Brooks: Brown Will Take His Time Finding Pair Of New Corners

BOULDER - No need to get in a hurry, and Greg Brown won't. He's re-settling into familiar surroundings, having returned to a locale and school he wasn't wild about leaving. This is pretty close to a career comeback.

So while he's enjoying that, he'll let the competition in his area work itself out. And, yes, there's plenty of competition and ample time.

When Jon Embree was hired in early December as Colorado's new football coach, one of his first calls went to Brown, who left CU following the 2009 season for a job at Arizona as secondary coach/co-defensive coordinator. If Brown left Boulder with mixed emotions, the mixing was slight; in his heart, he knew he would miss (almost) everything about the place.

He probably could have stayed in Tucson indefinitely - or as indefinitely as can be applied in his profession. But in making a return to college coaching, CU always had been his destination spot and a coordinator's job (let's drop the co-stuff) his goal.

Embree didn't have to work overtime to pluck Brown out of the desert and plop him back in the mountains. On Brown's end, the toughest decision came in deciding to leave Boulder the season before. Making the call to return required a couple of heartbeats, if that.

Coming back as Embree's defensive coordinator/secondary coach in a third stint on CU's staff, Brown's most obvious task is the replacement of cornerbacks Jimmy Smith and Jalil Brown. Smith was in on 772 plays last season, Brown on 799 - the high mark for the defense. Not having them in the "back end" when the Buffs open this fall will be like mustard missing from the hotdog stand.

"Somebody told me that there were something like eight snaps combined when Jimmy and Jalil weren't on the field at corner last season," Greg Brown said. "Corner is as big an unproven as there is on this team, due to the fact that those last two seniors manned those spots for the last two or three years - and manned them pretty well."

Well enough that both probably will wind up in the NFL - Smith as a high-round draft choice, Brown not far behind him.

But there's a deep and well-stocked, albeit mostly inexperienced, pool of replacements. When the Buffs opened spring drills on March 11, Brown had eight corner candidates to begin scrutinizing. Six of them are listed at that position: senior Jonathan Hawkins; junior transfer Makiri Pugh; sophomores Paul Vigo, Deji Olatoye and Jered Bell; and redshirt freshman Josh Moten. Then there's a pair of experienced seniors - Travis Sandersfeld and Arthur Jaffee - who have played mostly safety but will get spring looks at corner.

Brown doesn't want to be hasty about all this until incoming freshmen DBs Will Harlos, Sherrard Harrington, Greg Henderson and Kyle Washington arrive this summer. At two of that pair are projected as corners.

"It's going one of those deals that drags through summer and into the fall," Brown said as far as settling on a pair of replacements for Smith and Jalil Brown.

Because they had another coach - Ashley Ambrose - for only one season, most of the Buffs' secondary returnees are familiar with Brown, his defensive philosophies and his expectations. Ambrose was an able replacement, but to a man the Buffs welcomed Brown's return.

"Same personality, same everything," said Olatoye, who played in six games last season. "I had a good feeling with Coach Brown when he was here for my freshman year - he recruited me. Not that I wasn't comfortable with Ashley and he wasn't a good coach, I was just comfortable with Coach Brown. I knew his coaching style and was glad that's who they decided to bring back."

Bell, who played in eight 2010 games as a true freshman at corner (his natural position) and safety, hasn't been coached by Brown. But Brown recruited him, so both know what they're getting. Said Bell: "I was pretty familiar with him. Ambrose took over, but when Coach Brown came back, I felt like nothing really changed. Only he hasn't coached me on the field like he has some of these other guys.

"There's definitely intense competition . . . everybody is competing for those two spots. These next couple of weeks are chances to shine and show the coaches what we can do."

Although listed as a sophomore, Vigo has been around awhile and wearing all available shirts. He was a member of the 2008 recruiting class but "grayshirted" and delayed his enrollment until January 2009. He redshirted that season, then played in four games last season.

Even at first glance two years ago, Brown liked Vigo's physical stature (6-foot-1, 190) and the way he ran. Last season, Ambrose noticed those same qualities and casually predicted Vigo someday (maybe sooner than later) might step in for either Smith or Jalil Brown.

"With my size and being able to run, that with being high intensity, I feel like that's what (Brown) is looking for," Vigo said. "That's what I want to bring to the game. I feel like I know the defense, the situations . . . but it's all going to come down to who makes more plays.

"We're all competing; there are a lot of guys like me who are big and physical, but they're learning, too. It's all good competition; we're all battling, we're all in it together. We all took reps behind (Smith, Brown), and it was intense competition then to be in the 'two' spot. Now, it's carrying over to this season. Basically, we're all playing hard and going at it. It's going to be high intensity at every practice."

The defense Brown is coordinating features a new line coach (Mike Tuiasosopo) and a new ends/outside linebackers coach. Veteran Brian Cabral returns to coach the inside linebackers and serve as run game coordinator. The DBs' familiarity with their coach might have lessened some of the anxiety other players felt with new position coaches.

"I would say it gives the 'back half' a little bit of an advantage," Olatoye said. "We're familiar with Coach Brown and know what he expects and how he expects it done. Having that 'back half' know that, we can communicate it to the rest of the defense . . . it's probably more of an advantage for our entire defense.

"We're experimenting with the 4-3 and the 3-4, so it's different for our linebackers and our defensive ends. But it's not too much different for the back half. There's just been some different drills, some variations on footwork."

Players Brown coached previously and those who played last season under Ambrose, a Brown prot+¬g+¬, "are going to be familiar with some of the concepts we decided to bring back as a staff," Brown said. "But a lot of the guys are on even footing because we've got new defensive coaches in here combining their ideas and evolving the scheme."

Overall, the group he's working with is talented, "but it's unknown, unproven right now. Nobody's got any significant experience (at corner). Some of the guys I know, but that doesn't give anybody a significant edge. This is a different day, a different era."

He'll let the competition continue as long as it takes - or as long as he can afford to wait - for the top corners to surface.

Contact: BG.Brooks@Colorado.EDU