Round: 1
Pick: 4
Player: Charles Brown
School: SoCal
Position: Left Offensive Tackle
When building a football team, I’m a big believer in building a solid foundation before you go adding the various accoutrements of the WiFi and the HDTV in every room. Wait. Stop. Metaphor crash. Sorry. Burn Notice gets distracting.
Okay, so, when thinking about how I’d assemble a team made up entirely of people from the rosters of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish and their 2009 opposition, I took a look and saw a whole bunch of skill-position talent (until the draft really started to steam along and those names started disapppearing), but I didn’t see a ton of must-haves on the offensive lines. So that’s where I decided to target with my earliest picks in our draft. Luckily, I’m getting to draft some “finished products” rather than relative unknowns, otherwise, I might never have taken Charles Brown, Offensive Tackle, SoCal at pick #4.
Charles Brown: Likely doesn’t eat many tater tots.
Career: The Former 3-star (Rivals) prospect who was named among “Best of the Rest” in one of his home region’s news papers, is now a 5th year senior and 2nd year starter at Left Tackle for the SoCal Trojans. In his first year, Brown managed to garner an honorable mention in the All PAC-10 Football awards after a season of impressive performances wherein his unit only surrendered 18 sacks and gained 195 ypg. This year, he’s already getting a fair bit of national media attention in anticipation of a big season as part of the “best returning offensive line in college football.”
Why Him Instead of a Domer: To be frank, until the entire Notre Dame offensive line proves it an unwise course of action, I’ll aim at taking every SoCal offensive lineman before I dig into the domers. And when I want to build an offensive line, I’ll build from the blind-side first.
Career Vs. Notre Dame: In one appearance as the starting LT against the Irish, the USC offensive line gave up 2 sacks – 1 to Ethan Johnson and 1 to Maurice Crum. I can’t confirm it, but if memory serves me, Johnson’s play did involve Brown, so the Irish have that going for them. Still, Brown probably felt pretty good about the 22 first downs built out of 66 Trojan offensive plays. Oh, and the score.
Prediction for 2009: Probably more of the same. This year, Charles will be protecting a first-year starting QB and helping pave the way for a stable of RBs who all think they too could be the next Reggie Bush. Last year’s arguably best OL in the country, Oklahoma, only gave up 13 sacks on the season. Could Brown and Co. cut down their total from last year by almost 33%? It doesn’t seem likely, but it also doesn’t seem like it would be his fault.
- HLS Tweets for the Week of 2009-11-15 - November 15, 2009
- HLS Tweets for the Week of 2009-11-08 - November 8, 2009
- HLS Tweets for the Week of 2009-11-01 - November 1, 2009
