that.'

"It was on the back of our shirts."

Smash. Leave Earth. Play with your hair on fire. Be better than the norm.

If any of this line of speech seems familiar to Michigan fans, it should. Jim Harbaugh's been known to speak in catch phrases and slogans from time to time. And Michigan's head coach is also known for his intensity.

It's hard not to love this hire.

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