Kyle McCord got the keys to the offense of one of college football’s most prestigious programs last season at Ohio State after sitting behind C.J. Stroud for two seasons.
On paper the 6-foot-3 gunslinger’s first year under center for the Buckeyes looked to be a successful one as he went 11-1 alongside his former St. Joe’s Prep teammate and wide receiver Marvin Harrison Jr., who is now with the Arizona Cardinals. But at a program like Ohio State that has national championship aspirations and beating “that team up north,” it wasn’t. This led McCord to enter the transfer portal in December before the Cotton Bowl.
He committed to Syracuse and Fran Brown on Dec. 17, a landing spot that surprised some within college football.
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So how did a first-time coach at a school that has underachieved in the ACC in recent years — as Syracuse has finished below .500 in four of the last five years — land a top 10 quarterback in the 2021 recruiting class per his 247Sports Composite rankings?
Brown said he got a little help from his wife, Teara, who worked at a hospital with McCord’s dad, former Rutgers quarterback Derek McCord.
“My wife did that. Her and his father worked together at the hospital. My wife was in school and her clinical was becoming an RN before she became a nurse anesthetist and he worked there also,” Brown said Thursday on the ACC Network at ACC Football Media Day. “And she kept telling me about this kid that was really good in middle school. … One day I got a chance to go and watch him play Little League Football and I was like, ‘Oh snap. He can actually play.’
“And you know everyone hear’s who going to hit the portal, who’s going to hit it. And I (told) our staff, that was the mission if he hit the portal, tell me. And as soon as he hit the portal, he told me, I called him, ‘What’s up? Where are you at?'”
Once McCord entered the portal in December, Brown said he headed down to visit McCord at his home in Mount Laurel, New Jersey — roughly 20 minutes away from where Brown grew up in Camden, New Jersey — in hopes of landing his star quarterback. He said his visit with McCord lasted over seven hours.
“I was just telling him all the things that while I thought me and him needed each other and we understood each other, we were from the same area and all. And I just thought that it would be great for my career to have such a good leader right away,” Brown said.
“Then it would be great for him to have a coach and nothing towards his last coach, but to have a coach that truly wanted him to be the leader of our football team. And I thought that that mattered when he knows that I have confidence in him and he has confidence in me. … I wouldn’t leave. I was there from six to about 1:30 (in the morning).”
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Brown was also asked what the former five-star recruit (by 247Sports) brings to a Syracuse team that went 6-7 overall last season under former Orange coach Dino Barbers.
“He brings leadership instant. He has instant credibility because he played at a prestigious program and they did a real good job. I mean technically two plays, he’s not even here with us right now. He’ll be on a different team, but he brings instant leadership and work ethic,” Brown said.
“… Told him I’m not with the pocket. Yes, you’re going to move around and you’re going to run (but) since I got to watch him in little league, I want to see that little league quarterback,” Brown continued. “I want to see you have fun. Go run, go score, do different things and you just see him (getting) back to himself.”
Brown has a point. If it wasn’t for two plays — most notably the fourth-quarter interception against Michigan out in Ann Harbor that resulted in a 30-24 win for the Wolverines — Day may have committed to McCord for the upcoming season under center. Instead, McCord is in Syracuse and the ACC where he will now look to revive the Orange program alongside Brown.
Kyle McCord Ohio State stats
Here’s a breakdown of McCord’s stats during his time in Columbus with the Buckeyes:
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2021: Completed 25 of 38 passing attempts for 416 passing yards with two passing touchdowns and two interceptions; nine carries for -16 rushing yards
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2022: Completed 16 of 20 passing attempts for 190 passing yards with one passing touchdown; three carries for four yards
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2023: Completed 229 of 348 passing attempts for 3,170 passing yards with 24 passing touchdowns and six interceptions; 32 carries for -65 rushing yards
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Syracuse’s Fran Brown on how he landed Kyle McCord: ‘My wife did that’
The Columbus Dispatch
