7/26/2016 football Edit

Franklin: Cam Brown an 'ideal' OLB for now

BWI Staff

Rivals.com

Listed at 6-foot-5 on Penn State's latest official roster, incoming freshman Cameron Brown is as tall or taller than seven of the nine defensive ends on the team. Based on that alone, he'd seem destined to play his college football with his hand in the dirt.

But, as head coach James Franklin told reporters Tuesday at Big Ten Media Day in Chicago, that's not the case. For now, he said, the native of Burtonsville, Md., is "an ideal outside linebacker in terms of having the length and the athleticism and the movement that we're looking for."

At 6-foot-5, Brown was recruited to begin his PSU career at OLB.

While he might appear to have the physical tools needed to play DE, Franklin believes Brown is initially better equipped for OLB.

To further emphasize his point, Franklin recalled a moment earlier this summer shortly after Brown had arrived on campus.

"I think when we were initially recruiting him, we recruited him as an outside linebacker, who could potentially grow into a defensive end, but if you see him, you never know," Franklin said. "He is legitimately 6-5. So, he does have tremendous growth potential, but he's not the broadest guy. I think he's about 210 pounds right now, which is big enough to play outside linebacker. You'd like him a little bit bigger than that. But will he ever be 260 pounds? Probably not. But you never know. Noah Beh (came in at) 240 pounds and is now 300. You never know how guys are going to develop. But (Brown's) frame – those guys all came over to my house for a barbecue when they first got here. They were playing basketball and took his shirt off. He has got more sets of abs than I've ever seen. His abs start up here and they go all the way down. He's got like 15 sets. It looks kind of freakish, and I think I was kind of freaking him out because I was kind of staring at him because his body is unbelievable. So ripped up, so defined, so athletic. We've got a number of guys like that."

In three high school seasons at Bullis School, Brown accumulated 260 tackles and an interception playing a variety of positions on defense, including LB and DE.