Quacking the Roster: DL Transfer Derrick Brown Jr

Brown was recruited to Howard University in the 2022 cycle, and was unrated by the scouting services. He redshirted that year and didn’t see the field. In 2023 as a redshirt freshman, Brown participated in two games but didn’t record any statistics.

The defensive line coach at Howard for Brown’s first two years on campus is something of a coaching legend – Vernon Hargreaves Jr (father of the Florida and NFL cornerback of the same name). Hargreaves has a nearly 40-year career as a defensive position

coach which includes Miami’s national championship era and tours through the SEC.

Those two years, although Brown wasn’t seeing the field, were also defensive high water marks for the Bison worth noting. They went 4-1 and were co-champions of the conference both years, going to the Celebration Bowl against SWAC champion Florida A&M in 2023. (Post-covid conference realignment has left the MEAC with just six football-sponsoring members; HU nonetheless plays a full season’s slate of games which they fill up, in addition to their five conference games, with an interesting mix of six or seven non-cons made of HBCUs from outside conferences, other FCS teams from PWIs, and a G5 or Power conference school each year.)

In 2024, Hargreaves was hired by Middle Tennessee and new DL coach Cowsette took over, a veteran from Maryland and a longtime NFL lineman, and Brown was ready to play. Brown started out the season as one of the two rotational defensive tackles in HU’s four-down front, but within three games the rotation had gotten to 50/50 and after that point it flipped around with Brown becoming the starter for the rest of the year. Brown returned to the starting role the next year and played there for the entire 2025 season.

In early January of this year, Brown entered the transfer portal, which was expected as two weeks earlier his representation had notified various media outlets. On February 4^th Brown committed to Oregon, and he was listed on the March 31^st Spring roster update.

The above social media posts state that Brown has two years of eligibility remaining. That would imply Brown missed nearly all of the 2023 season (or the 2022 season, alternately) due to medical hardship, and he’s been granted a medical waiver for it by the NCAA. I can’t find any documentation to support this – HU doesn’t note any such event on its website and there’s no local media reporting on the matter. If there is no such waiver — Brown’s eligibility clock started normally in 2022 and has been without interruption — then he would have one year of eligibility to play one in 2026.

I acquired and charted Howard’s defensive film for the entire 2024 and 2025 seasons during which Brown was playing, including all meaningful snaps on which he’d rotated out to perform a cohort analysis. Between those two years, longtime HU defensive coordinator Troy Douglas, who had come in with head coach Scott, was hired away by Georgia State.

Scott promoted the young safeties coach to fill Douglas’ role, DC/DB coach Jarrett. I think Jarrett is an intriguing up-and-comer, the defensive backfield in 2024 had some obvious talent which I think got him the promotion, and in 2025 he shook things up with a lot more sims and blitzes than Douglas used. But I also think there’s a learning curve, I noticed some issues tying the front and back ends of the defense together in 2025 and that created a few challenges in selecting film clips for this article.

Brown remained the starter throughout 2025 at DT while the two initial 2024 starters left (one graduated and the other transferred out). Two other backups remained on the roster with boosted playing time, one of whom substantially outweighed the rest of the unit but wasn’t really used previously by Douglas. Jarrett also brought in two transfer DTs, one from Penn and one from San Diego State. This wasn’t so much a five-man rotation as it was two different units plus a specialist – Brown and one other DT was the first unit, two other DTs the second, and the extra heavy DT for some odd-surface configurations Jarrett introduced.

That’s the most interesting thing about watching Brown’s tape – he’s listed at 6’5” and 295 lbs, the biggest or second biggest on the squad at any given point, and it was a four-down front throughout this time, but the evolving configurations meant I didn’t see him exclusively at 1-tech as I was expecting – in fact Brown only lined up there on about 17.5% of his reps.

Additionally, the Bison didn’t stick to traditional 1- and 3-tech roles for its tackles, frequently shading them over to 2i or 4i which are more often associated with three-down fronts. Brown’s length allowed him to line up outside of the guard (3-tech or 4i, occasionally wider) on nearly 59% of snaps, while he was inside of the guard (1-tech or 2i) on just over 41%.

