Just when it seemed as if Texas A&M head coach Dennis Franchione’s season couldn’t get much worse, it looks as if it just might.
As noted in previous posts over the past two years here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here, Coach Fran’s tenure at A&M has been on the thinnest of ice for quite some time. The latest thud in Coach Fran’s reign in Aggieland was the thorough trouncing that the Kansas Jayhawks laid on A&M this past Saturday night in front of 85,000 demoralized Aggie faithful.
But that game against Kansas may look positively pleasant in comparison to what faces the Aggies next Saturday night on ABC — playing the sixth-ranked Oklahoma Sooners in Norman.
Now, playing OU in Norman is never a picnic. But the subplot to this particular game is that Coach Fran inexplicably gave OU extra motivation with a preseason jab against the Sooners. In speaking to the Houston Touchdown Club in early August, Franchione said he wasnít sure who would be the Soonersí starting quarterback, but “that may be the only question mark they have . . . other than what jobs they are going to work this year. That is a joke. I couldnít resist.” Coach Fran was making light of OUís recent NCAA violations involving players receiving unearned compensation from a Norman automobile dealership.
Oklahoma head coach Bob Stoops — who already strikes fear in at least one other Texas big-time college football coach — was asked yesterday during the Big 12 weekly coaches’ news conference if he plans to remind his players this week about Coach Fran’s preseason comments:
“We donít need to do that,î Stoops said.
Yeah. Right.
Franchione is 0-5 all-time against Stoops-coached teams (four of which have been while at A&M), including the worst lost in A&M history, a 77-0 debacle in 2003.
Things could get very ugly on Saturday night in Norman.
Perhaps the most telling comment Stoops had was last August when first told about what Fran had said, Bob retorted, “Well, some coaches talk a lot about a lot of things when they don’t have a Big 12 Championship to talk about…..”
The general consensus up in Norman is that if the game gets out of hand again this year, Stoops will not be telling his offense to “just fall down” like he did during the 4th quarter of the 2003 game. And that idiot, Mike Lupica, STILL took Stoops to task on ESPN for running the score up on the Ags (later admitting that he had not actually watched any of the game – he only saw the final score). Heh.
jrb