UPDATE (12/10): Notre Dame announced Sunday that Wisconsin's Mike Brown has been named wide receivers coach for the Irish and will join the staff this month ahead of the Dec. 29 Sun Bowl against Oregon State.
The story below ran last Sunday when Brown's expected hiring became clear.
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Notre Dame football’s search for a wide receivers coach didn’t last long.
After head coach Marcus Freeman “parted ways” with wide receivers coach Chansi Stuckey on Tuesday, the Irish are now expected to name Wisconsin’s Mike Brown as his replacement, a source confirmed with Inside ND Sports on Sunday night. 247Sports first reported the news.
Brown's name was mentioned on The Insider Lounge as a potential replacement on Tuesday afternoon. It's unclear when Brown would take over in the role.
Brown spent the 2023 regular season as Wisconsin’s associate head coach/wide receivers coach. He followed head coach Luke Fickell to the Badgers from Cincinnati. Brown was hired by Fickell as Cincinnati’s wide receivers coach in 2019 and promoted to passing game coordinator in 2022.
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There he overlapped with Freeman, who was the defensive coordinator for the Bearcats from 2017-20. Notre Dame quarterbacks coach Gino Guidugli also worked with Brown at Cincinnati. Guidugli was the quarterbacks coach from 2018-19, passing game coordinator from 2020-21 and offensive coordinator in 2022. Guidugli briefly followed Fickell to Wisconsin this past offseason before joining Notre Dame’s staff.
Wisconsin’s 2023 passing offense, which used two different starting quarterbacks, is ranked No. 88 in the FBS with 207 passing yards per game. Its team passing efficiency of 113.98 is ranked No. 115 among 130 teams.
Redshirt senior quarterback Tanner Mordecai started the first six games of the season for Wisconsin until he suffered an injury to his throwing hang against Iowa. He left that game early and missed the next three while being replaced by redshirt freshman Braedyn Locke.
In nine starts, Mordecai completed 177 of his 274 passes (64.6%) with six touchdowns and four interceptions for a pass efficiency rating of 120.7. In five games, Locke completed 50% of his passes (76-of-152) for 788 yards with five touchdowns and one interception for a 102.5 pass efficiency rating.
Mordecai’s efficiency rating ranks No. 93 among the 109 FBS quarterbacks to reach the minimums of playing in 75% of his games and attempting at least 15 passes per game.
Redshirt sophomore wide receiver Will Pauling, a transfer who followed the staff from Cincinnati, led Wisconsin in receiving with 66 catches for 694 yards and four touchdowns. Redshirt sophomore Skyler Bell was second in receptions with 38 for 297 yards and one TD. Junior Bryson Green, a transfer from Oklahoma State, was second in receiving yards with 375 on 25 catches with one TD. Running back Braelon Allen was third on the team in receptions with 28 for 132 yards.
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Brown, who grew up in Charlottesville, Va., played wide receiver and quarterback at Liberty (2008-11), where he was named a College Sporting News Fabulous FCS All-American in 2009 and 2010 as a wide receiver and quarterback, respectively.
Brown continued his playing career in the NFL for four years with 18 games across three seasons for the Jacksonville Jaguars. His coaching career started as a graduate assistant at Michigan (2016) and offensive quality control assistant at Delaware (2017). He worked with running backs at both schools before returning to Liberty as a running backs coach in 2018.
Then Brown was hired at Cincinnati in 2019. His four-season tenure with the Bearcats offers the best understanding of what he can do as a receivers coach. During that time Brown worked with three future NFL Draft picks: 2022 second-rounder Alec Pierce, 2023 third-rounder Tre Tucker and 2023 fourth-rounder Tyler Scott.
Pierce signed with Cincinnati in 2018 as a three-star recruit. Pierce became a starter as sophomore in 2019 under Brown’s tutelage. He caught 37 passes for 652 yards and two touchdowns. Pierce’s junior season was cut short due to injury. As a senior, he totaled 52 receptions for 884 yards and eight touchdowns in Cincinnati’s College Football Playoff semifinal run.
Tucker signed with Cincinnati in 2019 as a three-star recruit. He played immediately as a freshman in a limited capacity as a receiver and kick returner and gradually caught more passes each season. His impact peaked as a senior when he caught 52 passes for 672 yards and three touchdowns. He finished his career with 112 catches for 1,433 yards and eight touchdowns.
Scott signed with Cincinnati in 2020 as a three-star recruit. After catching just three passes for 20 yards as a freshman, his production elevated to 30 catches for 520 yards and five touchdowns as a sophomore and 54 catches for 899 yards and nine touchdowns as a junior.
As a recruiter, Brown doesn’t have a star-studded résumé. Cincinnati signed 10 wide receivers in the three full recruiting cycles Brown oversaw for the Bearcats. Only one, Jadon Thompson in 2020, was rated as a four-star recruit. Five others were three-star recruits, and two more only received two stars.
Thompson caught 46 passes for 649 yards and one touchdown in three seasons at Cincinnati. He transferred to Louisville for the 2023 season, in which he’s caught nine passes for 115 yards and one touchdown.
Wisconsin entered the week with one wide receiver committed to its 2024 class, four-star prospect Kyan Berry-Johnson from Bolingbrook (Ill.) High.
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