Dennis Franchione: The Man Who Taught TCU "Tough Times Never Last"

Coach Fran saw instant success, and is the main reason that TCU football is a household name,

Sep 20, 2014; Champaign, IL, USA; Texas State Bobcats head coach Dennis Franchione during the game between the Illinois Fighting Illini and the Texas State Bobcats at Memorial Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Mike Granse-Imagn Images / Mike Granse-Imagn Images

Editor's Note: On Saturday, the 1998 Sun Bowl team will be honored during the TCU/UCF game. In advance of that recognition, we sat down with Dennis Franchione, the coach of that team.

Ask a TCU fan their opinion of Coach Fran, and you will be met with varying answers. If they graduated before 2002, they might have a sour taste in their mouth. Post 2010 graduate? They might not even know that Coach Dennis Franchione is the reason TCU Football is where it is today.

Coach Fran was in his fifth year at New Mexico and was in a comfortable position, but if you know Fran, you know that isn't who he is. To the shock of many, he departed the UNM program for a lowly school in Fort Worth that just finished the 1997 season with a record of 1-10.

So why Fort Worth? Why would he leave a program he has built up for a school that has never seen success on the field and had been left out of the Big 12? The answer was simple. He loved Fort Worth and had since the first time he visited and watched a spring practice as a WR coach at Kansas State.

Francione came to town with a vision, one that he worked hand in hand with the newly hired athletic director, Eric Hymen. He saw that they were spending money as if they were in the Southwestern Conference yet not even seeing success in the WAC, and he would change that.

It wasn't easy. Coach Fran even said, "I went out one day and saw some of the team laying on the practice field as if they were sunbathing and knew at that point how much of a challenge it would be to turn the program and culture around.".

"I put those guys through Hell going into the 1998 season, and there were times that they didn't understand my reasoning for wanting to do things, but we had built up enough trust in the 1997 season that they did it anyways, no matter how hot it was." Fran knew he had a talented roster and acquired it after realizing that if he drew a 100-mile radius around Fort Worth, there were 118 Division One scholarship players, and none of them were staying home to play for TCU.

Fran built his teams on discipline and teamwork, and that's reflected in how his ex-players responded to the news of being diagnosed with cancer, saying, "I must have had over 100 players from my time at TCU reach out to me or even come see me personally". That was Coach Fran; that was who he was. He was going to make his players work, and he was going to get the most out of them, but they fully trusted him and did the best thing a coach can ask for, so they bought in.

That's what led to the season that changed the Frogs' trajectory. They went 6-5 on the year and weren't done yet. The team would play in the 1998 Sun Bowl in El Paso, but not without some sway from Coach Fran. "I drove down and practically begged them to let us in and give us a chance to prove what we could do. Well, they did, and they called and told us we were playing USC, and I was like, you mean the team in California?".

Fran was never one to back down from a challenge, so his new book is aptly titled "Tough Times Never Last" , and they didn't last for TCU. Fran would lead his team to what can be called the biggest win in program history. Ex-TCU Head Coach Gary Patterson said, "... Who knows where TCU would be as a program if they never beat USC?".

After the '98 and '99 seasons, Fran got calls from programs trying to be rebuilt the way he did at UNM and then at TCU. At the end of the 2000 season, he would leave Fort Worth and head to Tuscaloosa to rebuild the Crimson Tide. TCU fans were upset as they lost their coach, who had built them into a respectable program, and the man who had put TCU on the map.

Coach Fran knew the program would be left in good hands; he knew what he had built in Fort Worth and that an assistant coach named Gary Patterson would continue to build on what he had established. When asked if he had any regrets, he responded with, "No... the team trusted Coach P, and it made it easier for me to step away to Alabama".

Dennis Franchione was the cornerstone of TCU football and the program's success. He "wanted to leave the program in a shape to build onto for the rest of the future' after he left, and now, nearly 30 years later, it's safe to say he did.

Coach Dennis Franchione was a man of many things, but none more important to him than being the head coach of the TCU Horned Frogs. His style was simple. You'd be disciplined, play for the person next to you, and buy-in. That's what he got.

Coach Fran will be at the TCU bookstore on Saturday, September 14th, from 1-3 p.m., signing copies of his book before he and the 1998 Sun Bowl team are honored pre-game at the Carter. For more on Coach Fran, pick up a copy of his book "Tough Times Never Last".

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