ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE FOOTBALL KICKOFF

July 25, 2024

Fran Brown

Syracuse Orange

Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: Questions for Coach Brown.

Q. What has been your experience in terms of how prevalent tampering is with players who are maybe not yet in the transfer portal? How big a concern is that? Do you have any solutions for policing it?

FRAN BROWN: I think it's a big concern. My experience, I mean, I just don't do it so I don't have to really worry about it.

You get a lot of kids want to go to the school, they try to reach out. Just try to stay away from those things. That's something we're not willing to do, we don't want to break any rules.

Once they hit the portal, then we can talk. You're not in the portal, we're not going to talk to you.

Q. Looking at coming into this team, utilizing the transfer portal as well as true freshman coming in, returning players, family is important to you, living that way. How has this started to come together as a cohesive group?

FRAN BROWN: I think what we did when it came to transfers, we only got guys that were truly, there's a saying I have like dart is our core values, but I go committed, care and trust. If you look at the guys we brung in, they're truly committed to not just themselves but to winning, to the bigger piece of the program. They truly care. Then I can trust them. The teammates can do the same thing.

Us having an opportunity of going to get Kyle McCord and him coming in, an opportunity of getting Fadil Diggs, then we had Justin Barron, Marlowe Wax, LeQuint Allen, all those guys stay there to be able to gel all together. Our family piece is starting to come together.

At first I wouldn't have been able to tell you we were a family because we just know each other. We didn't go through any rough times. Now we're becoming a better family.

Q. Part of your first year, you have to adapt to the new conference as much as anyone because you have to go out to the West Coast to play. What kind of preparations have you started to go through that process?

FRAN BROWN: I think time comes. I think with that, it's like a two-week base, you got to get ready for. It will be two weeks before we'll start to possibly practice sometimes during the time of the game.

I mean, we still got to play 60 minutes, right? I think these kids are young enough. I know when I was young, I go to the West Coast, I'm not going to bed no matter what time it is on the East Coast. We'll just go over there and have fun. Excited to be able to go and play on the West Coast. We'll adapt as it comes week to week. Mainly we're just going to worry about getting into camp right now, and we'll let that handle itself when it gets to us.

Q. What does 'accomplish greatness' mean to you?

FRAN BROWN: It means consistent, like every day. You won't have greatness every single day, but as long as you continue to work, you'll get to where you're trying to get to. I think that's a truly a great slogan, especially for our conference because we're competitive. If you look at all the coaches in this conference, there's some fine men in this conference. A lot of national championships.

I think that's the perfect slogan for this conference just overall, all sports, football, basketball, lacrosse, everything there is. I think it's a great slogan. Just means consistency, just continue to work until you get to your end goal.

Q. In this world obviously a lot of people are looking at wins and losses, the transfer portal, money and NIL. You go beyond that. You talk a lot about your faith. You are big on being a part of the community. I want to say thank you to you and the team for what you're doing in Syracuse. What can you say about going beyond wins and losses, beyond the money, to helping the community, making sure that faith is forward?

FRAN BROWN: First and foremost, faith is really important to me. I think a lot of people will say it, get up on the podium and say I want to thank God first and foremost, but they don't live it on a daily basis.

Our core value is DART, our identity, who we are, just being detailed, accountable, relentless and tough. If you can do that with your faith, can you do it with your community. I think once they're doing it in their faith, they're doing it in the community, with their families, in the classroom. Football will be able to handle itself. That's kind of the main thing.

I think the faith piece is the beginning of becoming a man, having a true foundation when you go through the rough times in life. Every adult here has hit a rough patch, rough time in life. When you can fall back on your faith, there's no better feeling when you believe and you're a believer.

Q. You hear so much from coaches and players about building a culture within a program. What is the culture you found in the ACC? Do conferences still have a culture now that they're so spread out? What have you seen?

FRAN BROWN: I just seen a bunch of great men coaching-wise that I got a chance to be at the head coach, when we went out in Florida, just being out there with those guys, being around a lot of greatness. I think that slogan for the conference meant a lot because there was a lot of great men.

What they're building on their teams individually, I think they're good football teams. They're just who they are. I'm just worrying about us and our culture.

I think you would say the ACC always had a lot of really good quarterbacks. You look at all the quarterbacks in this conference, great pass-rushers, good pass catchers, good running backs, one of the top running backs in the country yardage wise. You've got LeQuint Allen. When it comes to quarterback, we were able to add Kyle McCord along with the other ones that are there. Fadil Diggs, defensive backs. I think all those pieces fit together when it comes to the conference.

Q. After officially being announced on November 28th, you landed Syracuse's highest ranked recruiting class since the advent of the ranking scale. You did that within a 22-day period. Do you have that sense of immediacy with everything you do? That felt fairly immediate.

FRAN BROWN: I just want to win. Like I want to win. I want to make sure that Syracuse gets back to where they belong, where it was, where football kind of started at, in my opinion. You're going back to Jim Brown, Ernie Davis, Floyd Little, Rob Zonka, all those guys that played, Tom Kaufman. I want to get back to those same eras, 1959, 1987 team. You had Donovan McNabb, Dwight Freeney, Marvin Harrison, Donovan Harris. All those guys are important to me.

It's like a non-stop race for us to make sure we actually continue to go and try to accomplish greatness. To just have these young men have an opportunity to show the country who they are football-wise.

Everything I do, I try to make sure we just follow all the way through. We have a saying, how you do anything is how you'll do everything. Just make sure I'm locked in because those guys are watching what I'm doing not only as a football coach, but as a father, a husband, with my faith.

Q. You speak on Kyle McCord, what he can be to this team. With him coming in as a transfer, but being the signal caller, what did you see in him beyond the film?

FRAN BROWN: I think he's a great person. Just sit down and talk to him, he's genuine, he's himself. He's a guy that as I recruited, a lot of people throughout my team of being a coach, everyone started to change. The kids started to get different accolades, honors. They all switched up.

He's been the same person, the same guy he was as a freshman. Then I seen him as a winner. I think Kyle may have lost two games his entire life, once in Little League in the championship, then last year. The kid has just been a winner his entire life.

He's a genuine person. I thought he was a leader. Got a chance to watch him play Little League. Where we come from, he's him. A lot of dudes say different things. He's just a good leader. You watch him in the weight room, everything about him.

I'm honored and thankful he's our quarterback and he's the leader of our football team.

Q. Syracuse is getting ready to have a ribbon cutting on a new football complex. How will that factor into the greatness that you're trying to build into?

FRAN BROWN: If they coming just for the building, I don't really want those kids that want to come just for the building.

It always helps for the coaches to just feel appreciated, for the players to feel appreciated on the football team. I'm just thankful that we're able to do that to continue to expand.

Syracuse is a great community, it's a great campus. For us to have just different dorms and different facilities and everything going up, I think it's always great for the school. I don't really care about the buildings, to be honest. I'm happy it's going up. Means a lot.

I'm just trying to play, to be honest. I just want to coach football, play football, so I can watch these guys have an opportunity to go out and show who they are, how hard they've been working.