How Notre Dame safety DJ Brown tackled a weakness and made it a strength
DJ Brown squared his body, chest facing forward and knees bent, as Florida State running back Jashaun Corbin charged toward him one-on-one in the open field. The Notre Dame senior safety lunged at him, smelling a stop to force a Florida State third-and-medium deep in the Seminoles’ own territory.
Brown came up with two armfuls of muggy Florida air and a helmet full of grass instead. Corbin, having passed the last line of defense, chugged untouched the rest of the way for an 89-yard touchdown. Brown’s mistake was one of 14 tackles Notre Dame missed that game, per Pro Football Focus. It was also the most pivotal.
“We have to make that tackle,” head coach Brian Kelly said the next day. “These are matters of fundamentals more so than we lack personnel or the ability to make that play.”
Struggle with fundamentals, then, and you might struggle to see the field. Brown was case in point. He played zero defensive snaps the following week against Toledo.
These situations often have the same ending. A younger player earns an opportunity because of a veteran’s bumpy play, impresses and stays in the role — sending the usurped elder to the bench or even to the transfer portal.
This is where Brown’s story diverges.
Eight weeks after that critical whiff and subsequent benching, he’s in Notre Dame’s starting lineup while junior All-American Kyle Hamilton recovers from a knee injury. Brown is not just making tackles. He’s one of Notre Dame’s best at it. His newfound reliability has softened the blow of Hamilton’s absence.
Brown arrived here by, quite literally, tackling his weakness.
“Part of this is understanding the areas you have to work on,” Kelly said. “His first area was he needed to be a great tackler. He is now a solid tackler, whether it’s on kickoff teams or getting the ball on the ground.
“He has done a great job shoring up that part of his game.”
Brown ranks ninth on Notre Dame in tackles (30) despite being tied for 14th in defensive snaps (271) and making just one start. PFF grades him as Notre Dame’s second-best tackler. The recent film backs it up.
Brown has not missed a tackle since that flail at Corbin. He has made at least five tackles in three of the last five games, including seven versus USC after replacing Hamilton in the first quarter. He has added a tackle for loss, two interceptions and one pass broken up to boot.
“I’ve learned a lot of tackling is confidence,” Brown said. “I feel like I’m big enough, at 200 pounds. It wasn’t a strength issue, but a confidence issue. I feel like I’ve gotten over that.”
The confidence rebuild project started right after those ominous first two games. The first step of it is adhering to a core principle of playing defensive back.
“You have to have a short memory,” Brown said.
Tackling, though, is harder to improve in-season. There’s not as much 11-on-11 hitting during the week, especially as the year goes on and contact is even more limited in practice. Tackling wheels and crashing into dummies can only do so much for a senior who has long understood tackling fundamentals but needs to build confidence executing them at live speed.
Still, Brown took anything he could get. It wasn’t about finding a creative new solution as much as simply immersing in basics to reaffirm he could do them well enough to help the Irish defense.
“In practice, especially with [defensive coordinator Marcus] Freeman and the defensive staff, whenever we’re doing scout team stuff, they really focus on ‘thudding up’ — getting your chest on people,” Brown said. “That’s really the part I worked on. That’s 90 percent of tackling, getting your chest on guys. After that, taking them to the ground is easy.”
Brown had ample opportunity to focus on that 90 percent in practice. Notre Dame cornerbacks coach Mike Mickens starts every practice with a tackling drill for the secondary. Players also hit each other onto mats at full speed. Coaches sometimes put them through a tackling exercise called the “sideline evasion drill.”
“You tackle nine yards out from the sideline where it’s a shorter area and you blow the whistle if they get near the sideline,” Kelly said. “You’re working on angles.”
Brown dived headfirst into it all and earned another chance. He regained his nickel package and occasional base defense role against Purdue, one week following the Toledo game. He played 28 snaps and tied for the team lead with seven tackles, including two “stops that constitute a failure for the offense,” per PFF. He capped it with his first career interception on a tipped pass to seal the win.
It was a successful pick-me-up game. Brown has stayed elevated since and earned the first look as Hamilton’s replacement. He played a career-high 66 snaps versus USC after Hamilton’s injury, then surpassed it the next week by playing all 73 defensive snaps against North Carolina.
Brown had 15 tackles in 22 career games (321 defensive snaps) from 2018-20. He totaled 12 tackles against the Trojans and Tar Heels alone. Two successful games, according to his personal grading scale.
“If I tackle well,” Brown said, “I feel like I played well.”
That’s all Notre Dame can ask for without Hamilton because Brown isn’t Hamilton. Reminders of that exist, even amid his overall satisfactory play. Hamilton likely would have taken a sharper angle and caught North Carolina running back Ty Chandler from behind on a 53-yard touchdown run, for example.
At the same time, Brown has been stable enough to help Notre Dame win in Hamilton’s absence. The Irish didn’t need him to be a star and attempt Hamilton-esque plays. Keep up his play since those wayward first two weeks, and they just might be fine.
Brown has so far obliged. He even offered firsthand proof of his heightened open-field confidence on a second-and-three stop versus USC. Trojans star receiver Drake London caught a shovel pass, cut up the field behind a tight end’s block and sprinted toward the line to gain. Brown charged up to meet him.
Just like that opening game, he squared his chest to the target and went for the hit. This time, London’s legs came to the ground with him — a half-yard short of the marker.
A few plays later, Brown shed two perimeter blockers to stop a first-and-goal London screen for a two-yard gain.
It was transformation on display.
“DJ is just feeling more and more confident as he builds himself physically stronger,” Kelly said, “and playing more football where he can go from speed to balance and make the proper tackle.”
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