Penn State’s football coaching search is underway and drawing all kinda of names into the rumor mill, whether they will prove to be legitimate candidates for the job or not. A couple of the early names with plenty of discussion about them have been tied to a couple of successful coaches in the Big Ten with Indiana’s Curt Cignetti and Nebraska’s Matt Rhule being the popular names in the early stage so the conversation. But there is a coach in the ACC receiving some consideration by some, and he is another coach that may already be on Penn State athletics director Pat Kraft’s radar.
That would be Syracuse head coach Fran Brown. Brown is in his second season at Syracuse and he has quickly reshaped the Orange since taking over. Brown coached Syracuse to a surprising 10-3 record in 2024 and jumped out to a 3-1 record this season before dropping the past two games to Duke (coached by Manny Diaz) and SMU. Despite the more recent struggles, Brown may be a name worth watching as Penn State continues its coaching search.
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Asked about the possibility of leaving Syracuse for another opportunity at “a bigger job,” Brown gave the standard response about being focused on coaching Syracuse. He did so with a little bit of a tone that made it seem he was annoyed by the question even being asked, which has led some to believe there could be something in the back of his head willing to leave a door open to the scenario, should it become available.
Brown would make sense as a potential candidate to be considered by Penn State athletics director Pat Kraft. When Kraft was an athletics director at Temple, Brown was on the Temple coaching staff led by Matt Rhule and followed Rhule to Baylor in 2019. But Brown returned to Temple in 2019 to be a co-defensive coordinator and defensive backs coach. This was all while Kraft was the AD at Temple, so one would think there is a relationship of some sort already existing. Brown had interviewed for the Temple head coaching job in 2018 before Kraft ultimately offered and hired Manny Diaz for the job (Diaz then left Temple for Miami). Brown interviewed again for the Temple job before it went to Rod Carey.
Could a third interview between Brown and Kraft be on the table? Brown’s comments didn’t it make it sound like he was eager to jump from Syracuse for a chance to get the Penn State job, but he didn’t exactly say no.
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This article originally appeared on Nittany Lions Wire: Syracuse coach Fran Brown responds to Penn State coaching rumors
