Looking at 2011 Recruits: Utah's Derrick Brown

by Michael Rueckert on Aug 2, 2010 10:00 AM PDT in Mountain West Football Recruiting

Name: Derrick Brown

School: Utah

Position: Quarterback

Height/Weight: 6'3''/230

High School: Vista Murrieta in Murrieta, California

Offers: Utah, Colorado State, San Diego State

Date Committed: June 27, 2010

Recruiting Profiles: Rivals, Scout, ESPN, MaxPreps

Tim Tebow immediately comes to mind when watching this bruising quarterback play. Like Tebow, he has a strong arm and runs the ball very well. In fact, he models his game after Tebow, who was extremely successful in Urban Meyer's spread offense that Utah runs.

Comparing Brown to Tebow, who is one of the most successful college football players ever, is a little much but he does play with a similar style.

"The similarities are the fact that they're both big kids that think of themselves more of a running back than necessarily a quarterback," his coach said to Rivals.com. "Derrick likes contact. He likes to hit. He's 6-3, 230. Those qualities make you think of Tim Tebow's game. He's not quite to that level yet. But he's somebody that Derrick looks up to that plays a similar game."

In his junior year, Brown passed for 1886 yards and 18 touchdowns in 14 games and rushed for 913 yards and 15 touchdowns. He had a decent completion percentage at 54% but he was most efficient on the ground averaging 5.5 yards per carry.

Brown told the North County Times that he chose Utah because he really liked the atmosphere there and coaches. He will be the third Vista Murrieta High School player on Utah's roster, along with Justin Taplin-Ross and Jamel King.

The last quarterback with size like Brown that Utah recruited, Brian Blechen, was moved to safety. That may not be the case with Brown since he possesses a strong arm, great footwork and good throwing motion. He told the North County Times that he expects to play quarterback at Utah.

Rivals ranks him the 19th best dual-threat quarterback in the country, ESPN ranks him the 23rd best overall QB and Scout.com ranks him at 50.

He drew interest from some big schools like Alabama, Notre Dame and USC but only Utah, Colorado State and San Diego State offered.

Other Utah 2011 Recruits

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He looks pretty good.

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by Jeremy Mauss on Aug 2, 2010 10:07 AM PDT reply actions

Another difference between Blechen and Brown is year.

Blechen is a 2010 RS freshman. Brown would be a 2012 RS freshman.

Right now the QB position is as follows (by year, not by depth chart):

SR- Cain
SO- Wynn (TR SO)
FR- Robles (RS FR)

Which means Blechen would be one year behind Wynn and the same year as Robles, whereas Brown (if he redshirts, which seems very likely) would be three years behind Wynn and two years behind Robles, meaning his first year as a starter would be his JR year, a pretty good year for a QB to start.

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by displacedute on Aug 2, 2010 11:05 AM PDT reply actions 1 recs

Blechen is a true freshman this year, would have been 2 years behind Wynn if he redshirted

but that is a good point. Once Wynn graduates maybe Utah starts Brown as a RS Sophomore or starts as a RS Junior when Robles graduates

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by Michael Rueckert on Aug 2, 2010 11:49 AM PDT up reply actions

This guy looks like a lot of potential

Has the ability to get away from defenders in the pocket and pick up a few yards. Plus he can throw the ball pretty far. The one thing I think that seperates his style from Tebow’s is that he has a bit of a different run style. Tebow was run into them and try to bowl them over. Brown seems to be more of an elusive runner.

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by rebelfan1 on Aug 3, 2010 2:05 PM PDT reply actions