I haven't seen ya'll around here much since the bama bowl game. I would be interested in hearing what the two of you had to say about Fran. I know the two of you were defending him until the end. What do ya'll think now.
Tigerfan, honestly I feel that he if doesn't want to be at Bama then don't let the door hit him in the arse! I do however feel really bad for the young boys that trusted him and gave him their all in spite of everything they had to deal with. I did defend him because I believed him! We wanted to believe. I mean doesn't everybody try to give their head coach the benefit of a doubt. All we fans had to go on was what he was telling us. I personally think he used us to build a name for himself. Nobody knew who the heck Franchione was two years ago....he was not a household name. After his two years at Bama everyone knew him. I think it was calculated now. Then I just trusted him. I am a very trusting person. I take people at their word because thats the way I feel it should be. I am now doubting my judgement of character. I read something that really disturbed me in the Mobile Press soundoff today. An Auburn fan wrote in and said that now that Bama had lost their coach he could have a joyous christmas. That disturbs me because I can't see find satisfaction and joy in someone else's misfortune. People forget that the ones this hurts are young men. 18, 19 and 20 years boys (to me they are boys) just had everything they trusted and believed in pulled out from under them. He convinced them to stay and tough out the NCAA probabtion. THEY DID! HE DID NOT! I think hes a jerk for turning his back. He new the heat was in the kitchen before he ever came through the door. Okay, I guess your sorry you ask now tigerfan! For the young men's sake I hope we get someone even better! And play Texas A and M and beat their socks off!
.... He really handled this situation wrong. The football world knows this. Chances are he will win at atm. You and I both know bama will get over the fact he left. All divorces are ruff. I do believe that there is some ego envolved in the way the alabama fans are taking this. Everyone could see it coming but the bama fans. Your team will not be hurt by his departure. Hell you folks have fired coaches with 10-3 records. Bama is not my favorite team but they will recover from Francis.
PS.. I cann't believe you could be upset by an auburn fan. Consider the source and move on. I know this is not the time to bring this up but I believe all this fran. stuff is distracting from the real problem, the NCAA. I really blieve they are coming back to revisit bama. It could be a long off season. Good Luck with the new coach.
Dixie Darlin: Yeah, you right, girl! DD, you are just about always right. Your comments are exactly correct and completely reasonable. No serious person could ever say that Fran handled this matter correctly. It is possible, however, that this is the only way that he could have handled it, assuming that his family really wanted to move back to Texas. I would pick living in Alabama over living in Texas any day.
I would think that Bama fans would be happy that Fran got those players to stay throught the probation. Imagine how much worse it would be next year if all the guys that wanted to leave actually left. It is shady on his part that he lied to the guys but I doubt that he knew it was a lie when he was telling them. He couldn't have known that aTm would go 6-6 this year and fire RC. Coahing now is all a business. And can you really blame the coaches. If he stayed and Bama went 1-10 next year I would bet you Bama fans wouldn't care about 'loyalty' or whatever and would want him fired. It's like free agency. When you get the chance to cash in, you go for it.
I don't fault him for leaving if he felt it would benefit his family. A man's family should always come first. I just think this whole business of a coach being able to break a contract so easily is bull. I had to sign a contract with my board of education to teach in their system. I cannot break that contract without some sort of penalty. I'm sure everybody that has to sign contracts on their jobs has the same stipulation. I mean in my world a contract is a contract! It's legal and binding. If a player breaks his contract, so to speak, with a university he has to sit out a year. I think this whole coaching thing needs to be revised. Maybe us Bama fans really looked stupid to the rest of the world for not seeing the writing on the wall, but you can't blame us for wanting to believe that he would stay. I just don't think he handled the right way. As far as the NCAA stuff, yeah, they very well may reopen the case so they can go after the two coaches they assume were involved. The reason I don't worry about that is because there is absolutely not one thing I can do about it.
...... Dixie, the schools put buy out clauses in the contracts. It just about has to be that way. Schools pay when they fire a coach & coaches pay when they leave for another school. No one should be happy about the pain fans like you are going thru. Dixie coaching is the most unsecure job in the world. Some coaches are able to make a move and do it with some class. Others, like Francis is just not capable of leaving without making a lot of people upset. There is one thing for sure Dixe, you have voiced your displeasure with the man with class. Dixie, you are truly a great Bama fan. But I still want The Tigers to kick Bama butt every year.
Good post Tigerfan, and I wouldn't expect you want anything other than for LSU to kick Bama's Butt. Thats just being a true fan. I do hope for the vice versa version though!
