The ISU football team added a potential starter to the secondary last weekend.

Senior strong safety Chris Brown was back on the field in Saturday’s game, nearly five months after serious knee surgery.

“He’s got a lot of work to do,” said coach Gene Chizik. “But we got No. 8 back, I think.”

During the final spring practice, an offensive lineman rolled into Brown’s right leg, tearing the anterior cruciate and medial collateral ligaments in his knee.

Brown had surgery in late April, but has made a quick recovery. He recovered a fumble with less than six minutes to play against Kent State — effectively securing Iowa State’s win.

“I feel good; I’ve just got to get used to trusting [my knee] more,” Brown said, who started seven games last season. “But other than that, it’s fine.”

Chizik said he didn’t know if Brown would be able to “play scout team” football this soon after the injury. The second-year coach thought Brown looked “rusty” on Saturday, but gained confidence from his activity on the field.

Brown saw limited action Saturday and has yet to recover his conditioning.

“It’s going to take a while for that to get back,” Brown said. “But I’m definitely working on that in practice, just making sure I run hard everywhere I go.”

On consecutive second-half possessions against Iowa last season, Brown made key stops in short yardage that ended Hawkeye drives.

Free safety James Smith suffered a season-ending ankle injury in game one of 2006. The senior thought that getting confidence back is the most important part of recovery.

“When you sit out for a long time, you got to reboot your system, like a computer,” Smith said.

Pirate pride

No. 14 East Carolina stunned the college football world after starting the season with wins over Virginia Tech and West Virginia.

Two ISU coaches have strong ties to the Greenvile, N.C.-based program.

Offensive coordinator Robert McFarland was the offensive line coach for East Carolina in 2004 — the year before Skip Holtz was hired as the Pirates’ head coach.

ISU defensive coordinator Wayne Bolt was an All-American offensive lineman for East Carolina, then started his coaching career with his alma mater in the late 1970s.

McFarland was a graduate assistant for Notre Dame in 1990, when Holtz served as the wide receiver coach under his dad, Lou.

“He’s obviously doing a great job recruiting, getting players in there and coaching them up,” McFarland said, who became the head coach at Stephen F. Austin after leaving East Carolina. “I couldn’t be happier for Skip, for the job they’re doing down there.”

Current ECU offensive coordinator Todd Fitch served as Iowa State’s quarterbacks coach from 2004-‘06. Fitch was the only position coach held over from former ISU coach Dan McCarney’s staff, but took the East Carolina position three months after ISU coach Gene Chizik’s hiring.