Syracuse Football: Josh Gattis, who was the nation's top assistant in 2021, joins SU

Syracuse football head coach Fran Brown has made another stellar hire for his assistant staff, according to a press release from SU Athletics.

Josh Gattis, who has coached at the power-four conference level for seven years and was named the country's top assistant a few years back, is joining the Orange program as a quality control/offensive specialist.

The media statement characterizes Gattis, who played collegiately at Wake Forest as a safety and then briefly in the NFL, as "one of the top offensive minds in football."

Most importantly, a huge congrats and welcome from 'Cuse Nation to Josh!

Fran Brown has a terrific Syracuse football staff for the 2025 season.

In total, Gattis has 15 years of collegiate coaching experience. He has mentored a Biletnikoff Award winner (the top wide receiver in the sport) and various All-Americans and All-League performers, and Gattis has been a part of four conference titles and two appearances in the College Football Playoff.

Over the years, he has worked at Maryland, Miami, Michigan, Alabama, Penn State, Vanderbilt and Western Michigan. Gattis began his coaching career as an offensive graduate assistant at North Carolina.

"I'm grateful to be here and build upon the 10-year relationship I have with coach Fran," Gattis said in the press release. "I'm privileged to be part of a staff with some great coaches and learn a new offensive system, that's really taking over college football in terms of excitement, under Coach (Jeff) Nixon."

Gattis' primary position expertise is in coaching wide receivers, and in 2021, while at Michigan, he won the Broyles Award as the nation's top assistant coach. In that season, the Wolverines reached their first CFP, claimed the Big Ten Conference championship and had a top-20 scoring offense.

Before working at Michigan, Gattis spent one year at Alabama as co-offensive coordinator and wide receivers coach, and the Crimson Tide in that season advanced to the CFP national title game.

Brown said, "When myself and Coach E (Elijah Robinson) first got into coaching, he (Gattis) was the name that everyone was talking about coming up. He's done some great things, won the Broyles Award at Michigan and went on to Miami and Maryland and had success. My goal with Josh is to keep getting closer with him and being able to understand football from a different perspective. I'm excited to get to work with him and help him get his name back into the position it should be, as someone who should be a head coach, because he's one of the brighter minds in college football."

The Orange has made numerous other coaching hires this off-season. One is that former Green Bay Packers assistant Myles White is the new wide receivers coach and passing game coordinator at Syracuse football.

Other assistant hires by the 'Cuse include Ricky Brumfield as special teams coordinator, Blaine Miller as the nickels coach and Dre Kates as a quality control/defensive specialist.

I also want to note that on cuse.com, under the section of Syracuse football coaches, Tommy Caporale is listed as the Orange's general manager. I'm super pumped for Tommy, as he's just an all-around good guy!