COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Andrew Brown has spent the past four years being pleasantly surprised by his son Devin’s accomplishments as a football player.
Those surprises started early and have come to define the relationship between the two while also turning Devin into the highly-rated recruit he became by the time he graduated.
Andrew would frequently find ways to doubt his son.
And every time, Devin would prove him wrong.
Those moments started young when Devin was adamant that his future was as a quarterback. Andrew didn’t see it and wasn’t willing to sugarcoat things to spare his feelings.
“ ‘Devin, you will not be a quarterback,’ ” Andrew told him. “You’ll probably end up having to play the piano or something. I don’t know if you’re going to be an athlete.”
That’s all the motivation Devin needed.
From that moment on, everything he did was about being able to look into his father’s eyes after every play with the same response: “You told me I couldn’t do it, so I’ve been working every day.”
That’s the Browns’ father-son relationship, a dynamic that turned Devin into a four-star prospect, the nation’s No. 6 quarterback in the 2022 recruiting class and a freshman at Ohio State.
Andrew motivates his son one way or the other, and the response is often at a high level.
“My dad will be my biggest hater of all time,” Devin joked. “If he’s not criticizing me on something, something’s not right. He’s always gotta get after me.”
A cheerleader and a critic
Devin’s first “I’ll show you” moment came when he was just 10, as the backup quarterback on a little league flag football team. Andrew was the coach and spent years placing obstacles in front of his son to keep him off the field. The problem was Devin kept beating out everybody put in front of him, and eventually, his dad gave up trying.
Then in a state championship game, things got interesting.
With about two minutes left in a tie game. Andrew called a jet sweep to the side of the field closest to the sideline. But Devin saw something different at the line of scrimmage. He checked out of the play and completed a seam route. Then he went no-huddle, called his own play and threw a slant for the game-winning touchdown.
They went on to win the state championship that day, but Andrew was lost for words. He sought out his son, looking for answers.
How is it that at that age Devin could diagnose a defense and efficiently execute two plays for a game-winning drive, especially given that their offense didn’t even have audibles and rarely went into no-huddle?
“He’s explaining something to me at 10 years old, and I’m going, ‘Where did you learn this?’” Andrew recalled. “That’s when I went, ‘I don’t know if this kid will ever physically be good, but this kid’s pretty smart. He sees things that I don’t see.’”
On that day, it was Devin seeing the bigger picture. Years later, college coaches would start seeing it, too, as those traits continued to grow.
A crazy offer from Wisconsin
That lack of size and athleticism is why Andrew didn’t see his son becoming a major college prospect. Andrew is 6 feet tall, and was uncertain how much more Devin would grow. The Brown family didn’t have a history of tall men.
But Wisconsin’s football coaches saw it right away.
The Badgers’ staff went out to Arizona’s Queen Creek High School to watch linebacker Trey Reynolds (who ended up at Utah) in person.
At the time, former Ohio State quarterback Joe Germaine was Queen Creek’s head coach. Germaine wanted to maximize Reynolds’ chance of impressing the coaches, and the best way to do that was by using Brown -- a freshman who’d never played a snap of high school football -- at quarterback.
The idea was that Brown would throw a bunch of interceptions and make the defense look good during practice.
Instead, something else happened.
“I was picking (the defense) apart, to be honest, and I was a little dude,” Brown said. “The next week, (Wisconsin) flew out their quarterback coach to see me throw, and they offered me. Even my dad asked, ‘Come on, Coach. Is it real? Really? Did you see him?’ ”
Andrew’s skepticism was in part because Arizona State had been offering a bunch of eighth-graders, so they figured Wisconsin was doing the same as a publicity stunt. Offering a freshman of Brown’s size didn’t make sense, but that offer was more about the Badgers getting in early on a hidden gem.
Wisconsin’s coaches told Andrew that they had seen Devin make high-level throws that nobody his size should be able to make. And more than that, they said, they saw a freshman take command of a group of varsity players and run a practice like he’d been doing it for years.
Andrew was a believer after that day. Soon after, Devin’s physique started catching up with the other traits. He committed to USC in September of 2020, early in his junior year.
It all came together as Devin made his case to be part of the 2021 Elite 11 quarterback competition held in Los Angeles, where he made it clear he wasn’t shying away from anyone.
“I’ve watched enough film and I think I can throw with anybody,” Devin told his father.
Brown left LA as a top-100 recruit who could’ve easily backed off his USC commitment to explore new options. Instead, he stayed loyal -- until Clay Helton was fired last September.
