Some people simply should not blog. Let me put this in context.
Two weekends ago, Iowa State hammered Texas A&M 42-14 in front of the fifth largest crowd in the history of Kyle Field. Then, last Saturday night, Texas Tech blistered the Aggies 56-17 in Lubbock.
In between those two debacles, Texas A&M head coach Dennis Franchione published this post on his Coach Fran website, which included the following:
From appearances at a press luncheon, and a Big 12 phone conference, and at the local Quarterback Club, and at our radio show, the most-asked question of the past week about our game was, “Why didn’t you run Jorvorskie Lane on third-and-one?”
Some people asked that question and really didn’t care about the answer. In fact, some people right now don’t care about anything we say, which is why in our camp we are working hard on doing instead of talking. Other than a few coaches who look at recruiting news, our staff does not spend time on the Internet and this week we didn’t spend time with emails or letters, either.
And if that was not sufficiently patronizing for you, try this:
In case you are interested in understanding why we do or don’t run a certain play at any given time, the best way to help is to tell you how we design our offense and the game plan. The easiest thing in the world is to sit in the stands or in a press box and have a simple take on what’s happening on the field. If it was easy as walking in here and saying, “OK, let’s hand the ball off to this guy 25 times and we’ll win,” we could save a lot of time and effort and get more sleep.
Which is followed by the following pearl of football wisdom:
[F]rom an ancient Asian religion there is a saying, “Wise people seek solutions. Others only cast blame.”
The entire piece is not as defiant and condescending as the above excerpts, but you get the idea. As you might expect, more than a few Aggie fans are not pleased with Coach Fran’s piece. Meanwhile, the Aggies are 13 point underdogs this Saturday at Oklahoma, where the Aggies lost 77-0 two years ago during Coach Fran’s first season. And second-ranked Texas looms after that game.
Can Coach Fran survive four straight blowouts to end his third season at A&M, two of which have been losing seasons? My sense is that he’s got one more season, but you never know. For us old-timers who recall the two week meltdown of Emory Bellard as A&M’s head coach back in 1978, stranger things than an unexpected firing have happened to coaches in the passionate culture that is Texas A&M football.
Too bad the coach won’t just bare his true feelings of frustration, self doubt and misgivings about how and why he made the biggest mistake of his life by taking the A&M job. Now THAT would be a blog worth reading.
The #1 problem is with the roster. There aren’t enough quality players, and those we do have are getting injured at a record pace. As much as I love Aggieland, it’s not the easiest sell to recruits. Add that we don’t have the winning tradition of other schools in towns similar to College Sta., and you end up playing second fiddle to plenty of programs no matter who your coach is. Of course, that doesn’t explain Leach’s teams in the black hole that is Lubbock, so my theory is already a bust. I’m also guessing that one more season is about all Fran’ll get. That gives him juniors that he recruited on the field. Cornerback coverage is what it’s all about. Get some cover corners, and we can get a blitz package going again. I think the two we have are going to be good, but not until they get one more season under their belts. Last point – we USED to be linebacker U. We’ve focused on getting the O rolling (taken a step back there as well this season) and have lost the dominant D in our I_entity. Defense wins games.