On this Halloween month, Hawaii quarterback Dru Brown recently sat through a horror-film festival.
On this Halloween month, Hawaii quarterback Dru Brown recently sat through a horror-film festival.
With quarterbacks coach Craig Stutzmann controlling the remote, Brown watched videos of each of his seven interceptions and 14 sacks this football season.
“There are a few you look at and, ‘oh, not much you can do about it,’” Brown said. “There are a few you look at that can be fixed. Those are encouraging to watch because they’re in your control. When you step back and observe your mistakes, all you can ask is to take a step forward and fix them.”
The Rainbow Warriors — and Brown — are at a crucial point. At 3-4 and 1-3 in the Mountain West entering Saturday’s game against San Diego State, the Warriors need to win to keep pace in their pursuit of a bowl berth. They are assured a spot in the Hawaii Bowl with a minimum 6-6 record in the regular season.
Brown, who transferred from College of San Mateo 16 months ago, is set to make his 18th consecutive start, the longest streak by a UH quarterback since Bryant Moniz’s 31 in a row from 2009 through 2011. Colt Brennan, UH’s Heisman Trophy finalist in 2007, cobbled together a streak of 17 consecutive starts between 2006 and 2007.
“We need to continually develop him,” head coach Nick Rolovich said of Brown, a fourth-year junior. “We’re going to need some big-time throws by him down the stretch. That will probably be the judgment of whether he’s made that big step or not.”
Stutzmann said Brown has improved his comprehension of defensive schemes and pre-snap keys. This season, Brown has completed 70.1 percent of passes on routes up to 19 yards, an accuracy that increases to 73.1 percent when eight drops are discounted.
Brown also has adhered to the bird-in-hand theory.
“One thing I can’t do is look at one (receiver) and think, ‘oh, he’s not that open but the next guy might be open,’” Brown said. “The saying is you can’t pass (up) one to get to one. I’ll never get scolded by Rolo, except for maybe a few times, for throwing a completion when (someone else) was wide open. There are too many variables to observe everything at one time. I think our coaches do a good job of understanding that. That’s why we have progressions in our reads.”
Stutzmann and Brown have worked on improving the deep-pass accuracy. Brown has completed 32.5 percent of his passes that have traveled at least 20 yards from the line of scrimmage. In four Mountain West games, Brown has connected on 44 percent of his deep passes.
For the rest of the season, Brown will be without prolific receiver John Ursua, who was scheduled to undergo ACL surgery on his right knee on Wednesday. Ursua was targeted a team-high 9.6 times per game.
Brown is hopeful other receivers will emerge as targets. He noted that Ursua filled the void when Marcus Kemp graduated after the 2016 season. The Warriors still are searching for successors to last year’s vocal leaders. Stutzmann acknowledged Brown is not a vocally demonstrative leader.
“Everyone on our team knows who I am,” Brown said. “If I start MF-ing people, they would say, ‘hey, man, that’s not you. Chill out.’ I like to think that everyone in that locker room can come to me with anything. Honestly, that’s more important to me than giving a speech that gets everyone excited. Just knowing that I’ll be there.”
Brown said he admires Tennessee Titans quarterback Marcus Mariota’s form of leadership.
“He’s a very good example to me,” Brown said. “He encourages a lot. Just the things I’ve read and the things I’ve watched, he seems like a real humble individual. Everyone knows he’s competitive. But he’s not going to scream and yell and make it all about himself. He always celebrates with his teammates, and that’s huge. That’s something I want people to see when I play.”