His Actions Speak Louder Transfer Back Brown Excels In First Outing For Cougars

Kevin Brown wasn’t saying much.

The postgame questions were flying at the Washington State running back, but he kept his eyes toward the floor, made sure his answers were short and his interviews over quickly.

The junior college transfer acted a little embarrassed by the attention generated by his performance on the field.

Funny, seems like that emotion would have been reserved for the Fighting Illini, who allowed Brown to run for 111 yards on 17 carries in the Cougars’ 20-13 win at Martin Stadium on Saturday. The performance was the third best among Pacific-10 Conference running backs this season.

“In my career in coaching, I don’t know of hardly any of them (junior college transfers) who have come in and done as well the first game as those two guys have done,” said WSU coach Mike Price about Brown and fellow San Francisco City College transfer Chris Martin. “Usually, it’s about the fifth game of the year.”

While Brown was finding daylight on offense, Martin, the starting left cornerback, was keeping Illini receivers in the dark. Illinois quarterback Mark Hoekstra only completed 17 of 42 attempts for 145 yards.

Martin, who battled freshman Anthony Matthews throughout the preseason before earning the starting spot late last week, did his part with three pass breakups and one tackle.

“Mark had time to drop back and throw the ball,” said Illini coach Ron Turner. “We just couldn’t make a play down the field.”

While the secondary was limiting Hoekstra’s options, the Illini did rip off some big gains on the ground. Running back Steve Havard had 103 yards. And the first two times Jameel Cook touched the ball he went for 13 yards.

“They did attack us in the middle with pretty good effectiveness,” said Price. “It may have been we were playing as hard as we can, but their offense was just a little bit better in that area.”

It certainly didn’t help that the Cougars did not have a lot of depth on the defensive line. Senior Gary Holmes, the one player with starting experience, played sparingly because he is not in game shape yet. And Ing Aleaga, a partial qualifier, is still waiting to hear his fate from the NCAA. An announcement is expected early this week.

To counteract the lack of depth on the line, the Cougars went with three down linemen and four linebackers on many occasions. This allowed WSU to utilize its quickness and overcome its lack of size.

The Cougars wound up with five tackles behind the line of scrimmage, including a bone-jarring sack from Jonathan Nance which led to a 52-yard fumble recovery and touchdown by Rob Meier.

“The personnel that we have, we’re using real well,” said Price.

One thing that did not go really well was the deep snapping.

Yes, the punter is named Kareem, but he is not 7-foot-2, and that seemed like it was hard for deep snapper Erik Larson to grasp at times.

Three times Kareem Anderson had to climb the ladder to bring down Larson’s snaps. Once even the aforementioned Kareem Abdul Jabbar couldn’t have grabbed it as it sailed back inside the WSU 10.

“On field goals and PATs he’s fine,” said Price. “On the sidelines warming up, he’s perfect.

“He goes on the field for punts and he’s poor,” he continued. “It’s not the fact that he can’t do it.

“There is nobody on the team who can snap the ball better than he can or more accurately.”

Anderson wound up with a 47.4 average and the coaching staff’s player of the game award.

“With hands like that (wide receivers coach Mike) Levenseller said he wants him at wide receiver,” said Price.

One player who won’t be seeing any action anywhere for the next two weeks is offensive lineman Mike Sage. The senior, who walked into the game with a bruised shoulder limped out with a sprained knee.

Joe Criscione will take Sage’s spot in the starting lineup.

Starting linebacker Raonall Smith also bruised his left shoulder, but is probable for Saturday’s game at Boise State.