(By popular demand, here’s a refresher on defensive line techniques. Letters refer to the gaps between offensive blockers, numbers refer to where defenders line up. Don’t ask why 6-tech is out of order, there was a 15-minute discussion of it on the Coaches’ Film Room this year:)

I suspect after watching tape that Brown’s versatility, length, and experience are the standout qualities more than his sheer bulk. I wouldn’t be surprised if his playing time at Oregon would have him move from an inside lineman to more of an outside-the-guard or possibly a heavy edge player, perhaps even a big 5-tech in the style of Jordan Burch; though this would depend on how his S&C work goes and sometimes guys find individual limits to body transformation that are unknown until they try.

In the cohort analysis, Brown’s presence on the field dramatically improved the defense against efficiency passing by over 10 percentage points and cut opposing offenses’ adjusted YPA by close to two full yards, although the rate of explosive passing remained just as high (which mostly had to do with coverage breakdowns even when the front, with or without Brown, did its job … more on that later).

However, the numbers in rush defense hardly budged whether Brown was in or not, if anything they declined slightly … more specifically, Brown’s reps were a bit better on 1^st down but worse in short yardage, though as a starter he kept getting put in on certain high leverage short-yardage situations when they probably should have switched to a heavier package.

There’s one other note before we get to video analysis: Brown changed his jersey number between 2024 and 2025, he first wore #99 then switched to #9. In 2024 there wasn’t anybody on the defense wearing #9 so no problem there, but in 2025 the new transfer in from Penn, whose name is Hall, took jersey #99. I’ve tried to minimize clips from 2025 which have Brown and Hall on the field at the same time to avoid confusion, but using a few was inevitable or there would be representation issues. The clips in each video are presented in chronological order so Brown will always start in #99 and finish in #9, and I’ll try to be clear where he’s lining up at the start of the play and especially so if he and Hall are both in, but the reader will need to be alert.

Here’s a representative sample of Brown’s most impressive area of statistical production, a 189% increase on pass play havoc rate compared to any other HU defensive tackle and comparable to the starting edges:

(Reminder – you can use the button in the right corner to control playback speed)

1. :00 – Brown is the 2i on the LG’s inside shoulder in jersey #99. He makes an outside rush and draws the center the long way, driving the guard into the QB’s space and making him dance forward. Because of the route timing the QB has to fire without setting his feet while he’s still climbing awkwardly, and the ball is way off.
2. :07 – Here’s a blitz against Eddie George’s TSU Tigers and their very dangerous QB (the Bison played the OVC team both years I studied); Brown is the 1-tech on the center’s left shoulder. The nickel blitzer gets the QB to step up but it’s Brown beating the guard after crossing over the C that shortens his plant space and forces the early throw with poor mechanics.
3. :23 – This is the 2025 opener in the renewed Orange Blossom Classic against FAMU; Brown in jersey #9 had started at 1-tech then stemmed to 3-tech on the LG’s outside shoulder. You can see the one-gapping technique that’s a hallmark of a four-down defense, and Brown is getting held after penetrating but fights through it to push the QB off his spot. The throw is off target short of the sticks and broken up.
4. :36 – Here’s Brown as a 4i in a Tite configuration just inside the RT. The defense is rushing just three on this 3^rd & long, Brown takes the RT deep but keeps his leverage inside so he can’t be dismissed. When the QB panics and bolts, he gets off the block for maybe the most aesthetically pleasing sack I’ve ever seen.