Meanwhile, he was in the middle of transferring from Queen Creek to Utah’s Corner Canyon High School for his senior season.
But there was a third domino falling: Ohio State’s 2022 commit Quinn Ewers was skipping his senior year of high school to enroll early in August 2021, putting OSU back on the market for a Class of 2022 quarterback.
A rainy day visit and a heavy binder
Devin Brown never appears on the Buckeyes’ radar if a specific series of events don’t happen at the right time.
If USC keeps Helton, he doesn’t decommit.
If he doesn’t leave for Utah, he probably doesn’t have the senior season necessary to validate what he did at Elite 11, given that his 4,887 passing yards and 57 touchdowns doubled what he did in two years in Arizona.
If Ewers doesn’t arrive in Columbus last August instead of in 2022, there’d be no need for Corey Dennis to go see Devin.
But once those things happened, the process moved quickly -- in a fashion Devin appreciated.
“He’s got a whole journal of notes as he spoke to coaches and visited places,” Andrew said.
The first box the Ohio State coaches checked off was sending Dennis to Utah. He watched the four-star QB throw in a less-than-ideal environment and still thrive.
“It was a rainy practice, the ball was like 10 pounds, but we were still getting after it,” Devin said. “It was dumping on us. He’s in jeans and a shirt. It’s maybe 20 degrees and pouring rain on him. He loved it, and from that day he knew I was the guy that he wanted.
“The next day, Coach Day called me and offered me.”
The next box OSU checked off was showing him film of a Seahawks vs. Patriots game that highlighted the level of detail Bill Belichick paid as a head coach. Then they handed him a large binder emphasizing how they wanted their quarterbacks at the same level.
“I was like, ‘Wow,’” Devin said. “They really pay attention to the details, and they really want what’s best for quarterbacks, and this is why they develop all these guys. It just blew me out of the water.”
Now Ohio State had his attention.
The last step was getting him to Columbus, where a Heisman-level quarterback and a gameday atmosphere would close the deal.
A Heisman-level performance and a gameday atmosphere
Devin Brown (right) visited Ohio State during its 56-7 win over Michigan State. During that visit and heard and saw everything he need to know he wanted to be a Buckeye.David Petkiewicz, cleveland.com
The stars aligned for OSU and the Brown family on Nov. 20.
Devin and his family were in Columbus to watch a top-10 matchup against Michigan State with ESPN’s College GameDay in town, Chris Fowler and Kirk Herbstreit on the call and other elite recruits in the stands. It was the exact environment OSU hopes to create with game-day visits.
“It was palpable,” Andrew Brown said. “It was so different. We looked at each other and nodded. This is what team chemistry is supposed to feel like. This is what team energy is supposed to feel like. This is what a game day culture should feel like.”
What followed was what could only be described as a best-case scenario looking to impress a quarterback recruit. C.J. Stroud completed 32 of 35 passes for 432 yards and six touchdowns. Stroud was busy guaranteeing himself a trip to the Heisman Trophy ceremony in New York City, while Ohio State was busy securing its next quarterback commit.
“It was the perfect storm of everything,” Andrew said. “It’s just funny when you look at how things worked out between playing for Coach Germaine, the personalities of Coach Dennis and Coach Day and the way they develop quarterbacks. Then the game we got to go see and Coach Helton getting let go.
“All of it seemed to be the perfect storm of events to lead us to where he is now.”
The actual decision didn’t come until Nov. 30, with a public announcement two days later. Brown had seen more than enough to know who was leading the race.
“Just to see all the talent around him and making all those plays. Michigan State was the No. 9 team in the country at the time, and they just got after them,” Devin said. “It was so fun to watch, and I could just imagine myself playing in that offense and thriving in that offense.”
Brown had plenty of other choices but wanted to join a quarterback room that at the time featured a Heisman finalist in Stroud; a perfect-rated recruit in Ewers (who later would transfer to Texas); a five-star in 2021 recruit Kyle McCord; and another high-end talent in Jack Miller (who has since transferred to Florida).
He looked at that room and wanted every part of it.
That’s because he grew up in a house listening to his father tell him he might not be good enough. Instead of taking it as discouragement, he took it as a challenge.
Andrew wanted his kid to keep going, and Devin wanted to keep proving his father wrong. That dynamic produced a kid who is already getting Joe Burrow comparisons before ever taking a snap.
So much for Devin needing to take up the piano.
“The best thing you can ever do for him is doubt him,” Andrew Brown said. “That kid just works and works and works.”
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