New Auburn QB Hank Brown preparing for first SEC start after roundabout path

Trent Dilfer was hardly surprised when his old quarterback, Hank Brown, made a mostly pristine starting debut for Auburn, avoiding blunders even during stretches where heavy rain was falling.

The former NFL quarterback feels it’s one of Brown’s greatest assets: The poise to weigh risk versus reward and avoid costly mistakes. Dilfer uses a golf analogy to explain Brown’s on-field makeup.

“He’s never going to make it worse,” the current UAB head coach said. “It’s always going to be par or better. He’s Scottie Scheffler and Tiger Woods at their prime. Like, they’re not going to give it away. They might get beat but they’re not giving it away. Hank’s going to make his pars and fit in his birdies. He’s not going to make a lot of bogeys or double bogeys.”

After a strong debut against New Mexico, Brown is set to make his second college start Saturday at home against Arkansas in the Southeastern Conference opener for both teams. He beat out more heralded candidates to enter the season as Payton Thorne’s top backup, and claimed the starting job after Thorne was intercepted four times in a loss to California.

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Brown was 17-of-25 passing for 235 yards with four touchdowns spread among four different receivers. His text afterward to Dilfer: “Lots to clean up.”

Of course, that came against a New Mexico defense that actually moved up a notch from the last-ranked defense in FBS to No. 132 after that game. Now come the Razorbacks.

“It’s definitely an uptick in competition,” said Brown, who was solid off the bench in the Music City Bowl in his only outing last season. “They’re definitely going to be a better defense than what we faced last week. You know, I’m excited for it.”

Brown took a roundabout path to Auburn and the SEC. He led Dilfer’s Lipscomb Academy team in Nashville, Tennessee, to the D2-AA state championship and a 13-0 record in 2022.

Brown planned to play at Liberty for coach Hugh Freeze, who had been recruiting him much of his high school career. Then Freeze left for Auburn and Brown followed after considering joining Dilfer at UAB.

“It’s so cool, because he’s seen this vision the whole time,” Brown said. “I think both of us have. Just being able to, you know, fully see it through and be able to play for him and grow together in our relationship is just an honor.”

Freeze said he always believed Brown “had this ‘It’ factor to him as an individual.”

“I’ve always had this kind of sneaking belief that he had something to him and now we’re getting ready to find out at what level,” Freeze said. “There’s no question, he does. At what level is that at right now compared to the rest of the SEC. We’re getting ready to find out.”

Brown wasn’t highly recruited out of high school. He was rated the nation’s No. 71 quarterback prospect and a three-star recruit, according to the 247Sports composite rankings of the major recruiting sites.

He arrived at Lipscomb before his junior year after father Eric -- a three-time All-American soccer player at Wheaton College -- moved the family from Chicago for his work.

They picked Lipscomb even though it meant a year behind Luther Richesson, who wound up signing with Cincinnati and is now at Middle Tennessee. He did start in a preseason game without ever taking a practice snap with the first-teamers against a higher classification team after Richesson and other starters got sick.

“He went out and threw for like 370 (yards) and I said, ‘Well, we’ve got two really good ones,’” Dilfer said. “It was kind of from that moment on I knew that Hank was going to be a great player.”

Brown might have been underrated as a prospect by coaches assuming he was a product of the offensive system, Dilfer said.

Dilfer spent 14 years in the NFL, leading the Baltimore Ravens to a Super Bowl championship to end the 2000 season. He also helped start the Elite 11 Academy to train high school quarterback prospects.

“I kind of know what they look like,” Dilfer said. “I think Hank was underrecruited because we were so good offensively. I think people said, Well golly this offense is the best in the country. Anybody can do this. What they didn’t realize is that that’s because of Hank.”

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