There’s also a moderate (about 4 percentage points’ worth of improvement) tick up with Brown on the field against passing plays in what I call indirect effects. These are reps where the player in question doesn’t make the play himself with havoc generation, but does his job at defeating blocks or occupying extra offensive resources, and has a measurable effect at enabling other defenders to make the play that they otherwise wouldn’t. Here’s a representative sample:

1. :00 – Brown is the 1-tech on the C’s left shoulder. It’s a crossing double A-gap blitz and Brown plays a key role opening it up by dragging the the LG off extra wide so the C can’t gum up the rush by smushing the backers all into the guards. The offense has seven blockers against six blitzers so the defense needs spacing help to make this work and they get it, the RG is the one who has to come back under to get the leftover backer and his angle is counterproductive.
2. :13 – Brown is the 1-tech on the C’s right shoulder. His good push on the C gets the RG to commit to helping, which is crucial – the edges get around outside but the QB can run up away from them, though not the quick way to his right because Brown has clogged that up. He goes the long way to his left instead and the defense has lots of bodies to stop him short.
3. :21 – Brown is the 3-tech on the RG’s outside shoulder. The d-lineman on the other side has ripped down the LG (this would be a theme all day) and is about to hurry the QB into a risky throw. Because of the man coverage, if the RG had successfully contained Brown, the best solution for the QB would be to escape that way — the entire defense has vacated the short side and has their backs to the play — but Brown is in fact hammering the RG into the QB’s space so that’s a scratch.
4. :35 – Brown is the 4i to the inside of the LT. Everyone on this overload blitz to the offense’s right reacts appropriately and it follows to the logical conclusion of a negligible gain, but it starts with Brown’s threat drawing two o-linemen to the opposite side of the play even as the stand-up end bails out. Now the offense doesn’t have the blockers to handle the blitz, the QB fills the void, and the DBs are there to make the tackle as this is what the defense wanted.

The most significant change in Brown’s play between 2024 and 2025 that I noted on my tally sheet was his pass rush lane discipline. In his first year as starter there was a lot of the common problem with pass rushers in which everybody is just attacking all-out, seemingly without a plan at all for what’ll happen if and when the QB tries to escape pressure – and paradoxically, it’s often the case that the more defenders who penetrate, the easier it is to escape. In 2025 I saw a lot more patience and coordination, closing off escape lanes and considering exit angles. Some examples:

1. :00 – Brown is the 3-tech on the RG’s outside shoulder. This play has no one inside the guards and a QB spy so the LB’s failure to do his only job is the top culprit, but look at how overextended Brown gets – he doesn’t have leverage on the escape lane, he’s fooled by the pump fake, and he leaves his feet so the defeated RG regains control.
2. :30 – Brown is the 3-tech on the RG’s outside shoulder. Note how differently he and the other DT are playing, and how much more effective the inside pressure is from Brown and the blitzer than the edges around the outside. The outside rush can be escorted around the back and the QB can just step up, but Brown’s strong inside pressure is a clamp that keeps the QB stuck and forces him into a throw with only partial weight transfer which whips right into the DB’s hands. The other DT has completely lost discipline and the QB has a massive escape lane through the front door, which is why the LB comes down out of the throwing lane to close it – that prevets the scramble but opens the throw.
3. :44 – Brown is the 2i on the LG’s inside shoulder. Both the DTs are getting bounced around by the G-C-G which is fine, the key thing is controlling the escape routes. The QB runs out of patience and makes a break for it, and watch how Brown has kept himself unentangled and is mirroring him, gaining depth to keep an angle on the play as the QB cuts around. In 2024 on this same type of play Brown would have been swallowed trying to press through the guard shield and the QB could have bolted through the front door.
4. :53 – Brown is the 3-tech outside of the RG, don’t mix him up with Hall at 1-tech. This one’s on the QB, he should make the throw to the Z-receiver or check it to the X, I don’t know why he’s hesitating or gets happy feet, but once he does this is a great rundown by Brown. And it’s because he didn’t try to penetrate against the stunt side, that wouldn’t have worked because of the unoccupied center and he’d just be trapped, instead he keeps the blocker’s hands off him and is free to disengage.

