Five things Notre Dame wide receivers coach Mike Brown said in spring practice

Sometimes spring practice for coaches who hopped on the carousel and ended up somewhere else feels like starting high school. Or, more appropriately, going from high school to college. It hasn’t been that way for first-year Notre Dame wide receivers coach Mike Brown, though.

For him, it feels more like a bachelor party rekindling with friends from years past.

Brown is back with old buddies of sorts. He coached alongside Mike Denbrock, Mike Mickens and Marcus Freeman as an assistant at Cincinnati. That trio has made him feel right at home at Notre Dame.

“It’s been great,” Brown said. “Getting reacquainted with some familiar faces always makes the transition a lot easier. It’s been a joy just getting back with those guys that I’ve worked with before but then also just meeting the new coaches. All the way around, both sides of the ball, everybody has been great, everybody’s been really supportive and made the transition really easy. So it’s been really, really good.” 

Here are five other things Brown said in his Wednesday media availability.

On Christian Gray battling with Notre Dame wide receivers

“He’s physical. He’s competitive. He’s physical, competitive and he doesn’t back down. Plays really hard. We’re gonna make each other better. He’s gonna challenge us and make us better. So we know that iron sharpens iron and this is gonna be huge for us, but I think he’s got a very, very bright future.” 

On Irish wideouts gaining chemistry with a limited Riley Leonard

“As much as we can in our room we just try to focus on what is your job, right? I don’t care who’s throwing it. I don’t care if I’m throwing it in individual or coach Gino [Guidugli] — it doesn’t matter. Are you doing your job? Are you where you’re supposed to be? And then when the ball comes your way, do you make [the play]?

“Now, you can say that right but there is a timing aspect and things like that. I think that has to be our focus right now. Regardless of who’s throwing the ball, we got to understand, do we know why we’re doing what we’re doing? Are we in the right places? Are we handling our part? Don’t worry about what’s going on behind the center. That part will work itself out. But just focusing on ourselves and the things that we can control right now and when the ball comes make the plays.”

On getting guys like Jordan Faison, Beuax Collins and Logan Saldate in the full swing of things this summer

“We’ll let it play out. We’ll let it play out. We’ll see once everybody gets here how the entire room looks. It will be good to get Jordan, and we got another freshman coming in. Got guys coming in. So it’d be good to just get them all here. We’ll see what they can do.

“I try not to go in with super high expectations of anything and just evaluate off of what I see right there. Obviously you have a background of seeing high school film or seeing film from last year. You have a basis. But you know, it’s a difference when they gotta listen to what you’re saying and then go and apply it in a new offense.”

On teaching these Notre Dame wide receivers to have more contested catches in 2024

“You do the best you can. We like to say as coaches we can create a bunch of different situations and we do some partner ball drills and we try to do some distraction stuff, but I mean the best look you get out of this is one on one, seven on seven, and team stuff. It’s playing football.

“And so the more of those situations that we get opportunities to capitalize, the better off you are at it. But yes, we do things to try to simulate it. We’ll do some ball security drills at the beginning of practice at times where you got guys hanging off of you and punching at the ball, just trying to replicate that stuff as best you can. But the best reps come from true action, one on one, seven on seven, team.”

On senior Deion Colzie

“Deion has been great, man. He’s been a really good leader for us, first and foremost. Like I say, he’s been a guy that has been around and he knows how things go. He’s really smart. He’s been physical for us when we need him to be in all the jobs we ask him to do, and he’s made plays. It’s gonna be a good competition, and it’s gonna be a good competition, I think, at all of our positions.

“I’m excited just to kind of watch. We’ll get some live situations and we’ll see who shows up and maybe some guys that disappear. Hopefully, it’s not any that disappear. But I’m excited. We’ll have some scrimmages, I think Saturday, and then the following Saturday, and we’ll continue to go from there and it will play out how it plays out.”