Gamble leads to payoff for Brown, Cougars
Former walk-on LB wins scholarship and leads team in tackles
Roman Brown is the definition of a late bloomer: he played one year of high school football, had few college scholarship offers, and took a gamble by enrolling at the University of Houston.
“Take a chance,” Brown, a senior inside linebacker, said of his decision to walk-on with the Cougars.
Five years later, the decision has paid off for Brown. Pressed into the starting lineup because of an injury in Week 1, Brown has 46 tackles, which leads the team and is second in the American Athletic Conference heading into Saturday’s game at East Carolina.
“As a senior it’s been a long time coming,” Brown said.
A self-described “late developer,” Brown said he did not “hit my groove” physically until late in high school.
By then, most colleges had no roster spots left. As a high school senior, Brown played at 6-1 and 210 pounds; he is currently listed at 6-2 and 230.
“That’s why I didn’t have many offers coming out,” Brown said.
A productive senior season at Midlothian, a half-hour south of Dallas, led to full-scholarship offers from several Football Championship Subdivision schools, including Sam Houston State. Brown also considered staying close to home as a walk-on at SMU.
“I knew I was better than IAA,” Brown said.
With few options, Brown called UH, then under head coach Tony Levine, and was told he could walk-on to the football program with no guarantees.
“They told me, ‘We don’t have a scholarship for you, but if you come down here we could have one eventually,’” Brown said. “That was my reason.”
At UH, Brown redshirted his first season in 2014, played in one game in 2015 and five games in 2016. Before last season, coach Major Applewhite awarded Brown a full scholarship.
“It was amazing,” Brown recalled of the announcement, along with cornerback Alexander Myres, before the entire team in the Carl Lewis Auditorium. “When he called my name, I had a big smile on my face. I called my parents. They were happy for me. It was a blessing.”
Since then, Brown said he has noticed a change in perception, from a player that once worked on scout team to now a starring role for a UH team that currently leads the AAC West division.
“It’s definitely a difference in terms of how people look at you from coaches to everybody down,” Brown said. “Once I got my scholarship I learned everybody had more respect for you. You really went through a lot as a non-scholarship athlete. I feel like a lot of people have more respect for you.
“In terms of who I was and effort and everything else, that stayed the same.”
Applewhite said Brown has “a passion for the game” and worked himself into the opportunity to be a major contributor.
“He’s someone who just lives, eats and sleeps football,” Applewhite said.
“Our first year in 2015, he was a scout-team nickel. He was always out playing over the slot, or sometimes diving in the box. He was the guy that you had to constantly be communicating with as an offensive coach, scoutteam wise, to get in position. He’s a guy that you could make eye contact with when he’s out there on the field, and he’d understand exactly what you wanted as a coach; where he needed to be on a certain play, the work he needed to do, and the effort he needed to give you. If we needed to rerun a play again because it was a skewed look, then he got it right the next time.”
When Darrion Owens went down with a knee injury in Week 1, Brown stepped in and had 11 tackles against Rice and 12 against Texas Tech. He had his third double-digit tackle total of the season with career-high 13 against Tulsa. Before this season, Brown had four career tackles.
Brown recalled a recent conversation with his father.
“It’s worked out and been a blessing,” Brown said. “He was telling me at the end of the day we made the right choice.”