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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