Opinion: Corwin Brown played at Michigan, coached at Notre Dame and will be a dynamic head coach one day

At the Hawaii Bowl last season, with current Irish coach Charlie Weis confined to the press box, former Michigan safety and current Irish associate head coach Corwin Brown gave pregame speech. And it was nothing like anyone currently at Notre Dame had seen before.

“It was just the seriousness and passion he brought,” Notre Dame linebacker Brian Smith said. “He was standing over here and the next thing you know he was in our face yelling and screaming. It was passion. You could just see it, just feel it and you just fed off it.”

He can motivate. He can recruit. And he has shown the obvious ability to lead, so much so  Weis seems to trust him almost implicitly. Brown is going to be a really good head coach some day. And it should be sooner instead of later.

He has the on-field credentials, playing eight years in the NFL after playing for Bo Schembechler. He’s coached in the NFL with the New York Jets and in college at both Virginia and Notre Dame.

But unlike other coaches in the Bill Parcells/Bill Belichick tree - Virginia was coached by
Al Groh, the Jets by Eric Mangini and Notre Dame by Weis - he has the charisma to win over anybody associated with the program.

And there’s no doubt he wants to be a head coach one day, even though right now he’s focused on his players at Notre Dame.

The biggest question is his play-calling ability, as he ran the Notre Dame defense for two years before being replaced by Jon Tenuta. Not all head coaches were long-time playcallers. They are, though, good managers and motivators, surrounding themselves with the right people.

Brown became the associate head coach at Notre Dame, essentially an apprenticeship until he’s hired for the real thing. Besides recruiting, he coaches defensive backs. He helps Tenuta when needed.

“A lot of time people don’t realize the role he was given wasn’t just some title,” Weis said. “I could not be the true offensive coordinator, I could not be it, without Corwin in the role he’s in now. It would not allow me to do that.

“Without him being in that role, I would feel like I’d be negligent to the football team.
That’s how important I believe his job is.”

Part of the role comes from his own maturation. Brown said he’s grown a lot since he first arrived in South Bend in 2007, a first-time coordinator fresh from coaching in the NFL and his first time coaching one of his biggest collegiate rivals.

And he heard about it, too. Comments stuck with him, especially his last time at Michigan Stadium in 2007, when Notre Dame was blown out, 38-0.

“The first time there, some of my former teammates were heckling me, saying stuff, and I’m looking at them like ‘I’m at my job. This is my job. I don’t go to your job screwing with you, so don’t come to mine,’” Brown said. “So, and I didn’t let it go. Some of that I didn’t let go until I saw the person the next time.

“But at the same time, I’m so much further along now. You could say whatever now and all I care about now is how we play Cover 2.”

It’s that maturity that allowed Brown to take on a new role this year. Tenuta has one of the best defensive minds in the country, blitzing from everywhere, bringing pressure and haranguing opposing quarterbacks and offensive lines. It conflicted with the 3-4 style Brown had been running.

So he stepped back into a new role that could end up more prepared to become a head coach than just as a coordinator.

“This is what I know, and I know this deep down in my heart. Nobody else may know it and nobody else may not believe it but I’m a better person and a better coach and I have a better understanding of everything now,” Brown said. “I think that a lot of people couldn’t do what I’m doing now, they couldn’t say ‘OK, you call the plays and I’ll take a different role. ...

"I see things from a pretty good perspective right now.”

Perspective. It’s something head coaches have to have. All the good ones do, being able to step back and evaluate, to compartmentalize personal issues and professional ones, to balance the egos and personalities of 100-plus college students and more than a handful of coaches.

While not officially in that role at the end of last season, when he became motivator-for-a-day leading to Notre Dame’s most dominant performance of the Charlie Weis era, he showed flashes of it, of why he’s going to be a really good head coach one day.

He gave that speech, the end of it still sticking with Notre Dame’s players.

“At the end, he said ‘We put our names on the back of our jerseys for a reason. So when you hit them in the mouth and you walk away, they know who you are, so let’s go,’” Smith said. “That’s the last thing he said.”

It’s how Corwin Brown played. And how he coaches.

Michael Rothstein covers Michigan sports for Annarbor.com. He can be reached at (734) 623-2558, by e-mail at michaelrothstein@annarbor.com and follow along on Twitter @mikerothstein.