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In ATL next week, a hot young coach hopes to stay hot against a team he loves

Aug. 29—Next Monday night, Bryan Brown won't have to follow his alma mater on Gamecast.

Brown, once a notable name in high school football in these parts as a Corinth standout, works every Saturday.

Ordinarily he relies on Gamecast to keep up with Ole Miss.

Next Monday night he'll be coaching against the Rebels for the first time as Louisville and Ole Miss meet at Mercedes Benz Stadium in Atlanta.

Brown is entering his third season as Louisville's defensive coordinator where his bio on the school's website describe's him as a "bright, young mastermind on defense."

"Someone must have been drinking when they wrote that," he jokes.

Maybe not.

An Ole Miss player on David Cutcliffe and Ed Orgeron teams, Brown was a graduate assistant on Houston Nutt's staff. Not long after he found himself at Appalachian State in Boone, N.C., where his star continued rising as a defensive backs coach.

Appalachian State cornerbacks led the nation with 30 interceptions between 2015-2017.

He became Scott Satterfield's defensive coordinator in January of 2018 and moved with Satterfield to Louisville after the 2018 season. The move to the Power Five level was one the staff anticipated.

"We had a feeling it would come. We were just being patient," Brown said.

On the field in 2019 Brown's defense was impatient.

The Cardinals more than doubled their sack total and shaved 10 points off their points allowed average.

Last year Louisville improved its total defense standing from No. 102 to No. 39, a jump of 63 spots if you're scoring at home.

"Coach Sat jokes with some of our donors saying he doesn't know if I'd have come if I had known they had given up 50 points a game in five or six games," Brown said.

When Brown arrived he became the fourth DC in four seasons for the group he inherited.

His first goal was to instill confidence in players who had experienced little success.

He did that by stressing simplicity to ensure they would be in position to make big plays. There was re-tooling with position moves for a handful of players.

Camaraderie built through visits to Brown's home and other team activities, admittedly more difficult through COVID football last year, was a big part of the plan.

The scoring defense average was down to 26.6 in 2020, a top-50 figure.

Now he hopes the plan and the confidence will help the Cards slow down Matt Corral and the Rebels.

Brown says Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin and offensive coordinator Jeff Lebby are masters of deception through play-calling.

"They do a great job of running plays off of plays that look exactly the same but are slightly different," he said.

So proper technique will be extremely important for the Cards.

"Your guys, especially the secondary, have to have their eyes on their keys and be in the right spots, not get their eyes in a hazy world meaning they're trying to look at everything," Brown said.

When there's downtime on a Saturday Brown's eyes are on his phone searching for the Ole Miss score.

"If we're free at the time on a bus or plane or back home I'll follow them on Gamecast. I'm an Ole Miss Rebel till the day I die," said Brown, who remains active in a group text with former teammates.

Eyes in the right place and proper focus helped Satterfield and Brown jump from the Sun Belt Conference to the ACC.

Brown, 37, hopes he'll jump to his own head coach job one day.

"Absolutely. That's one of my goals," he said.

Getting there means the hot young coach has to stay hot.

"The No. 1 goal is to master being a defensive coordinator and being one of the best in the country."

PARRISH ALFORD is the college sports editor and columnist for the Daily Journal. Contact him at parrish.alford@journalinc.com.