2015 NFL Draft: Texas RB Malcolm Brown Scouting Report

For the scouting report on Texas Longhorns defensive tackle Malcom Brown, click here.

Malcolm Brown's stats from 2014 should in fairness be viewed through the lens of Texas' incredibly anemic overall offensive performance for much of the season. Brown was the Longhorns' leading rusher with 708 net yards on the ground and six touchdowns, averaging 3.9 yards per carry and 54.5 yards per game. He accomplished those numbers in an offense that not only struggled to throw the football effectively--therefore allowing defenses to stack the box against the run--but also included two feature backs in Brown and Johnathan Gray.

Given the context, then, while 54.5 yards per game and 708 yards on the season (including just one 100-yard game) are not overwhelming numbers, Brown can fairly be said to have had a solid, unspectacular senior season in Austin. It can also fairly be said that he was never able to live up to the (admittedly mammoth) expectations that greeted him upon his arrival as a five-star, top-ten prospect his freshman year.

What will be interesting for Texas fans going forward is how Brown's progress as a professional reflects on the state of the program during his four years on campus; i.e., how much of his decent-but-not-great career is on him, and how much on offensive line issues and the general malaise of the program?

He has the physical tools to be successful at the next level: good size at 5'11" and 224 pounds, great field vision, patience, and the discipline to run with a low pad level that makes him tough for one man to bring down. On the negative side, he lacks elite explosiveness and open-field speed, and his Combine performance was mixed.

He did some work in making up for that disappointing raw data, however, with his individual workout in Austin, where he ran a 4.51 40-yard dash (a 0.11 improvement on the Combine), posted a 2.62 time in the 20 (a 0.09 improvement) and a 1.53 10-yard time (a 0.09 improvement as well). That 40 time is on par with what Melvin Gordon ran at the Combine, and Brown has 10 pounds on the Wisconsin star. However, the 19 reps he managed on the 225 bench at the Combine will remain in some teams' minds as a concern about Brown's strength.

Projections for the Draft range from the fifth round to catching on somewhere as an undrafted free agent. NFLDraftScout.com has him listed as the #178 overall prospect in the field and the #16 running back.