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hortly after Fran Brown was named Syracuse’s head coach on Nov. 28, 2023, he built his staff among lifelong Camden, New Jersey, connections. However, along with highly-qualified coaches, he needed to recruit established players to build credibility.
Again, he turned to his home state. The first big-time signing came at quarterback as Brown added Ohio State transfer Kyle McCord, who grew up in the Garden State despite attending high school in Philadelphia. McCord committed on Dec. 17, quickly fortifying Fran Brown’s movement.
Next, SU’s head coach needed a defensive standout. Insert Fadil Diggs — one of Camden’s finest.
“He was the other guy,” Fran Brown said of the Texas A&M transfer. “There was one on offense. We got that one. Then there was one on defense … From our area, the entire tri-state, (McCord and Diggs) are big-name guys and they’ll be for a long time.”
The prolific edge rusher first established himself as one of the best players from Camden by winning the New Jersey Football Gatorade Player of the Year in 2019. Following high-school dominance, Diggs moved across the country to play four seasons with the Aggies, totaling a career-high four sacks and 36 tackles in 2023.
But for his final college season ahead of a possible NFL Draft selection, Diggs transferred to SU, where he’ll reconnect with his roots and move to the forefront of Fran Brown’s quest to dominate northeast recruiting.
“His story is still being written in terms of his effect on the football field,” said Preston Brown, Diggs’ former head coach at Woodrow Wilson High School (now Eastside High). “But in the history of our city and the sport of football, he’s one of the best to ever do it.”
Diggs’ Syracuse connection ran deep prior to his transfer. The first person Diggs talked to when considering the Orange was cornerback Alijah Clark, a childhood friend of his.
The bond with Clark (and fellow SU teammates McCord and Duce Chestnut) also stems from 7-on-7 football, where Diggs developed his two-way talent with Marcus Hammond’s Next Level Greats. Diggs played with the program from eighth grade through his senior year of high school, helping the team win multiple national championships.
In eighth grade, Diggs already stood at 6-foot-3, 200 pounds. Over the years with NLG, his agility flourished while dropping in coverage defensively and being a primary pass catcher offensively. Hammond said that when Diggs became a defensive end, he was one of the rare cases of someone at that position playing 7-on-7.
In four seasons with at Texas A&M, Fadil Diggs recorded 18.5 tackles for loss and four sacks. Now with Syracuse, Diggs will be at the forefront of the SU defensive line. Photograph Courtesy of SU Athletics
Then, Syracuse hired Fran Brown, who Diggs has known since seventh grade. Fran Brown previously offered Diggs a scholarship to Temple while he was an assistant there and Diggs was still a freshman in high school. The head coach even brought in one of Diggs’ closest allies, Elijah Robinson, as SU’s defensive coordinator.
Robinson most recently served as Texas A&M’s interim head coach in 2023 after Jimbo Fisher’s firing. Before the brief promotion, he was the co-defensive coordinator and defensive line coach for the Aggies, a key role in Diggs’ progression.
Though, long before Robinson was recruiting Diggs to A&M, and eventually Syracuse, he was an all-state player at Diggs’s alma mater, Woodrow Wilson. Additionally, he was a teammate of Preston Brown, a bond that trickled down to Diggs.
“Elijah Robinson was the factor in Fadil being at Texas A&M,” Preston Brown said. “He wanted Fadil to understand the school, the philosophy, how he would fit in and the growth process that he would go through at the time.”
While there was a clear link between Robinson and Diggs before they teamed up in College Station, the young prospect blossomed into a highly-touted superstar at Woodrow Wilson.
With a mammoth yet still developing frame entering high school, Diggs played mostly receiver and safety. However, Preston Brown saw the potential to be a difference maker on the edge. He told Diggs he’ll focus mainly on edge rush skills while still developing on the offensive side.
Though, Preston Brown made his vision abundantly clear to Diggs: he was going to be a defensive end if he reached the NFL.
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After not making much of an impact as a freshman, Diggs made a jump as a sophomore. He found his groove on both sides of the ball, recording three receiving touchdowns while registering 10.5 sacks. That’s when Diggs became “Big Frank.”
The nickname emulates the freakish nature of the fictional creature Frankenstein. Former Woodrow Wilson defensive coordinator Brandon Bathers presented Diggs with the moniker as he matured as an underclassman, joking that he was a monster on the field, but “ugly.” Though the label was bestowed in a jovial manner, it was a microcosm of Diggs’ game.