To address the glaring red item in the statistical analysis – the biggest overall problem for the passing offense had little to do with Brown or anyone on the defensive line, it was a poor rate of explosive pass defense which persisted regardless of front personnel or down & distance situation, and perversely got slightly worse as defensive penetration ticked up. Some of this had to do with pressure packages lacking the right kind of back end coverage plans, and there’s a major late 3^rd and 4^th quarter defensive fatigue problem as the Bison offense kept trying to play ball control but without actually scoring points, though a lot of times it was opposing QBs making heroic throws just before the lineman was about to destroy him and my jaw was on the floor that the receiver came down with the prayer ball. Here are a few examples that I trust need no narration:

The most significant issue I saw in pass defense that was actually specific to Brown — and as the opposite side of the above coin, there were many times this was clear on film but the offense wasn’t able to capitalize — was him simply getting stoned by blockers. He did tend to draw two blockers more than others as an interior defensive lineman, but he had a lower rate of splitting them than four of the other DTs in his cohort, and he was no better than average at getting off of single blocks. I think Brown is built much more like a penetrator and his weight is somewhat deceiving – his center of gravity was just too high to consistently get a big push as an interior lineman against stout guards; at his height he would either need to be maybe 20+ lbs of muscle heavier or to move farther outside where his length in leverage would be an advantage. Some examples:

1. :00 – Brown is the 3-tech outside the LG. Just nothing doing here, the Big Ten linemen aren’t moved an inch and hardly even need to re-anchor after switch up blocks on the stunt.
2. :20 – Brown is the 1-tech on the C’s left. He’s working an arc on the LG to try and create a footwork issue but nothing, he’s walled off completely.
3. :30 – Brown is the 2i inside the RG. The guard pulls left and the C slides over for this half-roll. This should be a license to rip the C’s outside shoulder and run screaming at the QB, but he can’t get off the block.
4. :38 – Brown is the 4i inside the RT. No push at all on what should be a penetration rep since the edge has a TE and an RB to block him while the backer has the go-ahead to green dog from depth.

I have no way of knowing if Brown would run into any issues adding more muscle (though his frame looks to me like he has the room), if Oregon is interested in pursuing that route, or illustrating his performance in that hypothetical. But I can comment on the other path, playing closer to the edges, since Howard deployed him there quite a bit and his pass defense grades on my tally sheet were between six and eleven percentage points better controlling for situational down & distance and field position. Here’s a representative sample:

1. :00 – Brown is the 4i inside of the LT. This simulated pressure has the DE bailing to cover the mesh routes while the LB inserts on the other side. It works because of speed, the offense has the blockers to handle it if they had a beat to think and had bumped each of the guards over to their right, but Brown’s speed rush pulls the LG off and the QB panics.
2. :24 – Brown is the 5-tech over the LT. This is a good patient rep, Brown is waiting for the edge on the other side to beat the RT and only then he takes the LT for a ride into the QB’s space, if he’d gone earlier the QB had an escape route.
3. :34 – Brown is the 5-tech over the RT. The stand-up end is playing 7-tech and the RT has to drop fast to deal with his speed rush but effectively escorts him out while the QB steps up, Brown moves in on the RG and gets effective pressure in the shortened space, forcing the QB to alter his arm angle and giving the DB a shot at a break-up (the DB doesn’t close, the WR makes a great grab, but still).
4. :51 – Brown is the 4i over the LT, Hall is the nose in this Tite formation. The chyron is wrong, this is actually 3^rd down. The pressure on the offense’s left is doing its job, drawing extra blocking resources to open up the attack from the other side. There’s no exit for the QB to escape to because Brown driven the LT back and is keeping his outside arm free; the QB tries to get rid of the ball instead and has it stripped.

Brown’s grades on my tally sheet in rush defense were much more hot and cold than they were against the pass, with certain areas that he outperformed his cohort in, others where some of his teammates graded out better, and a lot that was just a mixed bag. In the aggregate, it didn’t really matter much whether Brown or a different tackle was in against rushing plays, although if I somehow knew in advance which specific type of run it would be there were some I would want Brown in to stop … and others I’d go with someone else.

