Many passionate aggie fans are frustrated this week. I have already heard commentary ranging from "What went wrong?" to "We stink" and "Fire Fran". I share that frustration, and understand how those fans are feeling, but I want to offer some "Positivity" as well.
First of all, losing to Tech in our own place is horrible. But before we hang coach Fran, can we at least consider what we would have said had Harrell not hit that deep ball. We would be applauding Fran's methodical ball control offense, and how they kept the ball out of tech's hands for most of the second half and shut them out.
Sure, we can second guess all day long, but Fran should not be judged solely on the outcome of that game. The real coaching test will be how the team responds in the October and November. It starts this week with going to Kansas and winning, and then following up with a with over Mizzou. If we do that, we're back on track. There is nothing wrong with 6-1.
Fran has been here over 3 years, and the results have been sub-optimal, but let's be honest. We have not had a lot of talent on this team...only 4 players that have played for Fran at A&M are now in the NFL.
Why was the talent at A&M so weak you ask? Well, I attribute that to 3 things (and it started way back in the late 90s).
1) Mack's Brown is a great recruiter and he completely dominated Slocum for over 4 years.
2) Bob Davie left A&M in 1997 for Notre Dame, and he was a great defensive recruiter. Again, this weakened our ability to monopolize the great defensive talent.
3) In the early 2000s, Bob Stoops got into the act and further stepped up the competition as well.
The result, we just haven't had the talent we used to. I would hope that Coach Fran is in the process of turning that around...at least on the recruiting front. Let's see how this year progresses and make a
call now that he has his guys in place.
I am not issuing him a hall pass, but I do not think the guy is a bad coach.
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5 comments:
great analysis Brad. A Tech fan will now try to tell you that Tech never gets the top players, and always gets the short stick in recruiting, funding, etc. But, that's not really the case anymore. Leach did a lot early with less talent (still went 7-5 every year), but of recent, he has attracted some great recruits with his success, that have elevated them as a team (unless last year at 9-3 was an anomoly).
I don't know why anyone is trying to hang Fran at mid-season, just for losing to Tech on a hail mary. His game plan was strong, and was 26 seconds from working. In fact, if we hadn't idiotically switched to man defense in the second quarter, that last TD may have been irrelevant.
Oh well, I could "if" this thing to death, as you can do with any game that goes to the wire. The fact is that we lost, and we need to just go play the rest of our games.
Gulp, gulp, gulp - I love the sound of Aggies drinking up the Kool Aid...
Never thought I'd see the day where the Ags would stoop to blaming Stoops, Davie, Butterteeth, and lowly Run n' Shoot Leach for their horrible misfortunes. (blaming Scrotum though has always been there, because, after all, he left the cubbard bare....)
As someone looking in, my recommendation is to start at the top: Coach Fraud. He has the absolute worst record of any Aggy coach in recent memory. How is that Scrotum's fault at this point?
I would've never blamed Leach's loss to the Ags 2 years ago on Spike, or even Rex Dockery for that matter.
Then again, Aggy is as Aggy does.
yeah Blake, but you were also way too quick to throw Leach under the bus a few years ago, when he was continuing Spike's tradition of mediocrity. I talked you off the ledge many a time.
Aggy lost on Sattidy becuz of Kermit Davis' recruiting violations.
Signed,
Aggy
when I run out of effective comebacks, I roll out a Kermit Davis or Andy Slocum joke.
Signed,
Bake
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