On this day, 13yrs ago, Dennis Franchione was (re)hired to be the HC for our beloved Bobcats. My thoughts from that day:
And my missive on the matter:
why fran sucks
for those of you under the impression that fran has a good resume, this is for you.
i contend that fran has fallen upward and done it rather impressively. he moves upward at the first hint of success, and while i can't blame him for advancing his career path, i'm amazed that anyone who follows college football at a level higher than watching sportscenter and checking espn.com every now and then thinks he is a successful, above average, coach who has built programs. it blows me away that the thought even exists, much less is propogated. simple math should crush that whole concept.
i'm not arguing fran is a terrible coach. not by any stretch. at the d1 level, the man has won 10 games a couple of times and has some conference championships under his belt. multiple conference championships at the d2 level when he was at pittsburg st. as well. but i'm here to make the case against being good, not the case for total shittiness.
there are two parts of this argument. successful coaching and building a program. wins and losses vs building the foundation for long term success.
swt
1990: 6-5
1991: 7-4
success on field - no. 1990 is obvious. 1991 - 3 of the 4 losses were in conf.
program building - no. two years is much too short a time to even think about that. never mind the 5-5 and 2-9 seasons following his departure.
new mexico
1992: 3-8
1993: 6-5
1994: 5-7
1995: 4-7
1996: 6-5
1997: 9-4 (mac mount div champ, lost ccg and bowl game)
success on field - no. one successful season out of six, including 3 losing seasons, is not successful. 97 is a very nice year by most accounts, but a loss to 6-5 utah and zero wins vs teams w/ more than 6 wins, and only 2 of those (the wac was fucking horrid then).
program building - no. 3 losing seasons, leaving w/ the 1st success (not building on it), and they went 3-9 and 4-7 right after he left - it's not like there was some recruits stockpiled.
tcu
1998: 7-5
1999 : 8-4
2000: 10-2 (wac co-champs)
success on field - somewhat. the wac was still absolute crap in 2000. lost to a 5 loss team in conf and the 9 wins came against teams that were 41-76 overall (.350). 10 wins is 10 wins, but don't act like it wasn't 10 wins against shit teams.
program building - somewhat. 3 years isn't exactly building anything, but there's no denying he took a team that lost 10 games before he got there and won 10 games when he left. i'd argue that his best move was hiring gary patterson as his dc, and that 10win season had a lot to do w/ a senior heavy team - see 6-6 the year following his departure, then back to back 10 win seasons for patterson. half credit.
bama
2001: 7-5
2002: 10-3
success on field - somewhat to yes. 10 wins in the sec is legit no matter how you slice it. now, they lost to the only 3 good teams they played (ou, uga, aub), didn't have to play florida or lsu, and got their 10th win vs hawaii in an irrelevant bowl. it was about as weak a 10 win season as you could imagine (think texas 06, 07).
program building - no. 2 years and hauling ass in the middle of the night isn't building shit, especially when the next guy goes 4-9.
texas a&m
2003: 4-8
2004: 7-5
2005: 5-6
2006: 9-4
2007: 7-6
success on field - no. 2 losing seasons, 2 barely over .500 seasons, one 9 win season. in that 9 win season they finished 3rd in their division (not conference) had 3 conf losses, and their big win was over texas w/o a qb and a def coordinator w/ one foot out the door. wins over fcs citadel, army, ulala, 6 win ku, 7 win osu and 4 win baylor further devalue those 9 wins. 8 win mizzou was their best win other than texas, and it was in college station.
program building - no. finally stays somewhere long enough to do something and he leaves the program in the same situation it was when he got there, and certainly no consistency. in terms of recruiting, overall he wasn't bad, but against his competition, he wasn't up to par, and he was trending downward when he left. he actually left texas a&m in pretty shitty shape as far as talent goes.
2004: 13th in the country (rivals for all of these, out of simplicity). not bad at all. except that his 3 biggest competitors, texas, ou and lsu all had higher rankings.
2005: 8th in the country. pretty damn good. higher than ut and lsu, but that's mostly on the basis of overall numbers - anm had 26 recruits, while texas only took 15 and lsu only took 13. still, 8th nationally is very good.
2006: 26th in the country. texas, ou and lsu all had higher rankings.
2007: 43rd in the country. texas, ou and lsu all had higher rankings.
in 3 of the 4 years at anm, he finished behind his closest competition for talent.
for those of you who are pro-fran, i ask why? how is a guy who got fired for being a shitbag, has a dour, dorky personality, and is 60 years old, the guy you want leading our charge into fbs and the wac? what is it you think he does well? make your case.
now that he's the head coach in san marcos again, i wish him all the success in the world. i'd love to be eating crow in 4 years. but when it doesn't happen, don't act like there wasn't plenty of evidence beforehand. oh, and i purposely left out the shitbaggery part of the man, choosing only to attack him on the merits of his job results.
