Georgia's Fran Brown becomes the new SU Football head coach
SYRACUSE, N.Y. (WSYR) -- The Syracuse University Football Team officially has a new coach.
There were numerous names floating around Monday night into Tuesday Evening, but Syracuse University has officially revealed that Fran Brown, Georgia Defensive Backs coach, is the new head coach for the Orange.
Fran Brown is actually ranked as the number one recruiter in the country right now for the class of 2024 by 247 Sports.
And that's not just because he's at Georgia. He was known for landing top talent during his time at Baylor and Temple as well. Brown also has northeast ties which John Wildhack, SU's director of athletics, said was going to be important.
He's a New Jersey native who actually spent a couple of years on the same staff as SU's interim head coach, Nunzio Campanile, at Rutgers.
Coach Brown joined the Georgia coaching staff in February of 2022 and prior to that was Rutgers' secondary coach from 2020 to 2021.
During his time at Georgia, their defense was ranked among the nation's leaders in rushing defense, scoring defense, red zone defense and total defense as the 2022 Georgia Bulldogs won the College Football Playoff National Championship.
He also spent time at Temple as the Co-Defensive Coordinator/Cornerbacks coach during the 2019 season and was the Assistant Head Coach/Defensive Backs coach at Baylor during the 2017 and 2018 seasons.
Brown has never been a head coach himself or a coordinator at a Power 5 program, which Wildhack said he was looking for, but again, it sounds as though his recruiting ability trumps that.
NewsChannel 9 had John Brice on the Orange Nation radio show this afternoon, who discussed the search for the candidates that he's been covering for footballscoop.com.
He agrees that Brown's ability to recruit and his New Jersey roots both played a major factor during the search.
"I would contend that Syracuse has to effectively recruit New Jersey, Philly, and that region in order to get back where it wants to be but again I think with Fran Brown's ties it has to be appealing because I, in this climate I don't think Syracuse can go forward the way it wants to go forward and the way a lot of us have seen Syracuse through the years without being able to effectively recruit those two specific areas," said Brice.
Brice went on to say that SU has relied on a five-person committee during this search. That committee included the likes of Donovan Mcnabb, Torrey Ball, and Herm Frazier.
Brown will be officially introduced as head football coach during a press conference on Monday, Dec. 4, at the Ferguson Football Auditorium in the George R. Iocolano and William C. Petty Football Wing at the John A. Lally Athletics Complex. Details of the press conference will follow.