The Syracuse Orange hired Fran Brown as their new head football coach in November.
While the former Georgia Bulldogs assistant was known as a recruiting whiz, he wasn’t exactly a household name. Some have wondered how the Camden, New Jersey product beat out many more high-profile coaching candidates for the position.
Turns out, he cold-called the Syracuse AD and made it happen himself.
“I wasn’t in the race. I’ve seen it. I looked at it. It kind of bothered me. A little upset about that,” Brown told Tim Green on the Nothing Left Unsaid podcast. “So what I did is I asked this agent I had, I said, can you give me the AD’s number, I didn’t know it was John Wildhack, I said, give me the AD’s number. And I called somebody else, told him to get me the AD’s number. They got me the number. I called it. He didn’t answer. And I shot him a text, told him who I was. And I said, could you just give me ten minutes? Five to ten minutes. The best way to find out about Fran Brown is through Fran Brown.
“He got on the call. That ten minutes went for about a half an hour. Then on Thanksgiving, he wanted to talk to me again for about 25 minutes. He said, give me another 30 minutes. That went for, like, an hour and 45. And then we just kind of through to it. I went for the interview… I answered every question. I knew all the old ball cause I do everything the right way.
“God just wanted me to be that coach at the time. You know, it was meant to happen. But I called it myself. I did it myself. I took the initiative. I’m getting everything done myself. Like, my agent and guys didn’t find out about the interview or me getting a job until after I got the job. Then I called him and said, ‘Could you…make sure the writing is all correct? You know, how much I’m gonna get paid.’
“I did everything, you know, I did everything on my own and just let them read the paperwork. I didn’t want nobody to mess this up. No one knew but me and my wife, you know, we kept it between us. We let nobody know it.”
The 41-year-old was introduced as Syracuse’s new coach in November and he’s already made waves on the recruiting trail.
