Orange Bowl Extra
Growing up in South Florida, Marquise Brown ‘lit it up’ on the football field. Now that he expects to return from injury to play in a national semifinal, ‘Hollywood’ can help author an upset.
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MIAMI GARDENS, FLA.
— When Marquise Brown walked up to his first practice with the Dania Bears around age 9, Quincy Bullard didn’t know what to think.
“This kid is small, like a little kid,” the coach remembers thinking. “Wow. But the speed and the work ethic was crazy. This little guy got all this energy. He was outworking 90 percent of these bigger kids that were on the team.
“As a 9-year-old, 10-year-old kid, I’d never seen speed like that before in my life.”
Brown has been the focus of the Sooners’ lead-up to Saturday’s Orange Bowl against No. 1-ranked Alabama (7 p.m., ESPN), both for the questions about his status following a foot injury in the Big 12 Championship Game and his being the only Oklahoma regular from South Florida.
On the first subject, Brown recently returned to practice, and said he’s still not 100 percent as he works back from the injury but that he “anticipated” playing.
“Trying my best to be out there,” Brown said.
Brown now wears the “Hollywood” nickname proudly, not for the glitz and glamour of Tinseltown but for the beachside community tucked right between Miami and Fort Lauderdale where Brown grew up. But it’s not just Hollywood that claims Brown. His dad is from Fort Lauderdale and Brown spent plenty of time there as well.
“The city is on fire,” Calvin Jackson, another of Brown’s youth coaches, said. “That’s the talk of the town right now ... you can’t go one corner without anybody talking about it.
“It’s an incredible feat for him but also for just those who are able to just say man, that’s Jet Fuel.”
While Brown may be “Hollywood” everywhere else since Gus Johnson bestowed the nickname last season, in Hollywood, he’s still Jet Fuel.
That was the nickname Brown got from one of his Pop Warner coaches thanks to the speed that Bullard marveled about a decade ago.
Back then, Brown was a running back and wildcat quarterback.
The Bears didn’t throw the ball much and when they did throw it to Brown, he didn’t do much catching of it.
“Not at all,” Shaddrick Lowery said. “One to 10, I’d probably give him a two.”
But that speed was unmistakable.
He didn’t show it off really in his first couple games with the team but in about the third, he took off.
“He made three or four people miss going down the sidelines,” Lowery said.
“We were all jumping up and down going crazy. ... He was a little timid because of his size but once he’s in the open field, it’s open. Just like now.”
But Brown had to find another position eventually.
“His hands weren’t the greatest but when I saw him get older — 13, 14 years old, the body structure wasn’t getting any bigger,” Bullard said. “Started thinking, ‘this running back spot might not be good for him because he’s taking a lot of hits and we need him throughout the season.’”
So Bullard starting lining up Brown in the slot and throwing the ball to him immediately.
“I don’t think anyone can stick to him one on one, I don’t care who you are,” Bullard said.
When Lowery saw Brown play two years ago, watching Brown’s College of the Canyons team play on YouTube — Lowery’s son was on that team as well — the difference jumped out.
“He lit it up,” Lowery said.
A year later, he was lighting it up at Oklahoma and about the only thing that’s stopped him since is injury.
Now he’s hoping to play the biggest game of his career so far just about 14 miles down I-95 from the “Bear Trap,” where he first started showing off his otherworldly speed on the football field.
“I guarantee you, he’s going to have his own section at the game,” Bullard said.