Fran Brown on Syracuse’s QB Return, Roster Depth & Lessons From 2025

Brian Fisher here for Sports Illustrated at ACC Media Day.

He's joined by Syracuse head coach Fran Brown.

Fran, exciting times.

It seems like every time we come to the media days, it's like, all right, the season's almost here .

Yeah, absolutely, it's exciting.

I'm thankful, honored to be, uh, representing Syracuse as the head football coach, so this means a lot.

Are, are you less kind of bright-eyed, uh, having gone through your, your first season already?

No, not at all.

Still the same, just thankful, excited.

I think every year has its own challenges and new things there.

So I'm just very thankful for the opportunity I got to go out and compete and to be able to face adversity with our players and just being able to go have fun and compete to win games.

I mean, you guys started off great last season and.

That adversity to kind of hit in terms of some of the injuries that you guys expected when, when you look back and reflected last year, what were kind of your big takeaways?

Um, not being able to adapt to adversity, um, just adjustments from a coaching standpoint.

I think that we, I should have done a better job at adjusting at certain things, players, people, stuff of that nature.

And then um picking the right leaders, right, like the leadership is is extremely important um and and the followership is important also because followers truly set the culture, um, so being able to do those things I think that um we're on the right track we understand it and they know it and we're pinpointing it now getting them all to go at it now and understanding that now so.

It's, uh, it's pretty fun.

Well, I, I do got to ask about your quarterback in, in Stephen Jelly.

Obviously went down with the injury last year.

How's he feeling?

How's he looking?

How excited are you to see him back out on the field this, this fall?

Cool.

He was running yesterday, so that was great with the sprints that they all did.

He was in a team run and done all the team activities, so he's been doing everything right now for it, I would say to me he looks like he's about like 90%.

He'll say 100, um, but he looks like he's about 90% but he's definitely good to go and then, um, there's a bunch of other guys that we got quarterback too, right?

Amari Odom, um, Malachi Nelson, Dan, um, Lottery, uh, just all of those guys there, they can all play, um, we couldn't do the same thing two times, right?

So once he went down last year it was kind of, uh.

Gosh, it's over, but uh we're not gonna have that.

When, when it does come to your, your roster, have you adjusted at all in terms of, all right, certainly you're drinking from the fire hose, you know, year one, you have a great, great season then.

Year two, are you feel more comfortable in terms of where you want to go with your, with your roster from year to year?

I've been more comfortable with that way before I became a head coach, so I'm good with understanding and knowing where I want to go and what I want to do.

All the players that I recruit, um, I'm not, uh, they can play in any system like they'll be good enough to do that.

All the players that I'm recruiting are players that can play in the National Football League.

So if you don't want to go.

To the league or if I don't think you can have the ability to go to the National Football League, then I probably won't recruit you, you know.

Well, one of, one of those guys you recruited at wide receiver coming in as a freshman, I know he got injured in the spring.

What's what's the status of Calvin and how's he going?

He moving and well.

He's running routes and stuff like he's just had his schedule.

He's super freak, so I think Calvin will be back in early October probably.

He'll play this year defensively, a lot of new, new faces on, on that side of the ball from a personnel standpoint also from a coaching standpoint.

What, what can we expect out of your defense?

This would probably be the best that we've been.

Um, we got a lot of play.

We had a lot of talent before, got a lot of talent though, um, and they play, they're gonna play together, right?

Um, simple is better.

So like guys would just be playing together.

It's a lot of talent though.

Um, I feel like I've been with the staff.

Since I've been here, right, like we all just gel the right way together, everyone, um, understands and knows what I'm looking for they understand my vision and, um.

I understand their vision when I go in a room of what they are looking for.

Also, we've talked a lot about a couple of names there on the roster.

Who's somebody that we're not talking about that we will be come this fall?

We're, we, we're all lunch pail carriers, man.

Like our whole squad, the head coach starting off.

I got the biggest lunch pail there is, but we all blue collar, hardworking guys.

Um, we're just talking about a lot of us.

I think our offensive line coach.

Which is a guy that everybody should talk about.

Um, he's helping our guys get better.

Um, I love the, I love his work ethic.

I love who he is, and I'm very thankful with Coach Nixon and his offensive staff that, um, he put together and us working together to be able to get that done.

Our special teams coordinator has done a really good job.

Um, Coach Bear coming over, Alex Bear coming over from leaving his alma mater to come to us.

Meant a lot, um, but he has a different mindset to us, right?

He's, uh, he's pretty cool.

I like him a lot.

When, when you look at the ACC in general, how would you say the level of play has kind of increased these last couple of years since you've been in the league?

ACC is probably, you know, everybody, we're the best conference.

I mean, statistically we had 11 teams last year going to bowl games, right?

So that's pretty cool.

Um, I think there was, we were 7 and 4.

And the most powerful schools, right, being able to do that, I just feel that, um, from top down this conference is competitive every week, right?

Like SMU's coach was just coach of the year, the year before last, the things that they do, you might as well say Notre Dame in our conference.

They keep trying to act like they're not, but they put everybody.

But you know, so it's just so many guys that we have when, when it comes to those coaches meetings, whether it's in the spring or if you guys are running into each other right here.

What, what, what's the topic that you guys really wanna to discuss right now in terms of the sport itself and what changes you guys would like to see?

Well, we're happy that it's one portal.

We think that it should be like 450 some days from a recruiting standpoint, and you should just naturally add the head coaches in so they could just go out whenever being able to do that, um.

But outside of that, man, it's.

No, we don't really talk too much.

We're thankful for Gary Patterson becoming our new, uh, head ref, you know, supervisor for a whole piece of it.

It's cool.

I thought he was a stand up dude.

Like I like what he stands for.

I, I know you're a little superstitious on, on game days and before and before and after, as, as you've uh made pretty prominent.

Any, any changes to that routine though going into the season.

Call my wife before the game.

Go win the game.

Try to go one and all.

I wanna go over there.

I gotta get right with the band.

I wanna become, uh, better at just getting them to sing that, you know, that the, um, school song, the fight song.

So that'd be important that we do that a lot this year.

Well, Hopefully that will be the case, friends.

Thank you so much for stopping by here at ACC Media Days with Sports Illustrated.