Chronicle reports that Franchione will be coach at A&M!!!!!

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/sports/1689964

THE Texas Aggies have raided the University of Alabama for their new head football coach, and it may be a huge stretch to say this move will settle a theft that took place 45 years ago.

But if this move works out anywhere near as well as the earlier one did for the Crimson Tide, the Aggies will be ecstatic.

Dennis Franchione will be introduced as the successor to R.C. Slocum, and the announcement could come as early as Friday, according to a source close to the A&M board of regents. He would become A&M's 26th head coach, dating to the 1890s.

Leaving Alabama may not have required any great agonizing on the part of Franchione. He has been there a long time, two years, and his team just completed a 10-victory season. But he walked into a mudslide at Tuscaloosa, with the Crimson Tide slapped with five years' probation for violations by the previous staff. If recent reports are true, additional penalties are on the way for other misdeeds recently uncovered.

With limits on bowl and television appearances and cuts in scholarships, Franchione had been undermined by circumstances not of his making. Alabama felt obligated by moral reasons, if not legal ones, to release him from his contract.

Although the Aggies had gotten out of the habit of changing coaches, they moved with a speed that offended some students of good manners, as well as Slocum's supporters.

But once A&M's new president, Robert Gates, concluded new blood was needed to return the Aggies to Top 10 contention, speed became essential. Slocum and his coaches are reported to have commitments from 17 top recruits, and the decision-makers were concerned any delay would see a serious amount of poaching by rival schools.

"We won't lose any of them," Franchione was quoted as reassuring them.

The 51-year-old Kansas native comes by his confidence by temperament and experience. He had success in the state recruiting for TCU, one of four programs he restored to vibrant health. He developed winning teams at Southwest Texas, New Mexico and TCU before putting Alabama back on the one true path.

The Aggies had been out of the coach-hunting business ever since Slocum took the baton from Jackie Sherrill in 1989. And the point begs to be made that the Aggies' job doesn't fall into the category of pulling the ox out of the ditch. The past season was a disappointment at 6-6, but the Aggies lost four games by a touchdown or less. They will not require a total makeover.

As has been frequently noted, A&M hasn't endured a losing season in 14 years. During that time, Slocum became the winningest coach in Aggies lore, and he tied Homer Norton for the longest tenure.

Norton produced the school's only national champion in 1939 and came within a touchdown loss to Texas of repeating in 1940. That achievement didn't gain Norton a lifetime job, either.

The Aggie-Alabama connection has been an interesting one through the years.

Gene Stallings was one of the Junction Boys under Paul "Bear" Bryant, and coached for him at Alabama. Stallings returned to his old school in 1965, as the youngest head coach of a major program in America. He was 29.

Sherrill had played at Alabama and was a student-coach for the Bear, and wound up as the high sheriff of A&M football in 1982.

But it was Bryant's return to his alma mater that defined the A&M-Alabama connection, and exists as a minor footnote to this latest development.

The Bear had performed major rebuilding tasks at Maryland and Kentucky. He was hired to lead the Aggies to a Southwest Conference championship, and he accomplished that in three seasons. Led by Jack Pardee, John David Crow, Charley Krueger, Dennis Goehring and Stallings, the Aggies were unbeaten in 1956.

Bryant had them atop the national polls for three glorious weeks in 1957, when the rumors began circulating that he was going back to Alabama.

After evading the question, Texas ended A&M's season with a 9-7 defeat on Kyle Field. The winning points came on a 38-yard field goal kicked by the UT quarterback, Bobby Lackey, who had run and passed for a total of 36 yards -- that is not a typo -- in a game dominated by the defenses.

A brooding Bryant met the press in his office under the stands at Kyle Field, and admitted what many already had assumed. He said there was only one reason he even would have considered accepting an offer from Alabama.

"When you were out playing as a kid," he began, "say you heard your mother call you. If you thought she just wanted you to do some chores, or come in for supper, you might not answer her. But if you thought she needed you, you'd be there in a hurry."

This became known as the "Mama Called" speech. No one had done so much for motherhood since Al Jolson.

Slocum hasn't found an appropriate time yet to express his inner feelings about his removal from the only job he ever wanted. His actions and comments have been, predictably, filled with grace and dignity.

He was not brought down because he forgot how to coach, but because it appeared the Aggies were not getting better, by the week or by the year. Dr. Gates, and some of the regents, thought it was time for a change. The search for a replacement was short. Alabama owed them one.

 

He was there 2 years...but who's counting.

I am thrilled that we're getting such a great coach.

