Blue White Illustrated

O F F - S E A S O N R E P O R T T he scales barely tipped 200 pounds when Cam Brown first stepped on Penn State's campus. The initial plan was to redshirt the Bur- tonsville, Md., native as he worked to pack more weight onto a wiry 6-foot-5 frame. His physique had prompted many of his teammates on the defensive side to look upward and wonder just which po- sition this guy was recruited for. Said Koa Farmer, recalling his first meeting with Brown, "I was like, that's going to be a good receiver." Brown needed time to grow into a line- backer, but time was not working in his favor. He would soon find that out. By the second game of his true fresh- man season, injuries had started to mount among the Nittany Lions' more experi- enced linebackers. Before a matchup against Pittsburgh, the team that had come in second in Brown's recruitment, defensive coordinator Brent Pry informed him that that redshirt idea wasn't going to work out. He began by playing special teams against Pitt and Temple, and then by game four – when more injuries started to pile up – Brown was seeing his first sig- nificant action on defense, finishing with 10 tackles in a loss against Michigan. Sta- tistically speaking, it was his most pro- ductive game of the year, but in no way did it reflect his comfort level. "I wouldn't say it was my best game," he said. "It might have looked like my best game be- cause of tackles, but honestly, I had no clue what I was doing." Now, with a full season and his first spring practice behind him, Brown has been granted the perspective of under- standing just how far he's come. "I definitely could have used a redshirt," he said after the Blue-White Game. "But with the experience that I did get, it helped me develop." Even though he didn't amass 10 tackles again, he would only grow more comfort- able from that Michigan game on. With preseason practice coming up in a few months, coaches and team- mates are seeing Brown settle in even further. He is feeling it, too, even more so after his perform- ance in the spring scrimmage. Brown tied for the team lead with seven tackles, but head coach James Franklin said, "It seemed like he made every single one." It was the type of outing that the coaches had hoped to see after his strong effort during winter conditioning. Brown said the workouts tested him more than just physically. "Just knowing that you have to compete every rep," he said. "It's the mental aspect that wore on me compared to camp." The training – drills for speed, strength and agility – came naturally to Brown. As a result, he was up to 224 pounds on the official spring roster, about 10 more than his highest listed weight last season. Franklin said that "he still looks skinny, but he has muscles that I didn't even know existed," adding that Brown's 40- yard dash time "has gone down and his muscle mass has gone up." Brown's improvement was on display in the Blue-White Game, as he backed up his strong performance in win- ter workouts with a recog- nizable change in his technique and overall com- fort level throughout spring practice. After mistaking Brown for a receiver last year, Farmer said there's no doubt where he fits into the team's plans heading into his sophomore season. "He doesn't seem like he's a freshman anymore," Farmer said. "He's making plays. He's being physical. He's big. He just looks incredible. I really like watching Cam play because he's so big and his stature is so rare and unique that when you see him make plays on certain things, it's really cool to watch." SOPHOMORE SURGE Rushed into action last season, Cam Brown is ready for the spotlight in 2017 | TACKLING MACHINE Brown looked sharp in the Blue-White Game, finish- ing with seven tackles to tie for the team lead. Franklin said it looked as though the sophomore linebacker "made every single one." Photo by Mark Selders/Penn State Athletics

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