He increased his production in his junior season, tallying 12 sacks while upping his receiving yards to 422 and touchdowns to five, all while helping Woodrow Wilson to a state title. As collegiate offers piled in, Diggs hit the road.
Diggs, the fourth-ranked player in New Jersey, visited 10 schools from February 2018 to April 2019 before committing to Texas A&M in May 2019, per 247Sports.
While touring the nation for his next destination, Diggs continued to work at his craft. Transitioning from his junior to senior season, he trained with Woodrow Wilson defensive line coach Melik Brown at least three days a week. They mirrored game-like experience while working on hip and ankle flexibility.
Going into his senior season, Diggs was now a 6-foot-5, 240-pound behemoth. He’d already claimed a state championship and committed to play in the top conference in the nation. All that Preston Brown saw Diggs had left to accomplish was to be renowned as the best player in the state.
The head coach laid it out for his star player, saying he would need to win Gatorade Player of the Year while recording 20-plus sacks and 1,000 receiving yards to cement his legacy.
Diggs’ benchmarks were lofty, but not impossible. In the end, the senior had 1,031 receiving yards for 11 touchdowns while adding 17.5 sacks and 95.5 tackles. The accolade followed.
No game represented his commanding era in Camden High School football better than the sectional championship against Somerville. Melik Brown approached Diggs on the sideline mid-game and urged him to go speed to power with a long arm inside. He did just that on the next play, lifting the offensive tackle off his feet and slamming him into the ground.
He finished the game with two sacks and nine total tackles while recording 126 receiving yards and two touchdowns, securing the first back-to-back sectional championship wins in Camden history.
“We wanted to be different,” Diggs told the Courier Post after the game. “We wanted to stand out, show everybody that we’re different than anybody else that has played football here and in the city of Camden. And that’s what we did.”
After etching his Camden legacy, Diggs moved more than 1,500 miles to College Station. Uniting with Robinson was an opportunity for Diggs to reach his potential at the next level. The defensive line coach helped former Camden natives in the past, turning Haason Reddick into a first-rounder at Temple. Now, it was Diggs’s turn.
After etching his Camden legacy, Diggs moved more than 1,500 miles to College Station. Uniting with Robinson was an opportunity for Diggs to reach his potential at the next level. The defensive line coach helped former Camden natives in the past, turning Haason Reddick into a first-rounder at Temple. Now, it was Diggs’s turn.
Following a redshirt in 2020, Diggs worked his way into the mix with future professionals like Micheal Clemons, McKinnley Jackson, Edgerrin Cooper and Demani Richardson on defense.
Despite recording just one sack in 12 games in 2021, he battled through injuries the following season and became one of the key figures on the line. Diggs put on a show against then-No. 10 Arkansas, recording six total tackles in a two-point win over the Razorbacks.
Two weeks later, at then-No. 1 Alabama, Diggs made two strip-sacks in the first half. The Crimson Tide narrowly scraped by the Aggies, but Diggs had his best college game on one of the country’s biggest stages.
“(Diggs) is really one of the most dominant guys, because I’ve seen him knock back 6-foot-6, 350-pound first rounders and ragdoll them all around,” said Jackson, who was selected in the third round by the Cincinnati Bengals in the 2024 NFL Draft.
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The junior increased his production in 2023, but Texas A&M struggled, going 4-4 in the SEC and firing its head coach with three games left. Robinson took over as the interim head coach, but didn’t receive the full-time role. On Dec. 3, 2023, he was hired by the Orange and three days later, Diggs hit the transfer portal.
Ranked as the No. 56 overall transfer, according to 247Sports, Diggs committed to the Orange on Dec. 19.
“It’s not really a pitch,” Diggs said of Fran Brown and Robinson’s recruitment. “We was already family, and I understood what kind of coaches they was. So me knowing them and knowing what they’re about, it was easy for me.”
Transferring to SU brings Diggs three hours away from the place where it all started. And despite being in Texas for the past four years, he never left his roots behind.
“Even when I went to a different school, I’m gonna always carry Jersey on my back,” Diggs said. “I feel like people got to respect us ’cause we’re tough and don’t give up easy.”
Photograph Courtesy of SU Athletics
Published on August 29, 2024 at 12:04 am
Contact Aiden at: amstepan@syr.edu | @AidenStepansky
