Fran Brown cooks up Syracuse football’s highest-ranked class in modern recruiting era

Syracuse, N.Y. — Fran Brown arrived as a recruiting savant tasked with drawing players to a college football outpost vastly disparate from the juggernaut at which he previously coached.

Bolstered by some of the nation’s top transfer acquisitions, Brown cooked up what is on track to be a top-40 class, the highest-ranked haul of prospects Syracuse has signed since the proliferation of scouting services more than a decade ago.

The results are an emphatic opening salvo that backs up the bravado Brown brought after being hired Nov. 28. With less than a month to work with, he put an end to fan apathy that the program could ever experience the kind of recruiting momentum Brown delivered in short order.

He brought players with him from Georgia, where he spent the past two seasons as an assistant for the SEC powerhouse.

He signed a former five-star quarterback who transferred from Ohio State in Kyle McCord, next year’s presumed starting quarterback.

Of the 24 players Syracuse signed on Wednesday, nearly half are from New Jersey, Brown’s home state.

His reputation as one of the nation’s top recruiters drew instant intrigue by prospects and long-time industry experts as to whether he could attract blue-chip prospects to Central New York.

One of Brown’s first hires, defensive coordinator Elijah Robinson, carried an equally reputable track record that eventually landed him a plush job in the SEC.

The past two weekends have been chock full with recruits visiting campus: impact transfers, highly rated high school prospects and others who committed to play for former coach Dino Babers.

Many of them posed for photos with luxury sports cars in the dome before a seated hibachi dinner, or dined at a local brewpub before officially signing on Wednesday. Those that didn’t, such as five-star safety KJ Bolden, were still curious and loyal enough to Brown to want a peek-in on what was happening in Syracuse.

Apparently, something no coach had been able to do this century.

No recruit flipped to another Power-Five school since the coaching change from Babers to Brown, an underrated win at a time players can get paid and players form close relationships with assistants as liaisons to the program.

Brown even had one surprise signing by a recruit who was not publicly committed to the class: defensive lineman Maraad Watson, a high school teammate of another player heading to Syracuse to play for Brown.

Here’s the full list of players who signed binding agreements with the school on Wednesday. The six transfer additions are found below.

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