Syracuse head coach Fran Brown has brought Camden, N.J., toughness, accountability to Orange

The college football head coaching fraternity is a homogenous and rigid one.

In 2025, it is still overwhelmingly white, a striking contrast to the racial makeup of the players on the field. Race aside, the coaches often sound the same, using the same coach speak and cliches whether communicating with their team or with the media.

Syracuse head coach Fran Brown, one of seven (that’s right, only seven) non-interim Black head coaches in the Power 4 according to the NCAA, is not the same and it is refreshing.

Brown, who last year led the Orange (3-3) to their first 10-win season since 2018, is one of the sport’s bright young head coaches. He is also blunt, outspoken, very comfortable in his own skin and has shown the ability in his short time as a head coach to lead young men.

It all started for the 43-year-old Brown in his hometown of Camden, New Jersey.

“[Camden] means everything to me because it allowed me to have a sense of pride and a humble confidence,” Brown told Andscape. “Because of Camden, I walk around with confidence. I feel like I can make it anywhere in the world because I made it there.”

Brown grew up playing football in Camden and says he learned some of his greatest sports and life lessons from his little league and high school football coaches, as well as his uncle.

“The [coach] I took the most from was my Little League coach, who just passed away last week, Coach Drip,” Brown said. “That hurt me really bad when he died. That’s who I kind of modeled myself after as a football coach, because he was tough on us, man — like tough, tough love. But he got us so much better.

“My uncle Charlie was there for us a lot. He helped my mom; she had four boys. He was the breadwinner of the family. He taught me how to really be a man, like how to survive. And I learned a lot from my high school coach [Mark Pease] in reference to being a true family man.”

Brown says he never thought about coaching until his playing career ended. He played cornerback at Western Carolina in Cullowhee, North Carolina, and earned first-team All-Southern Conference honors before being cut from the Cincinnati Bengals’ practice squad in 2008. Brown got the itch to coach after coaching his son’s 5- and 6-year-old team.

“I was like, ‘Damn, I really like this. I want to try to do this in college one day,’ ” he said.

In 2011, Brown joined the coaching staff at Temple University in Philadelphia, working under head coach Matt Rhule for five years before following Rhule to Baylor in Waco, Texas, as the assistant head coach and defensive backs coach in 2017 and 2018.

Brown returned to Temple as co-defensive coordinator in 2019 before joining Greg Schiano at Rutgers for two seasons, and then working under Kirby Smart at Georgia from 2022 to 2023. Brown was hired by Syracuse in 2024.

“Every coach that I worked with played a part in my life,” Brown said. “Whether you were a QC [quality control coach], it doesn’t matter what you’ve done. If you did something well and worked your butt off, then you played a major part in my life because I probably took some of those things from you.

“Schiano definitely played a major part. Matt Rhule was a huge influence. Kirby Smart, Will Muschamp, that whole staff down there at Georgia. I really enjoyed working with them. I learned so much. We just wanted to get it every day, and that’s the culture that I’m trying to bring here.”

Within the industry, Brown is most recognized for his recruiting prowess and his ability to connect with players due to his blunt and honest approach. In 2014, while at Temple, rivals.com named Brown the top recruiter in the American Athletic Conference. In 2023, after Georgia won the national championship, he was named the No. 1 national recruiter by 247Sports, a media company that focuses primarily on recruiting.

As for his recruiting style, Brown says he’s just being himself.

“When you get an opportunity to do this, you get an opportunity to put your footprint down and help mold these young men and women. I just don’t take that lightly, so I’m gonna be myself so they can see I’m myself,” he said. “People love genuine, right? That’s what I gravitate towards, so I feel why wouldn’t I be that to have more people gravitate towards me?”

Brown has the same approach when it comes to the media. He has had multiple viral moments in the past couple of years because of his propensity to be honest and speak off the cuff. Whether it was explaining in blunt terms how he challenges a player’s “why,” that he has no problem confronting coaches who poach his players, his disregard for what Las Vegas bookmakers think, or his infamous “winners get washed” comment.

“I was just mad that day,” Brown explained about saying that he doesn’t shower after losses. “We lost to Boston College. I was mad. We weren’t supposed to lose to them, and I was like, ‘I didn’t get washed, winners get washed, I didn’t deserve soap that day.’ I was just mad. But, nah, my wife is too cute for me to do that. I wouldn’t be able to sleep in the bed.”

All jokes aside, Brown just doesn’t believe in putting on an act for the media or anyone else.

“I just don’t have time to make stuff up,” he said. “I listen to so many people talk and they do a lot of stuff, but then they’re not telling the truth and I just try to tell the truth. My education is my education. My grammar, it’s just who I am. I’ve got two degrees, so I’m educated enough, but I don’t try to get up and sound like everybody else or go use these words that I don’t use daily.

“I have a lot of respect for everybody, but I just truly get to be myself. I said when I get this opportunity I’m not going to try and go fake it and act like someone else or be another person, because you only get one opportunity to be you in life and I’m going to do that to the fullest.”

When it comes to the challenge of building and sustaining a program, Brown understands it won’t be easy and that there will be ups and downs. But he believes he’s built for the opportunity.

Syracuse has a rich football history, but mostly because of its past. The Orange were a prominent program in the early 1900s and then again in the 1950s and ’60s, thanks to iconic running backs like Jim Brown, Ernie Davis and Larry Csonka. Since then, Syracuse has had pockets of success, including in the 1990s and early 2000s when they produced NFL stars such as Donovan McNabb, Marvin Harrison and Dwight Freeney. Fran Brown’s 2024 team was only Syracuse’s third 10-win season since 2000.

Brown is attempting to build a new culture at Syracuse using the acronym D-A-R-T:

“It’s just being detailed, accountable, relentless and tough,” he says. “It’s hard to get up and go to class and be on time. It’s hard to read your Bible every day. It’s hard to go to practice and give 100 percent every day. Can you be D-A-R-T in all those areas? Are you comfortable being held accountable because I’m going to do it every day? Are you relentless after what you want in life? Because if you’re detailed, accountable and have a relentless approach towards everything and you’re tough, when those tough times hit, you’re going to face it.”

In this NIL (Name, Image and Likeness) era, Brown said it’s even harder to build culture and stability than in the past.

“It’s probably a little tougher, but that’s what makes the job fun because you get to compete. If it was the old way, I would dominate. It would be cheating. I would get every kid in the country because I would recruit most of them,” he said, laughing.

Brown’s Orange are in the midst of one of the downs that he says he’s been prepared for and that he embraces.

“I’m at a point right now that I need to go through,” he said. “We’re 3-3. It’s good, though. It’s allowing me to see who everyone is because I know we’re going to win. I’m a winner.”

Brown says he talks to his players often about the cows and the buffaloes. When the storm comes, the cows run inside, he tells them. He wants his players to be more like the buffaloes who run towards the storm.

“It’s harder to face [adversity], but when you come out on the other side, man, you just walk with a different glow,” he said. “[Players will tell me], ‘Coach, I’m committed.’ No, you’re not, you missed two classes this week. You’re not committed to what I’m committed to, you just want to be mediocre. That doesn’t work. So, it’s a constant fight. It’s a constant battle right now. I’m fighting for the culture.”

Looking at the college football coaching landscape and society, he’s likely fighting for the culture in more ways than one. But it’s hard to bet against the kid from Camden.

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