TOP 20: Derrick Brown
Derrick Brown finished with 11 total tackles last season and never recorded more than three in a single game.
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His next start will be his first. Same for his next sack.
Yet Brown, perhaps more than anyone, represents the promise and the opportunity of Auburn's 2017 season. A five-star defensive tackle whom Georgia and Alabama coveted, Brown walked into the Southeastern Conference as a true freshman last fall and held his own. That sounds simple, but it's not. Playing defensive tackle — along with center and guard — rewards the men who have spent years learning how to take advantage of small mistakes that aren't readily apparent to people who haven't seen those mistakes. A misplaced hand. A cross-over step. See it, bust it, make a play.
Brown didn't have that experience last fall, but he still made a difference. Working almost exclusively with the second team, the freshman finished the season with at least one tackle in each of the Tigers' final five games. He was learning. He started to see mistakes, small windows of opportunity, and started to make his presence felt.
Playing behind Mon Adams and Dontavious Russell isn't for the impatient. Both of those veterans prefer to play as many snaps as possible and position coach Rodney Garner stuck with his veterans after the Ole Miss game, which affected the quality of Brown's playing time. He didn't sulk; Brown instead maintained intensity in practice and began every late-season game a slightly better player than he was a week earlier.
That approach will pay dividends this fall.
Brown has a good chance to start the Tigers' first game, which optimists believe will kick off a two- or three-year reign as a dominator at tackle. Though Brown could benefit from working a bit lower and gaining more upper-body strength — two goals he attacked during the offseason — he's nonetheless a remarkable athlete for his size. He's a born leader. He's realistic about his strengths and weaknesses. No player on the roster has a stronger desire to improve.
There are no doubters inside the Complex when it comes to projecting Brown's ability to make a difference. It's just a question of when.
His first, true window of opportunity is at hand.
ON THE UP SIDE: Quickness, hand violence, maturity
ON THE DOWN SIDE: Experience, pad level
VOTING RESULTS: The Bunker (7th), Jeffrey Lee (9th), Jay G. Tate (9th), Bryan Matthews (19th)
2016 RANKING: Not Ranked
POSTSCRIPT: Rodney Garner has been one of the Southeastern Conference's most successful recruiters during the past 25 years. He recruited for Tennessee in the 90s, Georgia in the 2000s, Auburn in the 2010s. Prospects are changing, Garner says, and not for the better in terms of leadership. "Finding a kid who has that leadership ability, who can motivate people and play at a high level — it's like finding a needle in a haystack," Garner said during the spring. "When you find one, you fight for him like your career depends on it ... because it does." That's why Garner was so adamant about landing Brown as part of the Tigers' 2016 class. Though Brown earned his five-star status due to strong work on the field, Garner was more enamored with the young man behind the mask. There is no such thing as a "sure thing" in athletics, but Brown is the most intriguing young tackle to move up the ranks since Sen'Derrick Marks in 2006.
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