Dennis Franchione
Now
Career arc
Bowls and playoffs: 3-4
1997Insight.com BowlL 14-20TCU
1998Sun BowlW 28-19
1999Mobile Alabama BowlW 28-14Alabama
2001Independence BowlW 14-13
Texas A&M
2004Cotton BowlL 7-38
2006Holiday BowlL 10-45
2007Alamo BowlL 17-24
Report card
Offense carries it: 61st percentile offense, bottom-quarter defense at 9th.
Texas State, every completed season graded against the whole field, then averaged.
Offense
Defense
Each season is his team’s percentile among every team with that stat (the share it beat), averaged over his completed seasons here; a mid-season takeover year and the season in progress aren’t graded. Letters: A+ 90th percentile and up, A 80, B+ 70, B 60, B− 50, C+ 45, C 40, C− 30, D 15, F below.
Fans
No fan talk about him on our list yet. His record is on Career.
Stats
Big games
Pick a job to see its years on their own.
The big-game ledger
How he does in the games that matter most — rivalry record, performance broken out by real opponent tier, one-score games, and his toughest historical matchup.
5-1 against his rivals at New Mexico. Winless in 3 tries against Tom Rossley.
The big-game ledger
How he does in the games that matter most — rivalry record, performance broken out by real opponent tier, one-score games, and his toughest historical matchup.
1-1 against his rivals at TCU.
The big-game ledger
How he does in the games that matter most — rivalry record, performance broken out by real opponent tier, one-score games, and his toughest historical matchup.
3-3 against his rivals at Alabama.
The big-game ledger
How he does in the games that matter most — rivalry record, performance broken out by real opponent tier, one-score games, and his toughest historical matchup.
2-3 against his rivals at Texas A&M. Just 1-4 against Mike Leach.
Signature games
These losses tie at the model's current max -- an editorial pick among a real tie, not a clean ranking.
Tags describe each game; they aren’t scores. The weighting that picks these games is still being tested.
The big-game ledger
How he does in the games that matter most — rivalry record, performance broken out by real opponent tier, one-score games, and his toughest historical matchup.
0-1 against his rivals at Texas State. Winless in 3 tries against Mark Hudspeth.
Signature games
Tags describe each game; they aren’t scores. The weighting that picks these games is still being tested.
The big-game ledger
How he does in the games that matter most — rivalry record, performance broken out by real opponent tier, one-score games, and his toughest historical matchup.
11-9 against his rivals. Just 1-4 against Mike Leach.
Signature games
These losses tie at the model's current max -- an editorial pick among a real tie, not a clean ranking.
Tags describe each game; they aren’t scores. The weighting that picks these games is still being tested.
ATS is his record against the spread: did his team beat the closing betting line, winning by more than it or losing by less? Lines start in 2013; a dash means fewer than 6 of those games had one. One-score games carry no spread record: a big favorite that wins a close game has almost always failed to cover, so that number would say nothing about the coach.
How he plays
Run/pass mix, by field position
Called about what the situation called for under every play-caller.
2,719 run and pass snaps at Texas State, 2012–2015, his own games, one row per offensive coordinator. Each cell is how much more often he passed than the rest of FBS did in the same situation (field zone, down, distance, score, quarter, same season), in percentage points.
Pass rate, stint by stint
Where each stint’s offense sat between run-first and pass-first, and how far it moved from one season to the next, against the FBS-wide average of 41% pass. The band is that stint’s real season-to-season range, not a fixed-width box.
Season-to-season pass-rate range for all 449 FBS coaching stints with at least three covered seasons, 2004–2025.
Building the roster
Five numbers on how he actually stocks a roster, from signing day to draft day.
Followed him here
New Mexico→
TCU1998TCU→
Alabama2001Alabama→
Texas A&M2003Players who transferred from his old program to his new one through the portal in the same year he made the move. Name-matching across data sources misses some, so every count is a floor, not an exact number.
Roster ownership
Roster ownership
of his 2015 roster arrived on his watch — 123 of 123 players. Nobody is left from before he was hired.
This coach's entire tenure (2012-2015) predates 2021, when transfer-portal tracking begins in this database. Portal usage cannot be measured for this tenure at all -- this is not the same as '0% portal'.
“His own” means the player arrived while he was head coach; “inherited” means a predecessor brought him in.
Size up front
Size up front
Offensive linemen on his Texas State rosters have averaged within a few pounds of the FBS average (2012–2015).
Average listed weight of every offensive lineman on each season’s roster, holdovers included, against every FBS roster that season (2010 on; a program needs 3+ seasons under him to appear). Weights are the ones programs publish, and programs list differently. This describes size only — not scheme, and not quality.
Where he recruits
is his biggest recruiting state: 52 of 80 signees (65%) across his 2012–2015 tenure, drawn from 11 states in all. Next: CA (17).
65% of his signees come from TX and its 4 border states.
Off this map: 6 signees to the east (FL 3, GA, others).
- median hometown distance
- 174 mi
- within 100 mi
- 25%
- within 500 mi
- 79%
- beyond 1,000 mi
- 13%
The map counts signed recruits across his tenure; the distance figures cover his current roster, transfers and walk-ons included. Two different groups, kept separate on purpose.
The NFL pipeline
The NFL pipeline
players drafted into the NFL off his teams here. He brought in 2 of them himself.
| Year | Pick | Player | Pos | NFL team | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | R3.19 | Craig Mager | Cornerback |  San Diego Chargers | |
| 2015 | R5.33 | David Mayo | Inside Linebacker |  Carolina Panthers |
A pick counts toward his tenure when the player’s final college season was one he coached, a checkable rule rather than a claim about who developed the player. A blank note means the player is on a verified roster and arrived on his watch. “Estimated” means no roster record, so the final season is assumed to be the year before the draft.