And my missive on the matter:
why fran sucks
for those of you under the impression that fran has a good resume, this is for you.
i contend that fran has fallen upward and done it rather impressively. he moves upward at the first hint of success, and while i can't blame him for advancing his career path, i'm amazed that anyone who follows college football at a level higher than watching sportscenter and checking espn.com every now and then thinks he is a successful, above average, coach who has built programs. it blows me away that the thought even exists, much less is propogated. simple math should crush that whole concept.
i'm not arguing fran is a terrible coach. not by any stretch. at the d1 level, the man has won 10 games a couple of times and has some conference championships under his belt. multiple conference championships at the d2 level when he was at pittsburg st. as well. but i'm here to make the case against being good, not the case for total shittiness.
there are two parts of this argument. successful coaching and building a program. wins and losses vs building the foundation for long term success.
swt
1990: 6-5
1991: 7-4
success on field - no. 1990 is obvious. 1991 - 3 of the 4 losses were in conf.
program building - no. two years is much too short a time to even think about that. never mind the 5-5 and 2-9 seasons following his departure.
new mexico
1992: 3-8
1993: 6-5
1994: 5-7
1995: 4-7
1996: 6-5
1997: 9-4 (mac mount div champ, lost ccg and bowl game)
success on field - no. one successful season out of six, including 3 losing seasons, is not successful. 97 is a very nice year by most accounts, but a loss to 6-5 utah and zero wins vs teams w/ more than 6 wins, and only 2 of those (the wac was fucking horrid then).
program building - no. 3 losing seasons, leaving w/ the 1st success (not building on it), and they went 3-9 and 4-7 right after he left - it's not like there was some recruits stockpiled.
tcu
1998: 7-5
1999 : 8-4
2000: 10-2 (wac co-champs)
success on field - somewhat. the wac was still absolute crap in 2000. lost to a 5 loss team in conf and the 9 wins came against teams that were 41-76 overall (.350). 10 wins is 10 wins, but don't act like it wasn't 10 wins against shit teams.
program building - somewhat. 3 years isn't exactly building anything, but there's no denying he took a team that lost 10 games before he got there and won 10 games when he left. i'd argue that his best move was hiring gary patterson as his dc, and that 10win season had a lot to do w/ a senior heavy team - see 6-6 the year following his departure, then back to back 10 win seasons for patterson. half credit.
bama
2001: 7-5
2002: 10-3
success on field - somewhat to yes. 10 wins in the sec is legit no matter how you slice it. now, they lost to the only 3 good teams they played (ou, uga, aub), didn't have to play florida or lsu, and got their 10th win vs hawaii in an irrelevant bowl. it was about as weak a 10 win season as you could imagine (think texas 06, 07).
program building - no. 2 years and hauling ass in the middle of the night isn't building shit, especially when the next guy goes 4-9.
texas a&m
2003: 4-8
2004: 7-5
2005: 5-6
2006: 9-4
2007: 7-6
success on field - no. 2 losing seasons, 2 barely over .500 seasons, one 9 win season. in that 9 win season they finished 3rd in their division (not conference) had 3 conf losses, and their big win was over texas w/o a qb and a def coordinator w/ one foot out the door. wins over fcs citadel, army, ulala, 6 win ku, 7 win osu and 4 win baylor further devalue those 9 wins. 8 win mizzou was their best win other than texas, and it was in college station.
program building - no. finally stays somewhere long enough to do something and he leaves the program in the same situation it was when he got there, and certainly no consistency. in terms of recruiting, overall he wasn't bad, but against his competition, he wasn't up to par, and he was trending downward when he left. he actually left texas a&m in pretty shitty shape as far as talent goes.
2004: 13th in the country (rivals for all of these, out of simplicity). not bad at all. except that his 3 biggest competitors, texas, ou and lsu all had higher rankings.
2005: 8th in the country. pretty damn good. higher than ut and lsu, but that's mostly on the basis of overall numbers - anm had 26 recruits, while texas only took 15 and lsu only took 13. still, 8th nationally is very good.
2006: 26th in the country. texas, ou and lsu all had higher rankings.
2007: 43rd in the country. texas, ou and lsu all had higher rankings.
in 3 of the 4 years at anm, he finished behind his closest competition for talent.
for those of you who are pro-fran, i ask why? how is a guy who got fired for being a shitbag, has a dour, dorky personality, and is 60 years old, the guy you want leading our charge into fbs and the wac? what is it you think he does well? make your case.
now that he's the head coach in san marcos again, i wish him all the success in the world. i'd love to be eating crow in 4 years. but when it doesn't happen, don't act like there wasn't plenty of evidence beforehand. oh, and i purposely left out the shitbaggery part of the man, choosing only to attack him on the merits of his job results.
