Boise State roster countdown 2019: Day 43, Brandon Hawkins

Last season you had to wait 40 more days to get to Brandon Hawkins’ day in the sun, so if you happen to be Brandon Hawkins...here’s a little gift. 43 days until kickoff and for all intents and purposes...we’ll have Brandon Hawkins wearing that jersey today (when the season starts, he’ll still be in #3, but so will Riley Smith, you see).

#43, Brandon Hawkins, RS Freshman, SLB

Stats

Height: 6’ 2”

Weight: 212 (+3)

High School: Georgetown HS, Georgetown, TX

How’d he get to The Blue^TM?

He was the second Boise State commit (after Phillip Mills) for the class of 2018. Coming out of TX the linebacker had himself quite the productive career and offers.

Mr. Hawkins was a consensus three-star recruit among the three services, 247Sports, Rivals, and ESPN. Hawkins was a two-time team captain at Georgetown. He also was a human wrecking ball his senior year amassing 125 tackles, four sacks, two safeties, and a unanimous selection to the Texas All-District 19-5A First Team. So, he’s kind of good.

As for offers: Air Force, Army, Colorado State, Houston, Indiana, Navy, and Washington State. Those were just the notable ones.

Nickname

”Hawk”

If he can start spouting zen proverbs like our LAST Hawk, that’d be great.

Look-alike

Jared Goff

Career highlights

Two-time team captain. Unanimous selection to the Texas All-District 19-5A First team as a senior. Blocked two FGs and a punt, and forced two fumbles as a senior. Named First-Team Texas All-District 19-5A as a junior. Honorable Mention Academic All-State as a senior, and three-time academic all-district selection.

2019 Prospectus

Hawkins should be well-prepared for a larger role this season. He was a spring enrollee last year, so has just that much more time than most of his fellow redshirt frosh, but NOT fellow linebackers DJ Schramm and Phillip Mills, so the LB corps of the future could be a close-knit group if we can get them all on The Blue. Obviously, the Broncos LB situation is of dire importance in 2019 with the losses of Tyson Maeva, Blake Whitlock, Tony Lashley, Joseph Inda, Desmond Williams, Will Heffner, and of course, the injury to Riley Whimpey and the Broncos didn’t answer a ton of questions in the spring with a host of non-participants etc. We saw a few flashes of Hawkins in the spring, but not enough to know where his place is in the pecking order.

Currently, the only guys listed at “SLB” (or “Sam” as Rick Blaine calls them) are Hawkins and Roman Kafentzis. Kafentzis played in nine games last season, so has the experience edge, but more guys are going to have to vy for that spot for me to feel real confident in our numbers. This is where I assumed guys like 2019 commits Lolani Langi and Casey Kline might come into play, but Langi opted to go on a church mission before heading to Boise and Kline looks like he might’ve gotten absorbed into the STUDs group, so I’m assuming there are going to be some moving parts in this LB show.

Zeke Noa, Phillip Mills, Riley Whimpey, Bruno DeRose, and Nick Provenzano are listed at weakside ‘backer and Benton Wickersham and DJ Schramm are listed at middle linebacker. Not all those guys are going to stay where they’re currently listed...and remember, the so-called nickel position is used an awful lot like a linebacker (sure would’ve been nice if Dez Williams had stuck around...but Kaniho is good). From the GREATER group, I feel like Noa and Whimpey are the only ones to truly prove themselves as starters, so they’ll need a lot of these guys to step up so we can have a solid rotation that’s at least 2 deep at each spot. The addition of Josh Booker-Brown probably glossed over the loss of Langi, but we’ll need him to contribute right away...MUCH more than last year’s transfer addition, Tony Lashley. I think Hawkins has the frame and skill set to be one of those guys...and could even be like fellow Texan Ben Weaver if he can work his way into the rotation in short order. I’m guessing he will.

Is he on Twitter?

Yes...but this Texas tweet had a sad ending.

Completely made up fact

Hawkins has never been to Hawkins Pac Out in Boise, but he should probably start heading that direction, as he is the heir to the Hawkins empire and thus, free to Pac Out as much as his heart desires.