The biggest area of positive separation didn’t surprise me at all, they were run plays that required some real veteran savvy to diagnose. Brown is clearly a sharp guy, went to an elite school, learned from a top coach, and unlike the rest of the unit had been in place at HU as starter for this two-year period. Some examples:

1. :00 – Brown is the 1-tech on the C’s right. The blocking is all going to their right to give the RB options of getting wide to the sideline or cutting back inside, but the defense has everything cut off with outside leverage off the snap. The DE sets the edge well and Brown controls the cutback lane, and the RB dances because he has nowhere to go.
2. :08 – Brown is the 3-tech outside the RG. He blows up that block frontside to cut the back off, and the DE backside has knifed inside the LT when he starts to reverse, for a big goalline TFL to preserve the lead.
3. :15 – Brown is the 2i on the LG’s inside shoulder. NCCU had burned the defense with this same RPO keep on the last drive, where the entire line worked to the short side and the DL all went with them, while the coverage all cleared out chasing the WRs to the field. Brown and the MIKE have lightbulb moments with their eyes on the QB, get out of the run and pass chases respectively, and shut the QB down for a minimal gain.
4. :26 – Brown is the 3-tech on the RG’s outside shoulder. NSU had run this zig-zag counter twice before and Brown isn’t fooled by the motion, he cuts right across the guard and into the backfield to close what’s actually the backdoor reverse option even though it looks like the frontside, which panics the puller and gives the rest of the defense a jump on the play going the other way.

About 40% of Brown’s rush defense reps got some kind of mixed grade on my tally sheet – could have been better, could have been worse; or there was some aspect of his play on that rep I thought was very good combined with another aspect that wasn’t so good. Every player is going to have a some of these but this was more than I was expecting to see from a two-year starter. Some examples:

1. :00 – Brown is the 1-tech on the C’s right. Rutgers is in a jumbo six OL package on 3^rd & 4, figuring they can just bully their way to a conversion. The four OL in the middle going up against Brown, the DE, and both backers drive them back to the LTG – they’ve definitely gotten a push in the middle. But it’s taken four, and left them with single blocks on the edges, which HU wins to snipe the play and just barely stop the conversion.
2. :11 – Brown is the 1-tech on the C’s left. He’s taking on the C and LG at once, one of whom is trying to peel off and get up to the backer. Brown is doing his job as assigned, the backer stays clean and gets to the RB, but he’s giving up so much ground just from the physical push (and to an Ivy League line I’m skeptical of) that the RB has room to convert anyway.
3. :20 – Brown is the 3-tech on the LG’s outside shoulder. He’s absorbing the C and LG and keeping the backer clean on the initial rush lane, so the RB redirects to his right where there’s even more traffic, and I like how Brown finished the play. But this is a lot of ground to surrender and it never looks like Brown has a solid anchor against it, if the back had cut wide to the left instead the DB is getting bumped back by how far Brown is pushed.
4. :38 – Brown is the 3-tech on the RG’s outside shoulder. Both of the DTs are getting driven back so far that the short-yardage conversion is automatic, but at least the OL can’t get up to the 2^nd level and the RB can’t find a path for any extra yardage, and Brown gets off the block to help grab the RB’s legs.

And about a third of Brown’s rush defense reps I thought he’d like to have back. In my experience, a starter is a natural for his spot and being put in a position to succeed if he’s hitting a threshold around one in four bad plays or better, so it getting up to one in three against the run made me think something was off. Some examples:

1. :00 – Brown is the 1-tech on the C’s left. The backers and the other DT (a converted OL who only played in this game) shut the run down but watch Brown getting cleared out of the play completely. This habit of turning his shoulders perpendicular to the line of scrimmage would continue throughout the two years of tape I watched, it takes all his power to resist the blocker away.
2. :08 – Brown is the 3-tech outside the RG. The back’s initial pathing is to his left and Brown turns his shoulders to chase, and now the guard totally controls him. The RB cuts back the other way, right to where Brown started and could have stopped if he’d stayed square.
3. :20 – Brown is the 3-tech outside the LG. This is the wrong read by the QB, he should have ridden the mesh a little longer and kept it since the DBs were so eager to take the RB. They’re the ones who make the play, Brown is completely cleared out and turned away from it.
4. :27 – Brown is the 2i on the inside of the RG. There were six runs prior to garbage time (I counted this as the last meaningful play of the game) with exactly this sequence, including two for longer yardage: the RG gets his outside hand on Brown’s inside shoulder and that’s enough to turn him, the RT takes over while Brown is perpendicular for an easy block, and the RG gets to move up clean to the 2^nd level.

