North Carolina State University Athletics
Brown Named National Player of the Week
11/6/2005 12:00:00 AM | Football
Nov. 6, 2005
BY TIM PEELER
RALEIGH -- NC State coach Chuck Amato made the comparison carefully, but since someone asked, he was willing to point out the similarities between Wolfpack freshman tailback Andre Brown and another former tailback who had a pretty good freshman year.
"Yeah, he reminds me of watching Herschel Walker," Amato said Sunday afternoon, when asked if Brown was similar to any one else he had ever seen. "He has quick feet, he has his pads low to his knees and he floats and floats and, then, Bam! You just don't believe that he can be that fast on top of it. He is very powerful.
"I shouldn't put that on anybody, comparing him to Herschel Walker, but I say that because they are very comparable in size."
Walker was 6-2, 222 pounds during his sensational college career at Georgia, where he helped the Bulldogs win the 1980 national champions as a freshman, setting the NCAA freshman rushing record with 1,616 yards.
Brown, who made the first start of his career on Saturday, won't approach those numbers as a freshman, but at 6-1, 232 pounds and the ability to get away, or run over, opposing players, he certainly cuts a similar figure as Walker, who won the 1982 Heisman Trophy as a junior.
Not that Amato thinks Brown's sudden success will go to the 19-year-old freshman's head.
"He is so level-headed," Amato said. "He is a mature young man, a team player." Sunday, Brown was named the NCAA Division I-A Offensive Player of the Week by the Walter Camp Football Foundation after rushing for 179 yards on 26 carries in the Wolfpack's 20-15 victory over ninth-ranked Florida State in Tallahassee, Fla.
His 65-yard touchdown on the second play of the game, set the Seminoles back on their heels, removing any doubt that last week's 248-yard performance against Southern Mississippi might be a fluke.
"They found out in a hurry that he is for real," Amato said.
In his last two games, the freshman from Greenville's Rose High School has 427 rushing yards, more than 10 times what he had in the Wolfpack's first six games, when he had a total of 42 yards on 13 carries.
He was inserted into the offense against Southern Miss and came within three yards of setting the school's single-game rushing record, which was set in 1977 by Ted Brown.
Of course, Brown's performance wasn't completely due to individual performance. He's also had exceptional blocking from an offensive line, a trio of tight ends and a handful of wide receivers willing to sustain blocks down field.
"Our offensive line has really, really come together," Amato said. "The chemistry, you can see it every game, has gotten better and better. We are protecting the quarterback better, which we have done a pretty good job all year of doing.
"The run-blocking of tight ends has been absolutely outstanding. The reason you get long runs ... is because you have perimeter blocking, you have wide receivers down the field blocking their fannies off, which shows an awful lot of unselfishness."
Amato said his team sustained no new injuries that he was aware of, other than the normal aches and pains of playing in a game against a physical opponent. It will now set its sights on getting ready for Saturday's game at Boston College.
The game will begin at 7:15 p.m. on ESPN2.
You may contact Tim Peeler at tim_peeler@ncsu.edu.
