assistantsports@dailylobo.com
Alumni won’t be the only folks returning to UNM for homecoming this weekend. Former Lobo head football coach Dennis Franchione will be back at University Stadium on Saturday.
But he won’t be wearing cherry and silver — he’ll be on the visiting team’s sideline clad in maroon and gold.
Franchione, who led UNM in 1992-97, brings his Texas State Bobcats to Albuquerque for a nonconference bout with the Lobos. It will be his first game against UNM since his departure 15 years ago.
“I’ve always had great feelings about my time at New Mexico and Albuquerque,” Franchione said during his weekly WAC teleconference call Monday. “It was a great experience for me.”
Franchione, 61, has been a football coach for 28 years. He has a cumulative record of 195-110-2. UNM was his first head coaching job in NCAA Division I-A, now called the Football Bowl Subdivision.
Like current Lobo head coach Bob Davie, Franchione took over a struggling UNM program with the goal of turning things around. Before Franchione became the UNM head man, the Lobos won only nine of their 59 games from 1987-91.
Franchione compiled a 33-36 record at UNM, including a 9-4 mark in 1997. That year, the Lobos won the WAC Mountain Division championship and received a berth in the Insight.com Bowl, the school’s first bowl appearance since 1961.
“Six years of my coaching career were right there; they were six gratifying and special years,” Franchione said. “They were hard years sometimes, because we had a big turnaround to do there. I can relate to what coach Davie is working through.”
Davie said on Tuesday that in a Franchione offense, there is a “lot of scheme” with a run-first mentality.
“That’s Dennis,” Davie said. “They’re going to be well-coached.
They’re going to be an execution team. They’re always going to have option football in there. I think he’s the same as I am, that he knows that is the great equalizer and everything starts with that.”
Get content from The Daily Lobo delivered to your inbox
Franchione is in his second stint as head coach at Texas State, leading the team in its first season in the Football Bowl Subdivision. He coached there from 1990-91 when it was called Southwest Texas State and rejoined the Bobcats last year. He has a 21-17 record at the school.
Franchione won’t be the only coach in Saturday’s duel connected to both programs.
Current Texas State co-offensive coordinator Mike Schultz and offensive line coach Dennis Darnell coached with Franchione during his six years at UNM, along with defensive line coach Mike Hudson in 1994. The Bobcats’ other co-offensive coordinator, Jeff Conway, coached at UNM from 1998-2003.
UNM’s offensive coordinator Bob DeBesse served as Southwest Texas State’s head man from 1997-2002. DeBesse worked with Franchione as the wide receivers coach at Texas A&M from 2006-07.
“It’s my alma mater first and foremost, so it’s a special place,” DeBesse said. “It was always my dream to go back there and be head coach, and I got the chance to do that.”