News
No outlet on our list has written about him by name yet. His record is on Career.
Career
Coaching career
The arc of his career is on Now.
Builder meaningfully raised a program that wasn't one · Inheritor inherited a power and neither built it higher nor let it collapse · Steady no large move in either direction on our stature ladder
2nd-best Texas State tenure of 5 by the numbers.
Succeeded by Everett Withers (2016–2018).
| Season | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Record & result | |||||
| Record | 4-8 | 6-6 | 7-5 | 3-9 | |
| Postseason | — | — | — | — | |
| Coordinators | |||||
| OC | — | — | Mike Schultz / Jeff Conway | Mike Schultz / Jeff Conway | |
| DC | — | — | John Thompson | John Thompson | |
| Outcome — opponent-adjusted efficiency percentile | |||||
| Offense | 50 | 8 | 67 | 23 | |
| Defense | 2 | 45 | 30 | 4 | |
| Tendencies — play-by-play, neutral script | |||||
| 1st-down pass% | 46.4 | 29.6 | 34.0 | 36.4 | |
| Red-zone pass% | 37.0 | 20.9 | 35.5 | 33.0 | |
| 4th-down go%opp. territory | 48.4 | 29.4 | 34.1 | 27.6 | |
Underperforms his recruiting talent, on both sides of the ball.
9th-best Texas A&M tenure of 19 by the numbers.
Followed R.C. Slocum (1989–2002) · succeeded by Mike Sherman (2008–2011).
| Season | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Record & result | ||||||
| Record | 4-8 | 7-5 | 5-6 | 9-4 | 7-6 | |
| Postseason | — | L bowl | — | L bowl | L bowl | |
| Outcome — opponent-adjusted efficiency percentile | ||||||
| Offense | — | 89 | 84 | 82 | 70 | |
| Defense | — | 76 | 10 | 18 | 2 | |
| Tendencies — play-by-play, neutral script | ||||||
| 1st-down pass% | — | 40.1 | 32.9 | 27.5 | 30.0 | |
| Red-zone pass% | — | 24.0 | 29.1 | 28.4 | 23.3 | |
| 4th-down go%opp. territory | — | 50.0 | 25.0 | 20.5 | 32.6 | |
11 NFL Draft picks: Jamaar Taylor (2004), Terrence Murphy (2005), Geoff Hangartner (2005), Mike Montgomery (2005), Johnny Jolly (2006), Reggie McNeal (2006), Martellus Bennett (2008), Cody Wallace (2008) + 3 more
Followed Mike DuBose (1997–2000) · succeeded by Mike Shula (2003–2006).
| Season | 2001 | 2002 | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|
| Record & result | |||
| Record | 7-5 | 10-3 | |
| Postseason | W bowl | — | |
| Outcome — opponent-adjusted efficiency percentile | |||
| Offense | — | — | |
| Defense | — | — | |
| Tendencies — play-by-play, neutral script | |||
| 1st-down pass% | — | — | |
| Red-zone pass% | — | — | |
| 4th-down go%opp. territory | — | — | |
9 NFL Draft picks: Saleem Rasheed (2002), Jason McAddley (2002), Terry Jones (2002), Freddie Milons (2002), Jarret Johnson (2003), Kenny King (2003), Kindal Moorehead (2003), Waine Bacon (2003) + 1 more
7th-best TCU tenure of 13 by the numbers.
Followed Pat Sullivan (1992–1997) · succeeded by Gary Patterson (2000–2021).
| Season | 1998 | 1999 | 2000 | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Record & result | ||||
| Record | 7-5 | 8-4 | 10-1 | |
| Postseason | W bowl | W bowl | — | |
| Outcome — opponent-adjusted efficiency percentile | ||||
| Offense | — | — | — | |
| Defense | — | — | — | |
| Tendencies — play-by-play, neutral script | ||||
| 1st-down pass% | — | — | — | |
| Red-zone pass% | — | — | — | |
| 4th-down go%opp. territory | — | — | — | |
6 NFL Draft picks: LaDainian Tomlinson (2001), Aaron Schobel (2001), George Layne (2001), Curtis Fuller (2001), Shawn Worthen (2001), Cedric James (2001)
10th-best New Mexico tenure of 22 by the numbers.
Followed Mike Sheppard (1987–1991) · succeeded by Rocky Long (1998–2008).
| Season | 1992 | 1993 | 1994 | 1995 | 1996 | 1997 | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Record & result | |||||||
| Record | 3-8 | 6-5 | 5-7 | 4-7 | 6-5 | 9-4 | |
| Postseason | — | — | — | — | — | L bowl | |
| Outcome — opponent-adjusted efficiency percentile | |||||||
| Offense | — | — | — | — | — | — | |
| Defense | — | — | — | — | — | — | |
| Tendencies — play-by-play, neutral script | |||||||
| 1st-down pass% | — | — | — | — | — | — | |
| Red-zone pass% | — | — | — | — | — | — | |
| 4th-down go%opp. territory | — | — | — | — | — | — | |
4 NFL Draft picks: David Sloan (1995), Stoney Case (1995), Ramos McDonald (1998), Scott McGarrahan (1998)
Was he good?
A mixed record — ahead of expectations by some measures here, behind by others. The honest read is that it depends which lens you use.
+14.4 pts at TCU · #127 of 1290 · top quarterModel fit as of 2026-09-04.