Dennis Franchione, the longtime college football coach who climbed from NAIA Southwestern all the way to Alabama over a 30-year run as a head coach, died Tuesday, TCU confirmed on social media. He was 75.
Franchione built a career that stretched across multiple stops and plenty of winning. He finished with more than 200 victories and eight conference championships, along with eight bowl appearances at the FBS level. His résumé included jobs at New Mexico, TCU, Alabama, Texas A&M and two separate stints at Texas State.
The Kansas native made his early name at the lower levels, where he won five straight conference titles at Pittsburg State before arriving at TCU in 1998. With LaDainian Tomlinson carrying the ball and Gary Patterson running the defense, he quickly flipped the Horned Frogs from 1-11 to three consecutive winning seasons.
That success pushed him to Alabama, a program in a rough stretch when he arrived. He got the Crimson Tide to 10 wins and an Independence Bowl victory in short order. Alabama reportedly offered him a 10-year contract to remain, but Franchione made one of the sport’s more surprising moves when he left for Texas A&M with NCAA sanctions looming for violations under former coach Mike DuBose.
Things never really settled in College Station. His time with the Aggies was derailed early, and it reached a low point in a 77-0 loss to Oklahoma in 2003.
While Texas kept climbing into the national title picture, Franchione struggled to get traction at A&M. The pressure intensified after it became public that he was privately selling a newsletter to top donors that included inside information about the team, and he was fired after the 2007 season.
Franchione returned to Texas State in 2011 to help guide the program through its move to the FBS level. In 2014, he went 7-5, though the team was not chosen for a bowl game.
According to the Star-Telegram, Franchione was diagnosed with cancer a decade ago. The cancer returned this year, and he was moved to hospice care in Austin.
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Through the first five weeks, Clemson has settled into an uneven but still workable place at 3-2 overall and 2-1 in ACC play, with wins over Georgia Southern, North Carolina and Cal and losses to LSU and Miami. The bye week gave the staff a chance to step back and sort through the first half of the season position by position, from quarterbacks and receivers to the defensive front, but the review did not take long to find the area creating the most concern.
The offensive line has emerged as the clearest weakness, and it is the one unit that could shape how the rest of the season unfolds. Coach Matt Luke has already acknowledged the staff tried to bring in transfer offensive linemen, only for those efforts to fall short, leaving Clemson to navigate the stretch run with the group it has and a problem it still has to solve. [Read more 🡒]
Clemson's Offensive Line Issues Are Fueling A Bigger Roster Debate
Clemsons offensive line problems have become one of the defining issues of the season, and the numbers explain why. The Tigers have been far too inconsistent up front, giving up too many sacks and landing near the bottom nationally in sacks and tackles for loss allowed. Dabo Swinney and line coach Matt Luke have both pointed to inexperience as a major factor, and the staff has spent plenty of time trying to sort through a group that has not yet found much rhythm.
The bigger wrinkle is what those struggles say about the rest of the roster and how quickly Clemson can patch things together. The staff did explore the transfer market for help up front, but the answer there was no, leaving the Tigers to keep building with the young players already in the program. For now, the confidence remains that development will come with time, even if the current version of the line still has to prove it can hold up week after week. [Read more 🡒]
Miami Now Has A New O-Line Concern Clemson Fans Will Notice
Miami left its matchup with Clemson with one more thing to monitor up front, as starting right guard Max Buchanan exited with a leg injury before eventually returning to the game. For a Hurricanes offensive line that has already had to manage its share of moving parts, any question at guard matters, especially with Clemsons front having a way of exposing shaky protection and forcing opponents to make quick adjustments on the fly.
The concern only grew after Buchanan posted a photo from a hospital bed, a sign that pointed to a potentially longer recovery even though Miami has not said anything officially about his status. If he is unavailable going forward, the Hurricanes will have to sort through their current options and decide how to reshuffle the interior line, which is exactly the kind of development Clemson fans will notice the next time these teams are in the same conversation. [Read more 🡒]