PB in the HOT SEAT --- ESPN

[mrydel]

WHAT? Where are your priorities?

You must be at Ford Stadium tomorrow afternoon. Then, and ONLY THEN, you may slither down to that other little town for a night of revelry in many watering holes.

My priorities are out of whack, yes. There is no place I would rather be than at Ford Stadium tomorrow. But, sadly it's looking like an 80% chance of being in Austin tomorrow. Sadly.

Wish I had a way to get you Thad. I am coming from the opposite direction.

[carolina stang]

Before we give sainthood to Franchione for his 5 and 1 record and just being a hail mary from being undefeated, let's offer some perspective. The Aggies first road game was last weekend! 5 straight home games to start the season: Thus far:

Date Opponent Result
September 2 Citadel W 35-3 1-0 (0-0)
September 9 Louisiana-Lafayette W 51-7 2-0 (0-0)
September 16 Army W 28-24 3-0 (0-0)
September 23 Louisiana Tech W 45-14 4-0 (0-0)
September 30 Texas Tech L 31-27 4-1 (0-1)
October 7 at Kansas W 21-18 5-1 (1-1)

4 non bcs schools to start the season at home. Old cliche, but they have a pastry chef not a schedule maker.

If you're hired at a "big football program for big bucks", you're expected to have big seasons. Fran has proven nothing this year so far. You would expect with this schedule for them to be no worse than 5-1 and hopefully for their sake 6-0.

The remaining schedule: (Hardly a murderer's row this year)

October 14 No. 19 Missouri
October 21 at Oklahoma State
October 28 at Baylor
November 4 No. 23 Oklahoma
November 11 No. 21 Nebraska
November 24 at No. 6 Texas


Based on this schedule which only gets really tough with the final three games, a "Big Time Brilliant Coach" like Fran should be no worse than 9-3. And they didn't hire him to have records like that.

Only 4 road games out of 12 all year!!
No wonder expectations are high.

When Franchione fled 'Bama, he reserved a spot on the "soon to be hit by the karma bus"

[OC Mustang]

Stallion,

I concede you form some good points. However, I personally do not care whether the CUSA is weak, strong, or in-between. It doesn't matter to me when the team has only broken .500 once and come close only twice in 17 years through THREE conferences. It hasn't mattered which conference they have been in.

Bennett certainly can't camp out on his record. And normalizing one's point of view by conference, etc., and what you still have is Franchione having a much more successful run as a head coach.

But A&M pays the guy what? Triple what Bennett makes? I do factor that into my calculus...a whole lot more than I do what conference we are in. And the chief reason I think that way is that we have for the foreseeable future a snow's chance in hell at staking out a significantly better conference or even a better spot within CUSA.
Bottom line: A&M pays the guy a helluva lot more than SMU pays Bennett, and no normalizing it changes that fact. Therefore, if the A&M apparatus feels somehow they are being slighted, then I guess Franchione runs the risk of taking it on the chin.

You play with the bull, in this case UT, you get the horns. Not much has changed with Deloss Dodds in 25+ years.

Now, if you want to make the case that A&M needs to be thankful and keep their collective wits about them before shooting Fran in the foot, knock yourself out.

But to me, very much like bemoaning our conference, it is a waste of time.

Hey, but that's just me.

[MustangLaxer]

If A&M had canned Jackie Sherrill after mediocre 3rd and 4th years we never would have had to put up with that pompous [deleted]. You simply have to give a coach 4-5 years. You build a program with recruiting not with little pixie dust sprinkled on average talent. I thought A&M was perhaps holding its own lately in recruiting until UT's National Championship which allowed them to pick and choose just about everyone that wanted. I guess the Aggies got one kid UT wanted but that's to be expected.

You forget that aTm has shown no signs of getting better under Franchione. Sorry, it's just not there. Alabama was a failure. aTm is going to be a failure. He needs to move back to smaller programs where he can thrive. He's not cut out for big programs.

aTm is a small program...as jim rome has said, obnoxious fans and a large number of 'male cheerleaders' does not make a big program.

[couch 'em]

If A&M had canned Jackie Sherrill after mediocre 3rd and 4th years we never would have had to put up with that pompous [deleted]. You simply have to give a coach 4-5 years. You build a program with recruiting not with little pixie dust sprinkled on average talent. I thought A&M was perhaps holding its own lately in recruiting until UT's National Championship which allowed them to pick and choose just about everyone that wanted. I guess the Aggies got one kid UT wanted but that's to be expected.

You forget that aTm has shown no signs of getting better under Franchione. Sorry, it's just not there. Alabama was a failure. aTm is going to be a failure. He needs to move back to smaller programs where he can thrive. He's not cut out for big programs.

aTm is a small program...as jim rome has said, obnoxious fans and a large number of 'male cheerleaders' does not make a big program.

Maybe one day we can have a program as small as the aggies.