Dennis Franchione’s name still sits in a few very different corners of college football history, but his deepest imprint was made at TCU.
Franchione, who coached from 1985 to 2015 and later worked at Texas State, died Tuesday in Austin at 75 after a decade with cancer, family members confirmed Wednesday morning. He had been diagnosed with a cancerous tumor in his kidney in 2016 and cleared that, then received a more serious diagnosis in 2021 before going into full remission after treatment. According to family friends, the cancer returned earlier this year, and he was moved to hospice care in October.
For TCU, though, Franchione was more than a former coach. His three seasons in Fort Worth helped change the direction of the program and, in the source article’s telling, the city around it.
He arrived after the 1997 season to replace Pat Sullivan, whose final team went 1-10. The program was in rough shape, the athletic department’s mood was low, and the school was trying to close the gap with the rest of college athletics. Franchione opened the doors wide once he got there, welcoming boosters and others around the program, including Dick Lowe, whose support helped make a range of possibilities real for the school.
The turnaround came fast. TCU went 7-5 in Franchione’s first season and earned a surprise Sun Bowl trip, then stunned USC in that game.
“I can pick three or four games, but that was maybe the biggest win of my career,” Fran told the Star-Telegram in an interview in 2018.
The next year brought an 8-4 finish and an Alabama Bowl win, along with the full emergence of LaDainian Tomlinson. Against UTEP that season, Tomlinson ran for 406 yards and six touchdowns, then an FBS record.
By 2000, TCU had climbed into the national conversation. Franchione was drawing interest from bigger jobs, Tomlinson was a Heisman candidate, and the Horned Frogs were being discussed as a “BCS Buster.”
Franchione wanted a shot at a national title, so when Alabama called, he left. TCU finished 10-2 that season and ranked 21st in the final AP poll, its first final ranking since 1959.
TCU promoted defensive coordinator Gary Patterson, whose long run gets most of the credit for what the program became. Still, as the source article notes, the foundation started with Franchione.
His next stops brought mixed results and plenty of scrutiny. At Alabama, he inherited a program under NCAA investigation and dealt with the pressure that came with the job.
He went 10-3 in 2002, but after NCAA penalties hit that year, Franchione and Alabama clashed over his contract. He stayed only two seasons before taking the Texas A&M job.
That move did not deliver the breakthrough Aggies wanted. His first team was beaten 77-0 at No.
1 Oklahoma, and the season never recovered. Texas was rolling under Mack Brown, and A&M never caught up.
Five years later, Franchione was pushed out after the “Insider Newsletter” became public and was used as a basis to fire him. His final regular-season game at Kyle Field was a 38-30 upset of No.
13 Texas in November 2007, after he had already accepted a buyout.
Franchione returned to coaching in 2012 at Texas State, where the Bobcats were moving up in NCAA classifications. He finished with one winning season in four years there and retired quietly after the 2015 season.
By the time he spoke with the Star-Telegram in 2018, he had already been through one cancer battle. At his home in Horseshoe Bay, his office held reminders of a long coaching life: a photo with the ESPN “College GameDay” crew from his Alabama days, pictures from TCU’s Sun Bowl win, family snapshots, grandchildren, and the pieces of a life beyond football.
He watched a lot of college football, played a lot of golf and spent a lot of time with his family.
His perspective, then, was already settled. He had left Alabama chasing a national title and never quite got there. Only later did he fully appreciate what he had at TCU, the place that, in the article’s words, continues to benefit from his presence to this day.
Franchione was most recently back at TCU as Sonny Dykes’s guest for a spring football game in 2022, a visit that unofficially closed the book on lingering resentment from some fans over how he handled his exit after the 2000 regular season. He later said his best coaching years were at TCU.
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