SMOOTH OPERATOR: Donovan Brown’s lively, energetic presence translates into career year with Syracuse

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onovan Brown is the last guy Makhi Walker wanted in front of a camera. He’s goofy, with an off-the-cuff sense of humor, and can’t help but say everything that comes to his mind. So, when a local reporter requested a postgame interview with a player at Quince Orchard (Md.) High School, Walker shook his head and laughed.

Quince Orchard entered its contest against Northwest, a team that starred many of Brown’s childhood friends, as underdogs. That summer, Brown said he and the Northwest players started talking back and forth about the upcoming matchup. Brown even posted a Madden score against one of his friends from Northwest on Instagram and said “I just beat one of my friends in Madden, and he’d never beat me in real life in football.”

Brown, a Syracuse commit by then, kickstarted the scoring against Northwest with a 41-yard rushing touchdown. He broke through the middle, shook one man, stiff-armed another and took off, looking at the crowd while yelling “we back.” Quince Orchard pulled off an unfathomably comfortable 31-0 victory. After the win, Brown snatched the microphone and leaned into the camera.

“Y’all forgot. It’s Q.O., stop trippin,” Brown said.

Syracuse’s second-year wide receiver is one of the most energetic players wherever he goes. At Quince Orchard, Brown helped lead the Cougars to a 14-0 season and a MPSSAA 4A State Championship. As a track athlete, his state championship junior season attracted recruiters, leading him to sign with Syracuse. His quick-wit and light-hearted approach to sports stood out among his teammates. Now, on an SU team scrambling for a standout receiver after losing Oronde Gadsden II, Brown is primed to take over.

Brown loves to dance. He dances during warmups and breaks out new moves for each song. Matthieu Longa, a former receiver and linebacker at Quince Orchard, said Brown’s favorite move was the “Walk ‘Em Down,” created by Memphis-based rapper NLE Choppa. Brown calls it “the work.” He slings his arms and drops down when the beat drops or pretends to swing a towel over his head.

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Toward the end of workouts and during walkthroughs before games, Brown would break out the moves and get as many teammates into it with him as he could.

“I wake up happy,” Brown said prior to the start of Syracuse’s season. “It’s like an adrenaline rush.”

Longa and Walker said Brown’s outgoing personality came out at Quince Orchard. Brown was in charge of choosing the teams’ music before games. He always played Baby Fifty, No Savage, J Mo, Skrilla and Simba. The track’s mixes of hard-hitting lyrics and orchestral background allowed him to relax.

“You couldn’t be mad about Donovan or sad about Donovan,” Walker said. “It was hard to. He always made you feel good about what was going on.”

When adversity hit, Brown was the guy Quince Orchard’s players looked to. He was the one to pull aside a coach during practice if a play wasn’t working well. He’d tell the coaches to speak “English” if he could tell the rest of the team wasn’t understanding something they were saying.

Brown arrived at Quince Orchard following his sophomore year. But, the COVID-19 pandemic shut down Maryland’s high school football season. He was forced to train on his own, putting together a training regiment that he learned from head coach John Kelly and the coaching staff.

Kelly worked with Brown on strengthening his route running ability. They added new variations to the existing routes Brown knew. Walker said he picked Brown’s brain each practice. The tandem worked on staying low through routes and improving their quick-twitch skills. When Brown wasn’t running routes in practice, he usually ran small sprints, went through cutting drills on the sideline and caught short passes.

Brown took a couple plays under center as a senior, but Kelly mainly used him as an outside receiver on go routes down the field. “He could blow by anybody. His long speed was really good,” Kelly said.

Brown also lined up in the slot at times — much like he does with the Orange — to provide the quarterback with a larger miss radius. After a strong track season in 2021 that saw him win the 4A state championship in the 200-meter and 400-meter races, college coaches started circling for Brown. Still, only Vanderbilt and Syracuse extended offers.

“His film was very limited, like limited to none,” Kelly said. “But I knew just watching him he was a Power Five player.”

Brown said receiving little attention from colleges hurt. He was jealous of his other teammates who continued to get offers. Once the pandemic hit and canceled his junior season, Brown made a decision. Even if he had to go to junior college, he was going to “rock out” until something happened.

Before his state-championship-winning track season, Brown and some of his Quince Orchard teammates went to a 7-on-7 camp at Penn State. It was one of numerous camps that Kelly said he got Brown into so he could be seen. Walker and Longa were both confused by the lack of offers coming Brown’s way, but hardly saw it affect the budding receiver. Syracuse’s then-tight ends coach Reno Ferri was at the camp and stood near Brown before he took off for a route.

Brown turned to Ferri, who he didn’t know was a coach at SU. “Hey coach, watch this,” he said. Longa said Brown took off and caught “the meanest fade ball” that wowed the coaches, including Ferri.

The throw was long, but Brown managed to extend his arms and catch the pass with four fingers. In his celebration, he acted like the ball was glued to his hands, kicking it out of his gloves.

“He doesn’t take everything seriously. With him, when he’s too, too serious, it might mess him up a little bit,” Walker said. When he has that personality, it keeps him relaxed, keeps him calm.”