Coach Fran Must Go!

Its mere minutes after the Aggies 28-27 loss to Nebraska, so my emotions are still very raw.  But I think I will read what I am about to write tomorrow or the next day and feel the same way.

Coach Fran must go at the end of this season.  I’ve seen enough.  Sure, he’s resurrected the team from last year’s 5-6 record and he’s made the team more competitive, but he can’t win the big game.  I’m convinced that even if he has the athletes that he is still apt to continue to lose.

Today, A&M rallied to take the lead 27-21 late in the fourth quarter, then intercepted the ball in Nebraska territory with around 3 minutes to play.   A small ball-control drive and a field goal at the least would have iced the game.  However, Fran went conservative.  He ran the ball outside and our running back wasn’t smart enough to stay in bounds.  That saved Nebraska at least 20 seconds.  Seeing his mistake, he runs the ball straight up the middle for no gain.  Now its third and long and he needs to at least get within range for a field goal.  A QB scramble then sets up what would be the longest FG this year.  But alas it was blocked.  Nebraska’s ball with a little over two minutes left.  They drive 71 yards with no timeouts, score the TD, and kick the extra point to win by one.

Like last week, the Aggies faces a 3rd and 2 in the late third quarter.  Instead of running Javorskie Lane, he calls a passing play just like last week.  To be fair, the pass should have been caught, but it wasn’t and that set up fourth down.  What does he do?  Field goal.  At that point in the game, still down by  8.  As poorly as they had played up to that point, a TD is what they needed.

The FG scenario today reminded me of the game last week against Oklahoma where he had 3rd and goal at the 2 and then threw an incomplete pass.  He then kicks the FG to trail by a point with three minutes remaining.  A&M never got the ball back.

The point I’m trying to make is that Coach Fran plays too conservatively.  Unlike Coach Stoopes at Oklahoma, Coach Fran has no guts whatsoever.  His conservative calls today cost the team another win.  It should be noted that some of the players play stupidly too.  Running out of bounds when you need to run the clock.  Taking a roughing-the-passer penalty when it was going to be 4th down.  That’s poor coaching.

You could look at the 8-3 record and wonder why I am complaining.  But realize, we almost lost to Army — had to get a late goal line stand to preserve the victory there.  Against Kansas, a basketball powerhouse, but not a football juggernaut, we trailed the whole game until a TD in the last 30 seconds of the game won it.  Missouri could have beaten us if their opening TD drive had not been scuttled by a flukey goal line fumble turned touchback.  We needed a one-handed grab on 4th down to prolong a game-tying TD drive against Oklahoma State.  That game ended miraculously with a blocked extra point in OT for a 1 point win.  The most solid Big XII win would seem to have been the Baylor game, but even that game wasn’t settled until 6:34 left in the fourth quarter.  So the bottom line is that the record stands at 8-3, but could easily be as bad as 3-8!

This week I heard a rumor on the radio that Coach Fran needed to win out against Nebraska and Texas to keep his job.  At first, I thought this was absurd.  After all, we were sitting with an 8-2 record with a narrow 1 point loss to Oklahoma.  But as I analyze the record, its really pretty flimsy.  Take away a few plays and calls and we could very well be looking at something similar to last year’s 5-6.  And that’s not good enough for a coach in his fourth year.

So my opinion: Coach Fran must go!