It is 16 days — and counting — until the University of Hawaii’s Sept. 3 football season opener with Colorado. Be assured, the man most minutely aware of it is Greg Brown.
He is the Buffaloes’ new defensive coordinator and secondary coach. Watching time fly this month can be a scary proposition for someone charged with trying to keep Bryant Moniz’s passes from also taking accurate flight.
It is task enough that Brown, who moved over from the University of Arizona, inherits a unit that was defensively challenged in 2010. CU ranked 110th (out of 120 major college teams) in passing defense, 91st in scoring defense and 83rd in total defense, yielding an average of 31 points and 400 yards per game.
Bad as that was, the best parts of the unit, starting cornerbacks Jimmy Smith and Jalil Brown, are gone to the NFL. They were first- and fourth-round draft picks, respectively, in April. Both were three-year starters at CU and, in their final season, played all but a combined 47 defensive snaps in 2010.
That didn’t leave much playing time for anybody else or allow for building even token depth. Throw in a season-ending knee injury last week to Jered Bell, the most promising of the potential replacements, and cornerback is the Buffaloes’ biggest area of concern.
“We’re looking at young (guys), we’re looking at safeties being converted, we’re looking at anybody — and everybody — for the corner jobs,” Brown said.
And they are doing it with Evelyn Wood speed. Not only do the Buffaloes draw Moniz, the 2010 NCAA passing leader, for the opener but, thanks to their move into the Pac-12, they get California and Stanford in the first half of the season, too.
For openers, “the oddsmakers have made us an underdog (61⁄2 points) and rightly so,” Brown notes. “I mean, look at them (the Warriors), picked to win the WAC. They won 10 games and have the top thrower in the country back. With all they’ve got, they are going to present great challenges.
“Right now, we’re trying to get 11 guys to just line up (and) know each other’s names. We’ve got a long ways to go before we can line up and play in a game, especially against someone of Hawaii’s caliber.”
To be sure, there’s an element of soft-soaping gamesmanship there. But understand, too, that Brown has a healthy appreciation for UH’s run-and-shoot offense, having learned some of it at the elbow of its mastermind, Mouse Davis.
Invariably the summons would begin with the words “young buck” and be followed by Davis motioning him over and draping a fatherly arm around the shoulder. Thus would commence the sideline tutorials between Brown, then a young defensive assistant coach with Atlanta, and Davis, the Falcons’ run-and-shoot oracle, 17 years ago.
“I remember there’d be times when we’d be in a certain defense and they’d run a play on us and get us and Mouse would pull me aside,” Brown recalls. “He’d say, ‘You try that on us and here’s what’s gonna happen against these reads.’ So, yes, he taught me a lot and I’m indebted to him.
“Mouse was great to be around and learn from, as was June (former Hawaii coach Jones). They are two of my favorite people. I’m sure Mouse has some things that we hadn’t even dreamed of back in the day. Mouse is ageless.”
And Brown could come into this reunion almost cornerback-less.
Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com.
