Fran Brown's Impact on recruiting 

How Has Fran Brown Already Made An Immediate Impact On Recruiting? 

Written By: Thomas Azzolino 

12/18/23

Since Fran Brown has taken over as the football head coach at Syracuse, he has hit the recruiting trail hard and shown why he was ranked as the number one recruiter in college football for the 2024 season (per 247Sports). Brown and his staff have already extended scholarship offers to and conducted in-home visits with many high school prospects, and flipped multiple recruits from other schools. 

So far, Brown and his staff have managed to flip three-star wide receiver Jaylan Hornsby from Texas A&M, four-star wide receiver Emmanuel Ross from Stanford, three-star running back Yasin Willis (the number one player in the state of New Jersey in the class of 2024 per Rivals) from Pittsburgh, and three-star defensive end/tight end Jahide Lesaine Jr. from Kent State (player rankings via 247Sports Composite). 

One thing that all of these players share in common is that they are all from New Jersey, a state Syracuse has always prioritized recruiting from. That won’t be changing anytime soon either as Brown himself was born and raised in Camden, New Jersey.

Brown and his assistant coaches are also actively using the transfer portal in an attempt to improve the team for next season. Brown has already landed two commitments from players where he coached defensive backs prior to being hired as the head coach at Syracuse, those being University of Georgia wide receivers Jackson Meeks and Zeed Haynes.

The Orange has also shown interest in many other transfer portal players from Georgia and also Texas A&M, where defensive coordinator Elijah Robinson had previously coached before coming to Syracuse to take the same position. This will be a trend throughout the entirety of the offseason, and one that Orange fans should be getting used to seeing for the next several months.

The Orange have also hosted multiple four-star players and a five-star player for official visits. Prior to Brown becoming the head coach, Syracuse was rarely in contention for these kinds of players. Now that Brown and his staff have taken over, Orange fans should be getting used to seeing high profile recruits visiting Syracuse.