Rutgers Football adds Fran Brown to staff as secondary coach

Update: Rutgers made the hiring official, announcing Brown as Secondary coach.

It’s been a busy week for Rutgers Football, headlined by the press conference that introduced Greg Schiano as the team’s new head coach. There is a lot of speculation on what the State of Rutgers 2.0 will look like (keep an eye out for an article), but one key ingredient that many of our readers pointed out is a need for a very, very strong South Jersey recruiter. One name kept coming up, Fran Brown, who currently serves as a co-defensive coordinator with the Temple Owls.

First reported by “The Knight Report”, Brown is expected to be named Co-Defensive Coordinator / Defensive Backs coach on Schiano’s staff. The official announcement and timing will be curious to watch since Temple (8-4) is currently awaiting word on their bowl destination and date. We have seen examples of coaches leaving their current team and others where they remain for bowl prep (i.e. Chris Ash), so we’ll keep an eye on the transition.

After tossing 47 touchdown passes at Camden, Brown played cornerback at Western Carolina where he was all-conference and a team captain. After college he got a look in 2007 and 2008 with the Cincinnati Bengals, but never played in a game. His life story particularly how he got into coaching is an incredible read. Brown has spent most of his coaching career at Temple (2011-2016 & 2019), where he won the AAC recruiter of the year award in 2014. During his time away from Philadelphia 2017-2018, Fran was a member of Matt Rhule’s staff at Baylor where he was the team’s lead recruiter even convincing some of South Jersey’s biggest talent to go to Waco.

On BTN earlier this week Urban Meyer discussed the need for Rutgers to get the top NJ talent from Bergen County, but Schiano knows he needs to get the top talent throughout the state. One thing Schiano highlighted in the press conference was how everyone needs to get on the same page and work together for Rutgers to compete in the Big Ten with the big boys. Brown’s stated goal is perfectly in line with Schiano’s, to transform young men’s lives. He has proven that so far in his career.

There’s no two ways about it, this is a slam dunk hire regardless of who is calling plays or other game day responsibilities shake out. Brown will join Schiano and Nunzio Campanile as the only coaches officially confirmed for 2020 on field staff. That leaves seven openings that could be filled by retained staff or new hires.

Welcome to the banks Fran!