Fran Brown finished his first season as a college football head coach on a high note, winning the Holiday Bowl over Washington State and leading the Syracuse Orange to their third 10-win season since 2000.
Brown has been coaching at the college level since 2012 and has served as a defensive back coach for Temple, Baylor, and Rutgers before joining the Georgia Bulldogs staff in 2022. In a recent interview, Brown broke down his interview process with Georgia head coach Kirby Smart and how Kirby helped him become the head coach of Syracuse Football in 2024.
Fran Brown Praises Kirby Smart in Interview with Adam Breneman
On Adam Breneman’s “Next Up” podcast, Syracuse head coach Brown spoke on his interview process with Smart to become the defensive backs coach at Georgia.
“He was just worrying about your heart. How much you love it, how much you care, because he’s willing to teach,” Brown said. “If you want to learn, that’s where you go, because he’s going to teach you the game, he’s going to teach you how to be a head coach, he’s going to teach you how to be a good father, a good husband.”
It’s high praise for Smart from Brown, but the Syracuse coach said he learned his biggest lesson from Smart during his time at Georgia: Every day counts.
Brown has brought that mentality to Syracuse, where he is in the midst of transforming the Orange football program. In just one year, Brown brought Syracuse from the laughingstock of college football to an ACC contender, bringing in Kyle McCord to lead the Orange offense in 2024.
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Not only is Brown producing on the field, but he’s one of, if not the best, recruiters in the country. In the 2024 cycle, Brown brought in the 36th class in the country, one of the best classes Syracuse has seen since the 1990s. He followed that up in 2025 with the 42nd best class and now sits with a top 25 class in the 2026 cycle.
That kind of recruiting success will continue to generate on-field success for Brown at Syracuse, as he looks to make the Orange a force to be reckoned with in the ACC.
Brown is clearly great in his own right, but it’s cool to see him credit Smart with a lot of the growth that he’s had as a coach and to see that he still holds Smart in very high respect despite not working for him anymore.