 

More on Coach Fran...

http://news.mysanantonio.com/story.cfm?xla=saen&xlb=200&xlc=885999

The biggest bowl he's ever coached is the Sun. He was lucky enough to arrive at TCU and find a kid named LaDainian Tomlinson on his roster. And he's got a soft belly and a softer nickname.
So why are the Aggies giving Coach Fran all of their time and most of their money?

The answer can be found, among other places, about 40 miles north of San Antonio.

Dennis Franchione has improved conditions everywhere he's been, and along the way he's built himself into a coaching image that schools absolutely have to have. Those who knew him along the way aren't surprised, and they also wouldn't be surprised if he met even the bigger-than-Big 12 expectations of Texas A&M.

Franchione has been a head coach nearly all the way, starting in high school, moving up through small Kansas colleges. He's always said he's a builder, not a maintainer, and he was at Southwest Texas.

Then, just over 10 years ago, life was never better for R.C. Slocum. The Aggies were starting to play their best under him, and no one would have believed at the time that A&M would ever cast aside Slocum to pursue an unknown working in San Marcos.

But then the turnarounds began. SWT hadn't had a winning season in the five years before Franchione, and they had two in his two years there.

New Mexico came next. The Lobos lost to TCU by a score of 60-7 the season before he got there. The next year he beat the Frogs, something that obviously a few people in Fort Worth remembered. By the time Franchione left New Mexico, the previously hapless program went 9-4 and to its first bowl in 36 years.

The resurrection of TCU followed. The Frogs went 1-10 the year before he arrived; with him, the school went to three consecutive bowl games for the first time.

And then came Alabama. In two years he improved the Tide's record from 3-8 to 10-3, and a late loss to Auburn masks the accomplishments this past season. He overcame NCAA probation for recruiting infractions under the previous staff, a bowl ban, injuries and an early, demoralizing loss at Oklahoma.

But those are just the numbers, and Franchione's story is more. He comes with some Bill Snyder, some Bob Stoops, some Mack Brown.

The Snyder in him is easiest to see. Like the Kansas State coach, Franchione does everything but arrange the socks. "He liked to call himself 7-11," said a staffer at Southwest Texas. "He keeps those hours."

He cares about every detail, and an official at New Mexico remembers. "If we were playing Air Force and kickoff was 11 at the Academy, he would insist we take a charter that left early in the morning the day before, so we could get there and simulate a walkthrough with exactly the same sunlight that we would see on game day. He didn't miss a thing."

The Stoops in him comes out at game time. Unlike Stoops, Franchione focuses on offense, but the minds are alike. Franchione believes in a versatile but basic scheme, one that he controls, and one that he loves to teach.

Just as with Stoops, Franchione inherited talent along the way, and he will again should he go to College Station. Reggie McNeal will be his Tomlinson.

Franchione, like Stoops, stands secure after losses, such as after the Auburn game, when he announced: "Don't ever misunderstand the issue that it's my responsibility to get them ready to play well."

But it might be the Mack in him that impresses the most. The worst anyone can say about Franchione at any school is that he kept up his antenna. He was always looking for the next, better job, and it affected his strategy.

At New Mexico, for example, he dropped Oregon and Baylor from the schedule, and he wanted to drop Texas Tech but couldn't. Franchione saw a series of Idaho States as the way to pad the record and résumé.

Otherwise, everyone has good things to say. He's polished but not a snob, driven but not dry. His sense of humor mixes well with media and alumni alike, and he has a presence when he walks into a room.

It translates into recruiting. "He's more white collar than blue," said one, "but he knows how to act at the right time. Whatever is required. He can six-pack it with Mack Brown as well as anyone."

Like Brown, Franchione has the ability to build family quickly, and today's climate defines that. He was at Alabama for only two years, and yet the state worries now that this man from outside the area, with an anti-Bear name such as Fran, will desert them.

A&M is not the marquee program that Alabama has been, and that's why so many around the country doubted he would make this move. But therein lies his impact today, and why he's worth so much time and money.

By going to College Station, Franchione would change that.

 

WHOOP!

I am as giddy as a kid opening presents on Christmas.

 

http://www.tiderinsider.com/forum/messages/286132.html

Posted by BroRob on December 05, 2002 at 08:50:34:

Jim Dunaway & Jay Barker just reported that a press conference is to air at 3 pm in College Station, TX.

Their 2-3-4 years of lying, stonewalling, and denial will commence then. Should be interesting to watch them dance to the drumbeat of Fran & Co. like TCU and Alabama have.