Don Brown
Followed Walt Bell. Don Brown held Massachusetts at Regional Program VI for 3 seasons.
Career arc
His real stature score, season by season, across every program he’s coached — so a stretch that stays in one tier the whole way can still climb or sink on the line, not just flatten out. Node color marks the tier reached. Which program a stretch belongs to is carried by the shaded lane behind it.
Reached Regional Program in his 1st career season — faster than 20% of the 925 FBS coaches who have ever reached Regional Program (rank #1 of 925 by seasons-to-arrival).
Style position and drift
Where each stint’s offense sat between run-first and pass-first, and how far it moved from one season to the next. The band is that stint’s real season-to-season range, not a fixed-width box.
Season-to-season pass-rate range for all 258 FBS coaching stints with at least three covered seasons, 2014–2025.
The big-game ledger
How he does in the games that matter most — rivalry record, performance broken out by real opponent tier, one-score games, and his toughest historical matchup.
His own effect, isolated
A statistical estimate of this coach’s contribution to team performance, separated from that season’s roster talent, returning production, and his coordinators — pooled across his whole head-coaching career.
Model fit as of 2026-09-04.
Coaching career
4th-best Massachusetts tenure of 7 by the numbers.
Underperforms his recruiting talent, on both sides of the ball.
Followed Walt Bell (2019–2021) · succeeded by Joe Harasymiak (2025–2026).
| Season | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Record & result | ||||
| Record | 1–11 | 3–9 | 0–2 | |
| Postseason | — | — | — | |
| Recruiting rank | #115 | #126 | #126 | |
| Style — pass rate | ||||
| Pass rate | 34.8 | 47.2 | 40.4 | |
| Coordinators | ||||
| OC | Steve Casula | Steve Casula | Shane Montgomery | |
| DC | Keith Dudzinski | Keith Dudzinski | Keith Dudzinski | |
| Outcome — opponent-adjusted efficiency percentile | ||||
| Offense | 3 | 34 | 50 | |
| Defense | 30 | 11 | 8 | |
| Tendencies — play-by-play, neutral script (2021+ only) | ||||
| 1st-down pass% | 26.7 | 43.6 | 38.8 | |
| Red-zone pass% | 27.0 | 31.0 | 29.1 | |
| 4th-down go%opp. territory | 41.5 | 20.0 | 39.5 | |
A portal-built roster.
Brings in smaller-than-position-typical players than most.
Recruits older, more experienced transfers than most.
Don Brown
Defensive coordinator across 3 programs, 3 stints, before and after wearing the head-coach hat — every season measured on the same axis, whether he personally ran the unit or someone else did.