Syracuse Football: National writer gives Fran Brown hire an above-average grade

A 247Sports national writer is a bit higher on SU Athletics’ hiring of Fran Brown as the Syracuse football head coach than some other pundits.

I noted in a piece that came out in late December of last year that a couple of national experts had doled out relatively unflattering grades pertaining to the hire of Brown as the next boss of the Orange, replacing Dino Babers.

Brad Crawford, a national writer at 247Sports, this week published his own story where he graded new head-coaching hires in college football this off-season.

Crawford categorized his grades into various tiers, and he placed Brown in his second tier under the label of above-average hires. That seems fair to me.

A national expert discusses the hiring of Fran Brown at Syracuse football.

Brown, most recently the defensive backs coach at Georgia, was officially introduced by SU Athletics as the Orange’s new head coach in early December of 2023.

Since that time, he’s assembled a high-quality coaching staff, and the ‘Cuse has done a lot of positive things on the recruiting trail over the past two months.

The team’s 2024 class includes commitments from at least 20 high school seniors and 12 college transfers, some of whom are rated four stars.

At the time of this writing, the industry-generated 247Sports Composite rated the Syracuse football 2024 cycle at No. 35 overall, No. 38 at the high school level and No. 22 out of the transfer portal.

By extension, there has been a lot of recruiting activity among the Orange coaching staff in the 2025 and 2026 recruiting classes.

Naturally, Brown has yet to coach a game on the Hill. He’s also never served as a head coach before, and the Syracuse football program hasn’t proven all that good in recent years.

The ‘Cuse also competes in the Atlantic Coast Conference against some heavyweight squads, whether that be Florida State, Clemson, North Carolina, Louisville, N.C. State and others.

As such, I believe it’s logical to possess optimism over the Fran Brown hire, as well as some skepticism at this juncture, given the context of his coaching background and the recent history of the program that he now leads.

I do think that the team’s 2024 schedule is relatively favorable, and a few national pundits have opined of late that Syracuse football could amount to a top-tier contender within the ACC in the next year or two. Stay tuned on that.

Crawford, to me, had some relatively positive and realistic things to say about Brown in his write-up on the new Orange head coach. Have a look:

“The former ace recruiter up Kirby Smart’s sleeve at Georgia is already making substantial strides at Syracuse, where he’s trying to turn the Orange into a Year 1 contender in the ACC. And for those saying he had considerably more talent to work with between the hedges, Brown believes the transfer portal is the great equalizer so to speak. Keep an eye on Syracuse’s prep recruiting under his watch. Brown’s going to find some underrated gems up there.”

I 100 percent concur with Crawford’s last statement directly above.