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When Syracuse Director of Athletics John Wildhack held a press conference following the firing of former head coach Dino Babers, his statements echoed previous coaching hires. SU was going to look for someone with coaching experience in the Power Five.

Wildhack harped on wanting a head coach with ties to the northeast. He then named some of the most successful coaches in program history from the region — Ben Swartzwalder, Dick MacPherson, Paul Pasqualoni and Doug Marrone.

It looked like Syracuse was going to make a safe hire. The administration reportedly vetted names including Toledo head coach Jason Candle, Holy Cross head coach Bob Chesney and former Florida head coach Dan Mullen. Then, late Monday night, ESPN’s Pete Thamel added Georgia defensive backs coach Fran Brown alongside Candle and Chesney as the final three candidates.

Wildhack has become known for hiring Syracuse alums for revenue sports. Felisha Legette-Jack was the obvious alumna to turn around a women’s basketball program in disfunction. Adrian Autry’s promotion ensured Jim Boeheim’s guiding hand loomed large. Men’s lacrosse coach Gary Gait was already within the department while women’s lacrosse coach Kayla Treanor was an alumni.

It was clear that Wildhack valued keeping Syracuse’s new coaches within the family. Not making a splash hire was going to stand as Wildhack’s reasoning. Then the opportunity came. With conference realignment and the prevalence of Name, Image and Likeness, Wildhack had to go out on a limb.

Brown is young and widely regarded as one of the top recruiters in the country. Syracuse took a risk hiring Brown, but if executed correctly, it could lead to a domination of the northeast Syracuse hasn’t enjoyed since the 1990s.

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Syracuse played it safe by hiring Babers. He was the hot Group of Five coach that had quickly turned around Eastern Illinois and Bowling Green. He held an ability to turn diamond-in-the-rough recruits into NFL-level talent.

But Syracuse strayed too far away from what it is, hindering on what it could be. The Orange are the only Power Five football program in New York state, and although they’ve long since lost the recruiting advantage to Penn State, Rutgers stands as the only blockade between Syracuse and top recruits in the northeast.

“We can be a winning program. We’re not that far away. Are there areas that we need to address? Yes, but it’s not like this is a total rebuild,” Wildhack said in his press conference.

Hiring Brown, a New Jersey native who spent time at Temple before making his way to Rutgers in 2020, shows Wildhack knew exactly what areas Syracuse needed to address. Within minutes of Brown’s hire, key starters began tweeting in support of the decision.

Every move that the athletic department has made since parting ways with Babers signals its desire to take back the northeast. Nunzio Campanile was elevated to interim head coach, with Wildhack saying that his ties to New Jersey were crucial for the program.

“If you can keep that nucleus together, enhance that nucleus, enhance our recruiting efforts, our player development efforts, we can win,” Wildhack said last Monday.

Babers was fired because he wasn’t able to buck the trend of Syracuse freefalling in October and November. The benchmark for 2023 was 7-5. Injuries piled up and the Orange were uncompetitive against Florida State, North Carolina and Virginia Tech. Losses to Boston College and Georgia Tech were the final straws. Wildhack showed his cards when he said that to build depth, Syracuse has to be “minimizing the misses.”

Brown knows how to recruit. He was named the top recruiter at Georgia for the 2024 cycle, a program that consistently produces first-round NFL talent and has won back-to-back national championships. But he also knows how to recruit the northeast and turn around a program. Brown was the American Athletic Conference’s top recruiter after his 2014 season at Temple, turning Haason Reddick, P.J. Walker and Sean Chandler into NFL players.

Brown recruited current Syracuse safety Alijah Clark to the Scarlet Knights and still holds close relationships with high school coaches throughout New Jersey. With nine players from the state currently on the roster, and more on the way in the upcoming recruiting class, getting someone to SU who knows the area was imperative.

He wasn’t a big name like Mullen or Marrone. He wasn’t the up-and-comer like Curt Cignetti or Chesney. But he was the right name.

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And he knows how to win. Brown helped Georgia to a national championship victory where it dominated TCU 65-7. Yet, he was also instrumental in helping Matt Rhule turn around Temple and Baylor as an associate head coach for both programs. Winning consistently at Syracuse is one of the hardest jobs in the country, but being complacent with blowing through Group of Five schools only to bottom out against conference teams — as the Orange have the last three years — wasn’t going to work either.

“It takes the shine off of any success or progress that’s been made,” ESPN College Football Insider David Hale said. “There was probably the sense of this is far as we’re going with Dino, and it’s time to try something else.”

Typically, a change at head coach signals a mass exodus. Syracuse already had three starters enter the transfer portal. However, the uncertainty of where pieces like Clark and Allen Jr. were going has likely been quelled by Brown’s hiring. The infrastructure, player-wise, is there for him to ensure 6-6 is no longer the goal.

But Brown wasn’t just hired because he impressed in an interview. His recruiting background and coaching experience at rebuilding programs give him all the credentials he needs.

He was an honest hire for SU, an indication that the athletic department knows it needs to recruit in the northeast better than it has in a decade. It’s a big swing, with dire consequences for the program if it misses. But the relationships Brown has cultivated and reputation he brings in could be enough for this gamble to pay off.

Published on November 30, 2023 at 12:00 am