USM freshman a big catch

By Drew Champlin

Published: December 17, 2008

NEW ORLEANS — The first thing Southern Miss wide receiver DeAndre Brown noticed about first-year head coach Larry Fedora was his willingness to fight.

Everybody in the country wanted Brown, a 6-foot-6, 230-pounder from nearby Ocean Springs, Miss., to sign with their program last year, but Brown said the previous staff under Jeff Bower didn’t think they could get him.

Within a week of Fedora’s hiring, he was in Brown’s living room. Not long after that, Brown was sold. The prospects of playing in a passing offense, plus being near his mother, who raised him in a single-parent home during his teen years, were appealing.

What clinched it, though, was Fedora’s persistence.

“I think (the previous staff) laid off me because the big schools came in,” Brown said. “They didn’t think they had a chance. Coach Fedora came in and he fought with them. He didn’t care if it was LSU, Alabama or Florida, he wanted to come in and compete with them.”

Brown said he would have gone to LSU if he hadn’t picked Southern Miss. It paid off for the Golden Eagles, who have won four straight to reach a 6-6 record and a date with Troy (8-4) Sunday in the New Orleans Bowl.

Brown caught 66 passes for 1,108 yards and 12 touchdowns and was named the Conference USA Freshman of the Year. Plenty of national publications named him Freshman of the Year and he’s been listed on several All-American teams.

“He didn’t just fall in our lap,” Fedora said. “We had to recruit the heck out of him, along with everybody else in the country. We built a relationship with him and his family and DeAndre found out and realized he could reach all the goals and dreams he had and do it an hour from home at Southern Miss.”

If it took a while for redshirt freshman quarterback Austin Davis and Brown to click, no one outside the program could notice. Davis threw for 2,852 yards and 21 touchdowns with just eight interceptions in his first year as a starter.

There’s no love-hate relationship like the Dallas Cowboys’ quarterback-receiver duo of Tony Romo and Terrell Owens, especially the way the Romo-Owens feud has escalated through the media lately.

“He doesn’t ever chew me out,” Davis said. “You can’t lose track of where he’s at, because if you do, he’ll beat you and if you worry about him too much, that gets other guys going.”

Fedora remembers last meeting with Troy: Last year, Fedora was Oklahoma State’s offensive coordinator. The Cowboys came to Troy and fell 41-23 on national television.

“I remember leaving with my tail between my legs,” Fedora said. “I remember that part of it. We went out there, lightning struck, we went back in, we fumbled on the first play and it was on for them after that.”

Fedora, who coached at Sun Belt foe Middle Tennessee from 1999-2001, said he wasn’t looking at the personal revenge aspect of Sunday’s game.

“I have tremendous respect for Larry (Blakeney),” Fedora said. “He’s built Troy to what it is today. We’re just here to enjoy the weekend, have a good time and try to win a football game.”