Recruiting Blog: Son of late NFL star narrows his list of colleges

By Michael Carvell

March 5, 2013

Orlando Brown Jr., son of the late NFL standout by the same name, listed his top seven schools on Twitter on Monday night.

The 6-foot-7, 345-pounder is a rising senior from Peachtree Ridge High School and a candidate to be the state’s No. 1 prospect on the offensive line. Brown says he has 42 early football scholarship offers.

Here’s Brown’s list of seven with a few selected comments (he praised each school’s offensive line coach):

Alabama: "They've won a lot of national championships, and they've got Coach Saban. I know they just lost their offensive line coach to Philadelphia but they just got somebody from Miami and he's a great coach. That's pretty good about them."
Arkansas: "They've got Coach Bielema. He was winning at Wisconsin with a powerful running game. He builds a lot of his teams around the offensive line. I know he's bringing that to the SEC."
South Carolina.
Ohio State: "Ohio State has the No. 1 offensive line coach in the country, I guess due to polls and stuff like that, with (Ed Warinner). He's a great coach, and Coach Meyer is a great recruiter."
Michigan
Oklahoma
Iowa: "Coach (Kirk) Ferentz is a great coach, and I have a lot of coaching ties, as far as him coaching my dad when he played for Cleveland and the Ravens in the 90s. I know he's a great coach, I know he puts his offensive linemen in the NFL." Brown said he thought Ferentz, Nick Saban and Bill Belichick may have attended his parents' wedding.

As far as schools that didn’t make Brown’s list, some were surprised that UGA was not included. It’s one of the state’s weakest classes for offensive linemen in years, and Brown is the only one from Georgia that the Bulldogs have offered a football scholarship so far for 2014.

What about UGA? “Yes, they’re not among the seven. But that’s not to say I have taken my eyes off them, or haven’t given them a chance. I just feel like these are the top schools that I guess fit me best and are my favorites. That’s what I feel.”

Brown, who has visited UGA once (for last season’s Vanderbilt game), has been to Alabama and South Carolina for Junior Days. He plans to check out Arkansas, Oklahoma and Alabama again in the next future.

He will “most likely” wait until after his senior season to make his college decision, and hasn’t ruled out the possibility of changing his list of favorites.

“I just felt like it was time (to narrow it down), going into spring practice,” Brown said. “That’s not to say the list won’t change, depending on if a couple of colleges come in for visits (to spring practice).”