Australian punter Cam Brown probably wasn’t the first name most people circled when Michigan and Oklahoma met in Ann Arbor. By the end of the afternoon, though, the Coolangatta product had become one of the reasons Oklahoma spent so much of the game staring at a very long field.
Brown punted seven times for 296 yards, placing six of those seven punts inside the Oklahoma 20-yard line. Two were downed at the 1, he had no touchbacks, and Oklahoma managed only 17 return yards across three returns.
Those aren’t the sort of numbers that usually dominate a box score, but they tell an important part of how Michigan controlled field position. The Wolverines produced only 263 yards of offence themselves, so Brown repeatedly giving the defence more grass to work with mattered.
One punt late in the second quarter summed it up. Michigan stalled at the Oklahoma 40 and Brown dropped a 39-yard punt at the 1-yard line. Earlier he had landed another at the Oklahoma 12.
Michigan coach Kyle Whittingham singled Brown out afterwards, calling the field-position work “crucial” and describing him as a weapon through the opening weeks.
The seven punts and 296 yards were Michigan career highs for Brown, while the six inside the 20 were also a personal best. He was later named to the Ray Guy Award’s Ray’s 8 for the week.
It was a good example of why AGN is tracking these performances rather than just the roster lists. Brown wasn’t simply there. He materially changed where Oklahoma had to start drives.