Reportedly accepting the job at Texas State who is moving to FBS and the WAC in 2012. Fran previously coached at Texas State (then Southwest Texas) from 1990-1991. http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=5996265 As a TXST alum, I'm kind of meh on the hire. We expected him to be they guy but it took about 45 days which makes it frustarting. The other candidates were: Dan Hawkins (Former Colorado, Boise St. HC) Tim Brewster (Former Minnesota HC) Steve Kragthorpe (Former Louisville, Tulsa HC) Dave Steckel (Mizzou DC) Shawn Watson (Nebraska OC) Bobby Jack Wright (Oklahoma DC) Rocky Long (San Diego St. DC, former New Mexico HC)
Look at his resume. He did positive stuff at TAMU as well, including flirting with the record for least turnovers in a season and average yards per play on offense.
Where Texas State is at, just moving into FBS and not particularly successful in FCS, bottom of the barrel, it's a good hire. The options are pretty much limited to under the radar coordinators and former head coaches who've failed in their last stint. Tim Brewster was an interesting name. Called the best recruiter in Texas. VY credits Brewster as the reason he chose UT. But he really sucked in Minnesota. Rocky Long did OK at New Mexico, his alma mater, but ultimately had a losing record and resigned for the good of the program. Kragthorpe did well at Tulsa but failed at Louisville. The two biggest names were Hawkins and Franchione. Both had done well in previous jobs but failed when they moved up to bigger schools with bigger programs, though unlike Hawkins at Colorado, Fan did at least have winning records at Alabama and A&M. I was somewhat leaning towards Hawkins because he had experience leading Boise St. through the transition to FBS, but Fran was definitely the bigger name, and even though he wasn't good enough for A&M and the Big XII, he might be plenty good enough for Texas State and the depleted WAC. It's kind of similar to the UTSA Larry Coker hire. Both were high profile coaches who got fired and haven't been able to get jobs for a few years. Both took positions at Southland schools who are moving to FBS in 2012. Look for Mike Leach to become Sam Houston's coach in a few years. :grin:
An early rumor was that if Brewster had gotten the job, he would have tried to bring Davis with him, but Davis wasn't interested.
At least the Texas State offesnse won't have a problem picking up the offense since it consists of 5 plays. Maybe he can really stick it to the Texas State fans and bring Torbush over from Kansas with that stellar Wrecking Crew he installed at A&M under Fran's regime. I blame Ladanian Tomlinson for A&M's failures this decades since he made Fran look good at TCU. Fran is a nice enough guy, but man we held on to him 2 years too long.
