Franklin To Vandie When PSU Fires Him?

[jsc1973]

Are you serious? You're living in Nashville, you convinced the admin to give you $40M for upgrades,
you figured out how to sell Vandy to recruits, and all you have to do is win 7-8 or 6 games occasionally
to keep your job, I mean seriously are you people nuts?

He was making $4M at Vandy! At frigging Vandy!!! The guy had it made, he's a fool for leaving. And
you people are nuts for saying he made a good decision. Sheez!

It wasn't going to be that simple for much longer. At the time, there was no SEC East opponent who had to be regarded as an automatic loss. Vandy could schedule itself four easy OOC wins and because of the weakness of the SEC East, realistically split its four conference games and finish 8-4.

We're now returning to reality. Vandy might have a chance against Mizzou for another year or two while they rebuild, but other than that, the only realistic shot at an SEC win is Kentucky. They have to win all their OOC games, beat UK, and beat someone else in conference play just to get bowl-eligible (unless we have another joke like this year and 5-7 teams get bids).

Vandy isn't Stanford. They're not even Northwestern. They can, if they have the right coach and everything falls into place, sneak in a decent year every so often with a senior-laden team, like Bobby Johnson did. But the perfect storm that Franklin stepped into is gone.

Franklin knew that, and that's why he went to Penn State.

 

[jjay2518]

It's pretty simple. Franklin had a choice: stay at Vandy where he had several years of job security built up but also was seeing his window of success rapidly closing. With UT on the rise, UF coming back, and Georgia probably not staying down that long, soon he would be playing all 3 at full strength and that would mean 6-6 would soon be as good at it gets.

Or cash in while his name is hot and get a premium job. Sure it's a gamble going to a place like PSU, where constant 6-6 seasons will get you a pink slip in 3 years, but if actually had aspirations to be a big time college coach, he had to take the gamble.

It's easy to see Franklin isn't a Bobby Johnson type that's fine with staying at Vandy for a long time and be fine with occasional bowl games. I don't blame him at all for cashing in, but it's no surprise he's likely going to end up a bust. He'll get another head coaching job at a lower P5 or mid major school, but IMHO his likely short tenure at PSU will be as high as he gets.

I also think he wanted to go to a school that actually had a fanbase who cares. After multiple years of Vandy's best success in decades, he couldn't get close to a sellout in that pathetic little stadium. It had to be frustrating.

 

[VolsSportsFan]

I also think he wanted to go to a school that actually had a fanbase who cares. After multiple years of Vandy's best success in decades, he couldn't get close to a sellout in that pathetic little stadium. It had to be frustrating.

A lot of the talk on local sports radio was behind the scenes how frustrated Franklin was with the lack of fan support he was getting for home games. I think specifically on Senior Days the stadium being mostly empty when the seniors were introduced.

 

[wheaton]

Here's how this is gonna go down:

PSU has a poor early season, rumors fly about Franklin getting canned. Vandy has a poor early season as well. Suddenly a petition arises out of Nashville, #BBF.

 

[BenGrimm]

Are you serious? You're living in Nashville, you convinced the admin to give you $40M for upgrades,
you figured out how to sell Vandy to recruits, and all you have to do is win 7-8 or 6 games occasionally
to keep your job, I mean seriously are you people nuts?

He was making $4M at Vandy! At frigging Vandy!!! The guy had it made, he's a fool for leaving. And
you people are nuts for saying he made a good decision. Sheez!

Maybe he wanted to play for a championship? That was never going to happen at Vandy.