Ohio State Transfer QB Devin Brown Signs With Cal

Buckeyes backup quarterback presumably will compete with Jaron Keawe Sagapolutele for the starting job in 2025
Ohio State quarterback Devin Brown
Ohio State quarterback Devin Brown / Adam Cairns/Columbus Dispatch / USA TODAY NETWORK

Ohio State transfer quarterback Devin Brown, who was a highly touted prospect coming out of high school,  has signed with Cal. The Golden Bears announced the signing Monday morning.

The 6-foot-3, 212-pound Brown has been the Buckeyes backup quarterback the past two seasons, and he has two years of college eligibility remaining.  Presumably he will compete with incoming freshman Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele for the starting quarterback job at Cal next season.  The top three Cal quarterbacks in 2024 -- CJ Harris, Fernando Mendoza and Chandler Rogers -- all entered the transfer portal, leaving only freshman EJ Caminong as a returning scholarship quarterback. Cal last month added College of San Mateo junior college transfer quarterback Dominic Ingrassia, giving Cal four scholarship quarterbacks for 2025.

This season Brown was the backup to Will Howard, and Brown played in nine games, completing 11-of-20 passes for 114 yards, one touchdown and no interceptions. He also carried the ball seven times for 13 net yards. His best game came against Western Michigan in the second game of the season when he was 5-for-5 for 57 yards in the Buckeyes’ 56-0 victory.   He played in Ohio State’s postseason game against Tennessee and completed his only pass attempt for 6 yards.

Brown was a member of the Ohio State team that won the national championship on Monday with its 34-23 victory over Notre Dame.

In the 2023 season, Brown played in six games as the backup to Kyle McCord, and that season Brown was 16-for-28 for 217 yards, two touchdowns and one interception.  He was the Buckeyes’ starting quarterback in the Cotton Bowl game against Missouri that season after McCord entered the transfer portal.  However, Brown played only 18 snaps before leaving the game with an ankle injury. Before the injury, Brown was 4-for-6 for 20 yards, but was sacked three times. Ohio State lost that game 14-3.

He has been a scholar-athlete at Ohio Sate majoring in finance.

Brown is from Gilbert, Arizona, and was a highly touted high school player. Rivals ranked him as the nation’s 37th-best prospect overall in the class of 2022 and the No. 4 pro-style quarterback. The 247 Sports composite rankings rated him the No. 43 overall prospect and the No. 6 quarterback in the class.

He had offers from Notre Dame, Texas, Oregon, USC, Mississippi, Washington, BYU, Iowa State, Michigan State, SMU, Indiana and Wisconsin, among many others, before signing with Ohio State.

He played at Queen Creek High School in Arizona before transferring Corner Canyon High School, in Draper, Utah, for his senior season. He threw 57 touchdown passes and ran for 430 yards and eight more touchdowns as a senior.

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Jake Curtis
JAKE CURTIS

Jake Curtis worked in the San Francisco Chronicle sports department for 27 years, covering virtually every sport, including numerous Final Fours, several college football national championship games, an NBA Finals, world championship boxing matches and a World Cup. He was a Cal beat writer for many of those years, and won awards for his feature stories.