COLUMBUS, Ohio — Wisconsin saw something in Devin Brown he and those around him couldn’t even see yet.
Members of the Badgers coaching staff were at Queen Creek High School in Arizona, about 45 minutes east of Phoenix, to scout linebacker Trey Reynolds. Recruited to help his best friend, Brown, all 5-foot-8, 115 pounds of him, went out to throw. The freshman had good enough arm strength but, especially looking back now, he seemed to be nowhere close to the Division 1 level.
In that session, though, Brown remembers picking Reynolds apart, and, the next week, Wisconsin’s quarterback coach flew out to see the freshman throw and extended his first offer.
“Even my dad asked, ‘Come on coach, really? Is it real? Did you see him?’” Brown recalled.
Brown, a product of former Ohio State quarterback and Queen Creek head coach Joe Germaine, has learned the reality of recruiting quarterbacks, something that he's still trying to wrap his mind around: that collegiate programs can make up their mind about a player after one throw, one quick slant.
Now officially a member of Ohio State ahead of his first collegiate season, Brown remembers what throw he recorded to convince the Buckeyes.
When he was at Corner Canyon High School in Draper, Utah for his senior season, Brown was contacted by Ohio State running backs coach Tony Alford. Brown was already committed to USC at the time, but still couldn’t believe it.
Shortly after, Ohio State sent quarterbacks coach Corey Dennis out to Utah to watch Brown throw.
“It was a raining practice, the ball was like 10 pounds, but we were still getting after it,” Brown remembered. “It was dumping on us. Coach Dennis has a video. He’s just standing out there in jeans and a shirt and maybe it’s like 20 degrees and pouring rain on him. He just loved it.
“From that day, he knew I was the guy he wanted.”
He was the quarterback Ryan Day wanted too.
“I was sold when I watched his film and got him on the phone,” the Ohio State head coach said. “Then he showed me a film of him windmill dunking and that put me over the top.”
Brown was offered to be a Buckeye Oct. 12, 2021. Day, Dennis and the program as a whole were convinced they had found their quarterback in 2022.
That’s when the convincing has to be turned to Brown.
The 2022 four-star quarterback had been committed to USC for over a year, developing close relationships with coaches like former Trojans offensive coordinator and quarterback coach Graham Harrell.
But he needed to see what Ohio State was about, to see the atmosphere surrounding Dennis’ room: the quarterback coach who stood in the rain to watch him throw.
While Brown was impressed with the offensive showcase Ohio State put on against Michigan State, imagining himself in the center of that offense, it was something he was given that really sent him overboard:
A binder, inches thick, filled with everything he would need to know to be a Buckeye quarterback, from fronts to coverages to one-inch throws.
Brown knew the history of Ohio State quarterbacks, from Dwayne Haskins to Justin Fields to C.J. Stroud to Joe Burrow, who was developed in Columbus before shining at LSU. Each quarterback saw a binder like this.
“That was the thing that blew me out of the water like, ‘Man, they really know what they want and they really know what we need to know,’” Brown said. “That’s why guys have success here is they know everything. Compared to other schools, every other school is going to have different ways of teaching, but I just knew that was it because of how they were going to get after me.”
In a program, that’s what Brown needs.
He doesn’t want a coaching staff that sugar coats things or makes him feel that he’s doing everything perfectly. It’s something his father never did, joking around and calling him “my biggest hater of all time,” but saying it’s how it should be, criticizing him and making him better.
“I think every good quarterback should get ripped,” Brown said. “Honestly Coach (Eric) Kjar at Corner Canyon, he’s been ripping me all the time. He even said one day after a game, I didn’t play very well. He came up to my dad and he’s like “I don’t like it right now. He’s just taking it so well how bad I’m getting after him. He’s not saying anything.He’s just cool.’ I think it’s the best thing for you. He shouldn’t be soft on you at all.
“When you mess up, you mess up and you have to fix it. There’s no sugar coating it. I want it to be exactly what it was. If I did something bad, tell me I did it bad. It’s not like, ‘Oh, it’s OK.’ You’re not going to get places like that.”
Brown knows it’s the refining process, the minute details that will allow him to pass the quarterbacks in front of him.
He knows what’s in front of him is all mental: knowing the playbook, knowing fronts, knowing coverages. That’s what separates him and other quarterbacks, knowing it’s not solely his arm.
That’s what made Ohio State his choice, knowing it was right. Brown wasn’t worried about those in front of him on the depth chart, whether it was Stroud, Kyle McCord or Quinn Ewers, who shortly after entered the transfer portal.
The 2022 four-star quarterback was just excited to compete, getting on the same track Day had for the quarterbacks he idolized, all using that binder.
“Obviously, you want to be playing, but you just have to know, the coaches have a plan for you,” Brown said. “They know what’s best for the team. You want what’s best for the team at the end of the day. If you’re not getting things done, you are not going to be playing. You want what’s best for the team and you want to win a national championship.”