A particular repeated issue I kept seeing had to do with slanting off the snap to follow the direction of the linemen right in front of him, without any assessment of how the back was offset or where the aiming point would be or how other linemen were pulling. On any kind of misdirection run like counters, pin & pulls, fake sweeps, etc. this would have Brown — and any other d-lineman, I have a hard time telling if this was an individual thing or schematic — do exactly what the offense wanted and trap themselves with the pin.

Some opposing offenses’ entire run game was based on these types of plays and they absolutely walloped HU this way; it was difficult to understand why they didn’t see it coming and adjust. It’s potentially a double-edged sword – maybe it’s an engrained thing that’s tough to correct, or maybe it was a simple coaching choice that could be easily changed and free up big quick gains to his productivity. Here are some examples:

1. :00 – Brown is the 1-tech on the C’s right. Note the bit of extra space that the DL is lined up off the neutral zone, that’s to give them some room to read the pulls on the Bulldogs’ gap schemes, but it’s not happening here. Brown should track the pulls, take a beat, and shoot outside of the RG to get into the gap; instead he goes straight ahead and gets pinned.
2. :06 – Brown is the 3-tech on the LG’s outside shoulder. Getting pinned inside by the LG makes no sense here, Brown has initial leverage to the playside and I can’t figure out what he’s chasing that lets the LG get under him and fork him up.
3. :23 – Brown is the 2i inside of the RG. The defense is slanting hard into this pin & pull, making the offense’s job easy (it’s only slowed a little by the pulling LT getting yanked by the backside DE, but the crashing frontside DE scrapes him off!). Brown chases inside and the RG pins him with a pretty poor block — he’s up high and has flat footwork — because Brown is turned perpendicular.
4. :36 – Brown is the 3-tech on the RG’s outside shoulder. NCCU never stopped running this same play and I was amazed HU kept biting late into the 3^rd quarter with no halftime adjustment. Brown showed better recognition on this than the rest – while he initially went the wrong way instead of following the lead blocks he reversed and had a shot at the RB, though it was too late to catch him.

It was also the case that Brown’s rush defense grades improved when the sample was limited to reps where he lined up outside the guard and played towards the edge, though not as dramatically as in the passing game, about +2.5 points. Some examples:

1. :00 – Brown is the 4i on the LT. Good rep here, the LT isn’t able to turn Brown away from the play. The LG can’t get up to the 2^nd level so the RB is faced with a free LB, and when he cuts left he doesn’t have an alternate lane he just smacks right into the LT who’s stuck on Brown.
2. :10 – Brown is the 4i on the LT. I believe the initial aiming point for the back is the weakside B-gap, away from Brown’s side, but Brown successfully beats the LT’s reach and shoots into the backfield to cut the back off. The back reverses into a bunch of unblocked defenders, with Brown pursuing in case he makes another cut, for a goalline turnover.
3. :25 – Brown is the 4i on the LT. Here’s a wide zone run with a cutback inside, it’s going away from Brown to start but he sticks with it, maintaining leverage and not letting the LT get his hat playside. When the back makes his cut, Brown is right there for the tackle.
4. :33 – Brown is the 4i on the RT, Hall is the 2i on the LG. The OL is pushing to its right on this outside run, the DE adjusts to set the edge on the RT and Brown matches by taking a wide step to take on the RG and keep outside leverage on him. The back is late to figure out he can’t get through here, Brown dismisses the RG to take him down, finally forcing the RB to cut, but Brown already has a hand on him, and the rest of the defense helps clean up.