UTSA football will now be coming up on week nine of the 2024 football season with an overall record of 3-5. Leading member of the defense, with 15 total season tackles is defensive lineman, Brandon Brown. Brown is currently a senior at UTSA majoring in multidisciplinary studies. Although he graduated from Morton Ranch High School in Katy, Texas, Brown is originally from New Orleans and spent the majority of his youth growing up there. Around eighth grade Brown and his family moved to Texas following Hurricane Katrina.
The first organized sport Brown ever played was basketball. He began playing football at a young age for fun in the school yard and soon, through encouragement from the community, began taking the sport more seriously.
“I never played organized football until fourth grade, when the coach that recruited me got me on my little league team,” Brown said. “Ever since he got me right that year when I was in fourth grade, I never wanted to play anything else. It was just football ever since then.”
“My coach, he had brought me up. His son found me during recess. We were playing touch football outside and his son told him about me. He was like, ‘We gotta get this guy on our team.’ Then they pulled up to my house, cause I stayed maybe less than half a mile away from the school, and he was like, ‘I don’t care what you saying, we gotta get him in football.’ My dad had never really seen me play. I was just out there having fun; that’s how it is when you’re a kid. So with a little physical training over the summer, he had got me right as far as being able to hit and take hits and be tough. He got me right in the rear aspect of football and then yeah just made me a ball player. It had a major impact on my life. I’m pretty much built off of football.”
Exiting high school, Brown became a big recruit in the area. While most people who dream of playing collegiate sports hope to catch the eye of major schools and programs, most people do not experience the true chaos that is the recruitment process.
“I pretty much had about 27 offers or scholarships,” Brown said. “I had every big school coming to my high school to check me out. It was just kind of hectic, having all those schools and coaches wanting to talk to you every day, and then you’re getting pulled out of class. I got pulled out of class every day to go talk to a coach, no matter what period, if it’s the first, second or third period or later in the day. Whenever the coach gets there, they would call me down to the office. I liked it because I knew they were tryna recruit me, but it was just hectic. Hectic getting pulled out of class every day that was really it.”
While UTSA was a top choice for Brown, he ultimately decided on Tulane University for his freshman year of college in order to stay close to family. However, UTSA remained on his radar.
“I went there because my mom was staying out there in Tulane,” Brown said. “She stayed out there a block maybe from the school, and I’m pretty much used to the area, being from there and the school itself is pretty much down the street from what I grew up knowing so that played a big part, and I just wanted to be close to where my mom was cause I wasn’t with her during my high school years. I never really stayed with her so just having a chance to be on my own a little bit and then be close to her that’s what I was looking forward to.”
After his freshman year, Brown decided it was time for him to enter the transfer portal.
“When things didn’t end up going how I expected at Tulane and I kind of knew my worth and what was going on at that moment, it was like October in 2020, I got in the portal,” Brown said. “It maybe took UTSA coaches like two or three hours before calling me. Because I always had a good relationship with the coaches over here, they knew what was up, if I didn’t go to Tulane, I was coming here.”
“The relationship was always there, so when they saw I was in the portal it was one quick call. The coach that called me, he had been recruiting me for like three years before I had even picked a school, so since I was a freshman and sophomore in high school. When he got on the phone with me he was like ‘You know what time it is big dog, just go ahead and make that move.’ I was just like ‘Yeah I ain’t gonna waste no time.’ Then they got the paperwork situated and I knew I was coming here in less than a day. It really ended up being the best possible situation for me, I made the right move. I’ve been flourishing or excelling since I got here.”
UTSA quickly became a home away from home for Brown. Through football, Brown has been able to follow his passion while creating a family and support system through his team, which he describes as unconditional love. Additionally, he is also able to pursue his career academically, setting an example as a first generation graduate and collegiate athlete.
“Basically I had the same culture that I have here, I’ve been having that my whole life,” Brown said. “Besides when I went to Tulane out of high school, that was kind of different for me but after transferring here after my freshman year it was like everything felt like home for real. It’s just a real vibe here, like how my own family is with me, that’s really how it is here. The players are like my brothers and we got GAs around the same age as me so they’re like brothers to me too. Then you got coaches on the staff, they care for the players, they’re like father figures. Anybody that transferred here could tell you if they were at a big school before coming here, like I was, it’s not like that everywhere. Most of the cultures, anywhere you go, it’s just business and they look at a player like an object. Like if he goes down and gets injured, next man up and forget whoever he was. But here it’s like they care about everything. It’s intentional. It’s like very unconditional love.”
Brown is the jersey number two of the team’s defensive 210. Last season he earned third-team All-American Athletic Conference honors as a key anchor on the defensive line for the ‘Runners. While the offense gets to make the touchdowns, it’s the defense’s job to prevent the other team from scoring and to turn over the ball.
“I feel like we’re the tone setters of the game, period,” Brown said. “We got to show up. When we set the tone, everybody basically plays off of us, so if we come out there and we look down and we’re playing down that’s probably gonna be the whole mood for the whole team. But if we come out there and we look like we’re about something and we’re ready to go and we’re dominating, probably the other two sides of the ball are gonna dominate as well. I just think we’re the tone setter of it all. Any team is gonna tell you defense first. Defense wins championships so you got to be able to stop before you go on offense, can’t just be all offense and then no defense. Can’t get no where like that.”
Tackles are a big success on the defensive side. It means preventing the other team from advancing and getting the ball over back to the offense. Just like touchdown celebrations, tackles need to be celebrated too and Brown knows just the way to do it with his very own tackle dance.
“They try and get me to call it the Sexy Bexy, but I call it the B Bounce,” Brown said. “I got it from number 97 from the New York Giants, Dexter Lawrence. I got it from him, I just put my own twist to it really.”
This season is Brown’s senior season before training for the 2025 NFL combine. Despite the lingering pressure of this upcoming event, Brown remains focused on the task at hand, conducting his efforts into the remainder of regular season games this November.
“Hopefully I will be playing professionally after pro day this upcoming March,” Brown said. “I’ll be training for the combine for the 2025 draft around April. Personally, that’s not what I’m worried about at this exact moment, but it’s for sure in the back of my head. I know what I gotta do. And then I got a good word from teams that’s in the NFL so whenever my time comes next year with the combine, I’ll just be waiting for my name to get called.”
In his free time Brown and his friends enjoy bowling, golfing and occasionally fishing, if his busy schedule allows it. If he wasn’t playing football, Brown says he would stay around the sport doing some sort of coaching or physical therapy. He also said he would be interested in creating some sort of clothing brand if he wasn’t doing anything that related to sports. He has been described as a quiet guy with important things to say among other qualities that shine through in his personality and his performance on the field.
“I’d probably describe myself as having integrity and being selfless, because it’s always a bigger cause than myself,” Brown said. “Off of not knowing me at all, some might say he’s a quiet guy, but whenever you ask him a question and he’s speaking, you should probably listen. That’s what I hear about myself around this building.”
