Fran Brown’s handling of the QB position was poor, but he’s the right HC for Syracuse

For all of your complaints about Fran Brown’s job this season, I’m going to agree that he has done poorly with the quarterback position in the last month. If Brown thought Joe Filardi was his best option against UNC, that’s his call. However, the tape from that game should have told Brown that Filardi wasn’t ready for P4 football right now.

He seemed to agree when he went back to Rickie Collins to play at Miami. When Collins failed to get the Orange offense into the end zone, a change after the bye week made sense, but to go back to Filardi and then just use Luke Carney for two series was baffling and nonsensical. Brown seemed to take ownership of his handling of the position after Steve Angeli’s injury when he addressed the media yesterday.

Brown talked about being more flexible with the offensive scheme and while it’s a few weeks too late, it shows a desire to improve and learn from mistakes. Adjustments seemed obvious to fans as they watched the offense sputter and struggle the last two months. Many of you called for some sort of attempt to do something different, which never came. I’ve speculated that it was Brown’s desire to keep a focus on young players learning the offensive scheme, and not something that would be trashed in December.

Short-term, that’s not a winning formula. Long-term, well that’s something that we’ll have to wait on. Will his handling of the quarterbacks, mean that we’ll see an exodus from the group in January? Brown seemed to indicate that the Orange are going to be shuffling that group around.

This is why I think Fran Brown is the right person to try and get Syracuse Football back to relevancy. It’s more likely to have a Head Coach who gets better with the in-game part, then it is to get a strategist to suddenly become a recruiter. If you really want to try and compete for ACC titles and CFP appearances, you need someone who can get players first, and then win with them.

Maybe the experiment fails, but at what risk? You’ve watched what the Orange have put on the field for the last 20+ years- they can hire any number of coaches who can get you six wins with the right non-conference schedule. Fran Brown doesn’t consider that successful and if you don’t think this season isn’t going to fuel his competitive spirit this off-season, then you might want to think again.

Everyone inside that facility is going to be pushed to get better and it’s going to start at the top. Yesterday wasn’t the press conference of a coach who lacking confidence or running from the challenge. There was no lashing out at media, no blame and if you’re a Syracuse this is why you shouldn’t be so quick to move to the next guy just yet. Don’t believe me, well maybe a current player can help with their perspective.