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Richie Brown made a bit of a splash Wednesday morning when he announced his decision to sign with Mississippi State. Instead of the tired old hat trick, the linebacker from Long Beach had his 4-month-old nephew break the news.
Brown's father unzipped the jacket being worn by Aidyn Kellum, and everyone saw that the little guy was sporting an MSU onesie. Brown did don a State cap at that point, but everybody was focused on Aidyn.
He handled himself well. Didn't cry or anything.
"He's a chick magnet, and he knows how to deal with large numbers of people," said Brown.
Well hey, look at his picture. Pretty cute kid.
The little twist of creativity was Brown's idea. He said he turned down offers to announce his decision on television because he wasn't wanting to make it all about himself.
"I just wanted to be with my family, and I was thinking of ways to make it fun for my school, my friends and my family, so I decided to include my family in announcing," Brown said. "Aidyn's my nephew, and he's my only one. I love him to death."
But as for Brown, he's hoping to make an even bigger impression on the field for MSU, and quickly. He said coaches told him he'll have a shot to win the starting job at middle linebacker, a position that lost its entire three-deep to graduation.
"It's my spot to lose. That's what they said," Brown said. "You can't promise anybody playing time, but I can tell that they definitely believe in me to earn that spot. They're talking about middle linebacker, and potentially some offensive packages. That'd be fun, too. I don't want to go a year without playing."
Brown also played running back at Long Beach. He sounds pretty ambitious, but he plans on putting in the work. His playbook arrived in the mail Wednesday. Brown said he's about 230 pounds right now and should be able to easily hit 240 by the time he arrives on campus this summer.
"I'm going to be working hard. I'm not going to get a big head, and I'm definitely going to be working as hard as I can," he said.
Brown was credited with 209 tackles and 3.0 sacks last season, and he earned Parade All-American honors.
Brown actually committed to MSU last week, but he'd made the decision long ago to wait and make it official on signing day. That wasn't easy. He told me Tuesday, "I wanna say it really bad."
So why MSU?
"The folks there, I've just loved the school. For probably the last three weeks, it's been at the top of my list. … That's where I need to be, and everything is pointing at it. The program, everything is just looking really good for me. I'm just super excited."
MSU's 2012 class is heavy on defensive stars. Brown is one of two linebackers to sign, the other being Beniquez Brown (Florence, Ala.). Eight defensive linemen are part of the 28-man class.
So while Richie Brown is expecting a lot of himself, he's expecting big things from this group.
"I've been in contact with all those guys for the past month, if not longer," he said. "We've been talking, and we've always talked about going to school together. I made sure to stay in touch with them and relay to them what I was thinking. A.J. committed last week, and then it's just something that we've all kind of kept in touch with. We've got a great class going, even a little bit underrated, in my opinion. It's going to be an amazing class."
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