I'm willing to wager that I have seen as much Vanderbilt and Kentucky football as anybody on the board, and I will go on record saying that last year's Vandy team was the worst SEC football team in the last 20 years.
This is an interesting statement when you consider what happened at Vandy before the season.
Did Bobby Johnson retire because he knew they were going to be so bad? He left at a time that really seemed odd. Or did Caldwell make the team worse than it really was? Who knows. Now it's Franklin's team and he's got a real mess to clean up.
The thing that interests me the most about James Franklin is this: If he is really
that great of a salesman and is able to convince a higher-caliber recruit to come to Vandy, is he a good enough salesman to convince the Vanderbilt administration to place a greater emphasis on the football program? Can he get them to pour more money into the program? If he can, then he might be able to turn things around there. I would venture to guess that Vanderbilt has the donor money to make it happen.
It's a bit presumptuous to believe that he'll turn the program around with one recruiting class (that isn't even signed or complete for 7 more months). However, if he's as good a salesman as he seems to be, he might be able to do the unthinkable. The problem for Vanderbilt is, and always has been the institutional emphasis. That's his biggest obstacle, IMO. He needs to prove that good things will happen to the school if the football team is competitive, much like Stanford.
And just as it has been with Dooley, only time will tell. It appears Franklin is on the right track, though. I wasn't impressed with the hire initially, but he's got the knack on the trail. As is my stance with recruiting, though, the only standings that matter are settled on the field in the Fall.