The first off-season changes Fran Brown has made to his Syracuse football staff

As promised following the conclusion of the season Saturday night, with a second-straight embarrassing showing in ACC Basement Bowl loss against Boston College, Brown has begun making changes to his coaching staff.

As reported by On3 Monday morning, Brown has released special teams coordinator Ricky Brumfield, offensive line coach Dale Williams, defensive backs coach Joe Schaefer, and co-defensive coordinator/linebackers coach Robert Wright.

It is a huge upheaval that was expected with the Orange team defense statistically among the bottom eight teams in FBS, and the offense just 15th among the 17 ACC teams.

Brown had a busy weekend after the Boston College blitz

In his postgame remarks Saturday, Brown alluded to "some changes I have to make" regarding his staff, and it was clear that notifying which coaches he planned to move on from was first on his mind.

There is no surprise that the first changes involve the SU defense which had trouble stopping its opponent in every game except Colgate.

Wright served as Co-DC under Elijah Robinson and linebackers coach, a unit that struggled at times but produced standout freshman Antoine Deslauriers who tied for the team lead (Gary Bryant III) with 60 tackles.

Wright was the American Football Coaches Association's (AFCA) under-35 award winner in 2024 as a rising star in the coaching ranks, but his dismissal shows how fortunes change by the season.

Working hand-in-hand with Brown, whose background is coaching the defensive secondary, Schaefer was also completing his second year at SU after working with Robinson at Texas A&M.

Syracuse has had offensive line depth woes dating back to Scott Shafer (2013-2015), and after patching a season together last year with numerous injuries, the staff thought bringing in transfer portal players with P4 experience would solve the depth issue, but it did not.

Williams oversaw players jumping from spot to spot on the OL during the season, and it showed with the 'Cuse allowing 37 sacks (3 per game), T-123rd out of the 134 FBS teams.

A slight surprise with Monday's staff changes is the firing of Brumfield after just one season. He was brought into the program with much fanfare by Brown after spending two years at ACC rival Georgia Tech, for the special teams units that were wildly inconsistent in Brown's first year.

Considering Jack Stonehouse finished 9th in the nation in punting and appears headed to an NFL career, and Tripp Woody was only called on to attempt 14 field goals converting 12, and was 22-of-22 on extra point attempts, it is likely Brown was perhaps unhappy with overall player development and the coverage units. SU struggled both covering and receiving punts and kickoffs, ranking in the lower one-third giving up return yardage among FBS teams.

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