The Syracuse Orange have officially hired a new football coach.
Syracuse announced on Tuesday that it has hired Fran Brown to serve as the school’s head football coach.
Brown replaces Dino Babers, who had coached the team for eight seasons.
Brown is from New Jersey and is in his second season as the defensive backs coach for Georgia. Brown played cornerback in college at Western Carolina and briefly in the NFL with the Cincinnati Bengals.
Prior to joining Georgia’s staff last year, Brown had spent most of his coaching career at Temple. He has also coached at Baylor and Rutgers.
Brown, 40, will have his work cut out for him. Syracuse had only two winning seasons under Babers and has finished a season ranked in the top 25 just once in the last 21 years. It’s been nearly 20 years since Paul Pasqualoni’s tenure as the Orange’s head coach came to an end, marking their last run of consistent strong play. Syracuse had a winning record in every year from 1987-2001 and had five double-digit win seasons during that span. They’ve only had one double-digit win season since then.
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