Camden native Fran Brown is next up as Syracuse football coach. Several local recruits have taken notice.

Someone with an entrepreneurial spirit and some investment capital might want to charter a few buses in the tri-state area come next football season.

It would run afoul of copyright laws, but the obvious name of the fleet should be “The Fran Brown Express.”

Brown, the new Syracuse football coach who said his program is “about to shock the country,” seems committed to bringing in local talent to complete the task.

Just days after he was announced as the 31st coach in Syracuse history, the 41-year-old Camden native with a reputation as one of the nation’s top recruiters flipped three talented local commitments toward upstate New York.

More local reinforcements might be on the way, meaning boatloads of families and friends might need weekly transportation when the season begins. The addition of new Syracuse defensive coordinator Elijah Robinson, another Camden native with a sterling reputation as an excellent recruiter, could open even more doors.

For high school athletes, however, the college football recruiting landscape is also chockablock with obstacles — from the transfer portal to coaching staff turnover to the pressure on coaches to win immediately — that have limited their overall opportunities.

“I think [Brown] will do a tremendous job [recruiting], especially in our region and in our area,” Roman Catholic coach Rick Prete said in a phone interview. “He’s not just a local coach. He’s one of the best recruiters in the country. It can be a great opportunity for a lot of the kids in our area, but it could also be even more competitive to get to Syracuse because of his ability to also recruit nationally.”

According to several local high school coaches, Brown has had great recruiting success, in part, because he’s honest, direct, and relates well to kids who may have grown up amid similar circumstances.

Brown is a former standout quarterback and defensive back at Camden High School and a 2006 graduate of Western Carolina, where he starred at cornerback under assistant coach Matt Rhule, whom Brown later followed as an assistant coach to Temple and Baylor.

The new Syracuse coach has told several media outlets about his childhood.

His mother, he said, had him when she was just 13 years old. The family also faced numerous evictions, resulting in Brown moving multiple times as a child. His entry into college football also was a challenge; he needed one year at Hudson Valley Community College before becoming a first-team all-conference cornerback for the Catamounts.

“Kids see [Brown] as someone who has made something good out of himself coming from similar places and I think he inspires a lot of kids,” Prete said.

Perhaps that’s one reason three Jersey recruits have already changed their commitments, while others seem to be on the way.

Winslow Township receiver Jaylan Hornsby, who had committed to Texas A&M, where Robinson served as interim coach after Jimbo Fisher was fired mid-season, committed to Syracuse last Sunday.

St. Joseph Regional’s Yasin Willis, the top-ranked running back recruit in New Jersey, backed out of his commitment to Pitt and instead pledged with the Orange.

Jahide Lesaine, a defensive end and tight end at Immaculate Conception High School, went with Syracuse after previously pledging to Kent State.

It’s also reasonable to wonder if Fadil Diggs, 2019 Gatorade player of the year at Woodrow Wilson High School, would consider Syracuse since he announced his intention to enter the transfer portal and potentially leave Texas A&M. It’s already rumored that his little brother Fatim could be headed to the Orange.

Former North Penn receiver Yazeed Haynes, a freshman at Georgia, also has entered the transfer portal and, according to Adam Friedman of Rivals, plans to visit Syracuse this weekend. Florida freshman defensive lineman Will Norman, a Camden native who starred at Eastside, also recently announced his intention to visit Syracuse.

Neumann Goretti coach Albie Crosby, who has known Brown for more than a decade, said the new Syracuse coach’s intelligence and charisma help him relate “on the streets of Camden” and “boardrooms of Fortune 500 companies.”

“I think he’s a guy people relate to and are comfortable with because he’s comfortable in his skin,” Crosby said, “so they can be comfortable in theirs.”

“He’s extremely honest,” Crosby continued. “In this business, you get to see people who aren’t, who tell you what you want to hear. But his transparency … is probably his biggest asset.”

Brown’s local ties don’t hurt.

For more than a decade, Brown has been a force within the Philly-Jersey recruiting scene.

In fact, Crosby said, Brown, a former Temple assistant who years ago interviewed for the Owls’ head coaching job, has been so good at recruiting that his coaching acumen has often been overlooked.

Still, Brown’s local ties forged relationships with several area coaches.

As Brown finalizes his coaching staff, it will be interesting to see whom he tabs as a local liaison to recruit this area.

“I’m sure when he completes his staff there will be other local guys,” said Northeast coach Ryan Nase. “And there’s a much better chance local coaches here are going to have a relationship with someone on his staff.”

Nase played at Father Judge before a post-graduate year at the Peddie School, which helped him play lineman at Lafayette, where he also coached for three seasons.

As a result, Nase has relationships across college football that he calls upon during the recruiting process.

Relationships also are why Nase, Prete, and other local coaches understand that while Brown’s presence at Syracuse likely opens doors for local recruits, opportunities for high school athletes nationwide continue to dwindle.

In his introductory press conference, Brown acknowledged, “That’s why I got the job [because of my recruiting]. We all understand that. I’m not going to stop that. Why would you stop doing what you’re good at?”

College coaches, however, under increasing pressure to win immediately, have become more likely to choose veteran players in the transfer portal than incoming freshmen.

In previous years, Nase said, a college program might bring in 15-20 new players and maybe three to five would be transfers while the rest were incoming freshmen.

Today those numbers could be inverted.

Prete added that a trickle-down effect then occurs.

With fewer spots available for incoming freshmen, high-major recruits fall to mid-major schools, while mid-major talents fall to Division I-AA or Division II programs.

The following season, players who think they should be playing at a higher level can re-enter the portal as de facto free agents, which means they might be prioritized over incoming freshmen.

Something similar occurs when a new coaching staff arrives. Colorado coach Deion Sanders encouraged players to enter the portal when he first arrived in Boulder, so he could bring in players he wanted.

So, whether local recruits will continue flowing into Syracuse will be clarified with time. For now, the door is ajar.

“I do think it’ll help [local] kids [reach] Syracuse,” Nase said. “I loved in his interview that he said, ‘I’m from Camden, New Jersey.’ He means that. He’s coming back to Camden. He’s coming back to the Philly area. It’s not that he’s [automatically] going to take a [local] kid over a kid from [elsewhere], but [local] kids will get every opportunity because most of us as high school coaches have relationships with college coaches from our area.”

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