Brown made official visits to Nebraska, Oklahoma, Iowa, Notre Dame and his hometown school, SMU. Having narrowed the field to Notre Dame and SMU based on academics, he signed with the Irish with the blessing of his mother, Josephine.
He also was concerned with SMU's propensity for NCAA probation. (Had he signed with the Mustangs, he would have been prohibited from bowl play as a sophomore and junior, would not have been able to play on live TV as a junior, and would have faced the decision of transferring to play as a senior after SMU received the death penalty.)
I always figured he took a pay cut to play at ND because they assured him they were "too big" to ever get probation. I think that turned out to be true when they had the episode with the booster employee/prostitute scandal and swept it under the rug
