Big 12 Championship: Tre Brown, three times a hero

ARLINGTON, TX — He’ll never have a statue in Heisman Park, but maybe Oklahoma can build one of Tre Brown outside AT&T Stadium.

Oklahoma’s senior cornerback has delivered more championship moments and more trophy presentations in that stadium than anyone else in college — or the pros.

“Every time big games come around — especially in this stadium, AT&T Stadium — he shows up,” said defensive back Tre Norwood.

Brown showed up again on Saturday in the Sooners’ 27-21 victory over No. 6-ranked Iowa State in the 2020 Big 12 Championship Game.

Browns’ moments in Jerryworld have been writ large and will have life eternal in Sooner lore:

In 2018, he sacked Texas quarterback Sam Ehlinger on a sneaky corner blitz. Brown’s collision knocked Ehlinger down in the end zone for a 2-point safety, giving the Sooners a 5-point lead and the ball back in the final 8 1/2 minutes, and they closed it out with a touchdown on the ensuing possession.

In 2019, with OU ahead 23-20 and only 5 1/2 minutes left, Baylor quarterback Jacob Zeno zipped a pass out to Chris Platt and Platt juked his man and caught the ball in stride. But Brown summoned unnatural speed and tackled Platt — on a 78-yard pass play — short of the goal line. The OU defense held, Baylor’s field goal tied it and OU won in overtime.

And Saturday against Iowa State, with the Cyclones trying to finish off a fourth-quarter rally, quarterback Brock Purdy was pressured out of the pocket and threw the ball up for grabs. Brown elevated over Xavier Hutchinson and came down with the game-clinching interception with 1:05 to play.

“Man, I was seeing the ball,” Brown said. “I seen a guy coming from across, so I’m like, ‘Yo, he’s looking. I know he’s looking to catch the ball and go score. I gotta go get my depth.’ He threw it, and I wasn’t running to the ball, but then I speed-turned to it. I jumped and I seen a guy swipe, but it wasn’t enough to throw me off. I caught the ball.

“It feels good.”

That’s three big games, three big moments, three plays on which effort and execution at key moments helped Brown’s team win a championship.

“It just shows he’s always prepared for the moment, no matter when it is,” said defensive end Ronnie Perkins. “He’s always a guy we can lean on to make a big play when we need one.”

“Someone was going to have to make a play to win that game,” defensive coordinator Alex Grinch said. “When all was said and done, somebody was going to be on the right side of it and so someone was going to be on the wrong side of it. … Obviously, critical. And to see Tre do that as a senior, obviously thrilled for him and thrilled for us.”

During postgame interviews, Brown was asked to rank his three big plays in OU’s title games.

“I’d say the sack against Sam Ehlinger,” he said. “That was No. 1 because I went through so much that year, losing my mother and everything. Everything was just so cloudy for me, but I always kept my head up. It was my first one. It was my first Big 12 game, and I went out there and I made a play.

“The next one I’d say is this one. It’s pretty close between that one and the Baylor one. I got to show off my speed.”

Brown said he thought about his mother on Saturday.

“I thought about her a lot,” he said. “I think about it a lot every day all the time. I pray to her before the game.”

Brown’s timing in championship settings is impeccable. But it wasn’t just a game-ender he delivered on Saturday. He also sparked his team — twice — with timely kickoff returns.

In the second quarter, Iowa State had just scored with 1:34 to play before halftime. Brown took the ensuing kickoff 43 yards — the Sooners’ longest kickoff return of the season — and set up Spencer Rattler and the offense with a short field for a quick touchdown that recaptured the momentum and put Oklahoma ahead 24-7.

The in the fourth quarter, after the OU offense had punted on five consecutive possessions, Brown matched his previous runback with another 43-yard return. That once again put life in the Sooner offense, which quickly picked up three first downs, burned more than three minutes off the clock and netted a field goal that put OU up 27-21 with 2:01 to play.

“Shoutout to everybody,” Brown said. “We talked about it. We talk about it all week that they were going to give us some returns. We were gonna have opportunities. Shoutout to everybody that was out there doing their thing. I trusted and believed in it, and I hit both of those. I felt like those were also game-changing plays to help our offense.”

Incidentally, add 43 and 43 and you get 86 — which is Brown’s career-long kickoff return back in 2018.

Maybe his mom’s still watching over him. He certainly felt her presence before the interception.

“It was just crazy,” Brown said. “All game I felt like I needed to make a big play. There were big plays out there that needed to be made, and the game wasn’t over. I thought to myself, ‘Yo, the game isn’t over.’ The crazy thing is … I was just praying. During that whole series, I was just praying: ‘You’re there for me when I need it the most. If I get put in a situation, I hope to make a play.’

“I made that play, and it was just surreal.”

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