Arizona Linebacker Taye Brown Ready for Larger Role

Arizona football has been a program built off of tough nosed, gritty and blue collar style of football with strong running games and legendary defensive units like the “Desert Swarm” defense that put the program on the map in the 90s as one of the best defensive schools in the country.

This past season was a struggle with the team finishing 4-8 with things going wrong on the offensive side of the ball and the defensive side as well. Anything and everything happened to the 2024 Wildcats starting with key players missing the start of the season resulting in season ending situations.

On the defensive side, things started off solid and it seemed that the unit was holding everything together at time.But, then injuries started to pile up and create depth issues for then-defensive coordinator Duane Akina and his staff.

When taking a look at the starting unit near the start of the season, Arizona had a high number of season ending injuries that took a toll on the defensive unit and seemed to down the unit as a whole.

One position group that really had to piece things together was the linebacker spot after seeing Jacob Manu sustain a season ending injury. At times, we saw safeties playing as a linebacker to make up for the depth issues.

One player that stepped up and showed improvement as a strong linebacker was Taye Brown, who was starting for Arizona but had to take on more of a leadership role with Manu out for the season.

Brown was part of the 2023 recruiting class that finished No. 39 nationally according to Rivals. Coming out of high school, he was a solid three-star recruit that had offers from Kansas State, San DIego State and Air Force.

When looking at his film, it was clear that he would need development and time to work on adjusting to the speed of the college game.

However, he picked it up quicker than most thought and even saw time on the field as a rotational linebacker with limited reps.

Last season, Brown played in all 12 games and recorded 69 total tackles and 30 solo as one of the leaders of the unit. That was 63 more tackles he made from the previous season.

Now as we look at the 2025 season, Brown will be the leader of the group and new defensive coordinator Danny Gonzlaes will be counting on him to bring the grittiness to the football field.

Please let us know your thoughts on the development of Taye Brown and how you see him fitting into the defense. To do so, follow us on our X account by clicking the link.