There’s speed. There’s fast. And then there’s wide receiver Marquise Brown. It only took him two seasons at Oklahoma to show everybody that his size wouldn’t be a deterrent toward his future.

A game-changer if ever there was one, Brown became the ultimate home run hitter in Lincoln Riley’s offense, both for quarterback Baker Mayfield in 2017 and Kyler Murray in 2018. Coincidentally, both quarterbacks also earned the Heisman Trophy Award.

Brown, now fully recovered from a Lisfranc fracture, saw his name be called with the No. 25 overall selection of the first round of the NFL Draft by the Baltimore Ravens on Thursday evening in Nashville.

Recruitment

Originally from Hollywood, Fla., Brown didn’t gain a lot of traction during his initial foray into the recruiting game. Nobody was looking his direction with his 140-pound frame.

Brown went from one coast to the other in landing at the College of the Canyons for junior college. It was a chance for him to show what he could do.

You could argue that OU found Brown by accident. If Jalen Reagor never would have decommitted from OU for TCU for the 2017 class, the Sooners would have had zero reason to look for a speed receiver for the 2017 class.

Brown was down to OU and West Virginia before picking the Sooners.

OU

You think about all the highlight-making plays from Brown in his two seasons that you might forget his start in Norman was a rocky one.

It took a while for Brown to earn the right to see the field, not even taking a snap in OU’s road victory at Ohio State in Week 2 of the 2017 season.

Once he caught fire, though, he never looked back. He finished the season with 57 catches for 1,095 yards and seven touchdowns. Known as Jet when he was younger, he was dubbed “Hollywood Brown” by college football announcer Gus Johnson. The name has stuck ever since.

If that season proved he could fly, the 2018 campaign was about showing he could do other things, too. Brown wasn’t afraid to block, wasn’t afraid to catch in traffic and make third down conversion grabs in tight quarters.

Brown had a sensational redshirt junior season with 75 catches for 1,318 yards and 10 touchdowns before a Lisfranc fracture suffered in the Big 12 championship derailed things. Somehow, Brown still played in the Orange Bowl but wasn’t the same dynamic threat he had been throughout the year.

For his OU career, Brown finished with 132 catches for 2,413 yards and 17 touchdowns.

Quotable

“A lot of coaches they asked me — ‘Why would you play? There’s a lot at stake.’ But you know me, I came from nothing. These guys gave me the opportunity. If we’d have had another game after that I would’ve played so I just wanted to give it my all.” – Marquise Brown on why he played in the Orange Bowl despite the Lisfranc fracture