January 19, 2012 · 12:43 PM

May we have your attention, please?

Despite a vastly improved season on the field, Vanderbilt’s 2011 attendance declined from the previous season.

Maybe it’s gonna take Franklin actually clocking somebody after a game to bring the fans back.

19 Comments

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19 responses to “May we have your attention, please?”

  1. paul
    January 19, 2012 at 1:44 PM

    At a wedding I recently attended I found myself sitting next to a couple of Vanderbilt faculty. I asked about Franklin. They said it is un-freaking believable how popular the guy is on campus. Even faculty who have been openly hostile to athletics in the past seem to like him. Apparently he shows up at every single school related event as well. He’s working it.

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  2. Biggus Rickus
    January 19, 2012 at 1:48 PM

    “…bring the fans back.”

    This implies they were ever there to begin with.

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  3. 81Dog
    January 19, 2012 at 2:16 PM

    maybe he means “go someplace where fans actually go and bring them back to where the game is.” Because nobody’s going to Vandy games voluntarily, unless it’s fans of the visiting team du jour.

    Steven Garcia will be sporting a Super Bowl ring and MVP trophy before Franklin or anyone else makes Vanderbilt a relevant football power in the SEC.

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  4. D.N. Nation
    January 19, 2012 at 3:47 PM

    For the extra 590 people, on average, who attended Ole Miss home games this year:

    Why would you do that?

    (I’m guessing having home dates against Bama and LSU is the cause.)

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  5. Scott
    January 19, 2012 at 4:57 PM

    Franklin scares me as a UGA fan. Although Vandy occasionally gives us a scare, I always count it as a sure thing. Now we have to worry about them beating us up before Tenn and SC. I hope some team lures him away soon.

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    • Macallanlover
      January 19, 2012 at 11:58 PM

      He has a better chance of ending up in prison than he does being a serious contender in the SEC. Can they pull an upset or two of the top SEC schools? Sure, but Vandy isn’t going to be successful in the SEC in this point in history. Going 4-4 is possible, maybe even 5-3 on weak schedule years, but they aren’t winning any SEC titles. This isn’t the Big10/11/12 where you have 2-3 decent teams to make it past like Northwestern did. Franklin lacks character and is a punk.

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      • Scott
        January 20, 2012 at 12:59 PM

        I agree he lacks character and is a punk -that is exactly what scares me about him. Vandy has tried everything the past couple of decades to no avail. A shady coach with a swagger might be what they need to take them up a level- much like another shady coach who succeeded at Kentucky- Hal Mumme.

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  6. Mayor of Dawgtown
    January 19, 2012 at 5:14 PM

    Is there anyone out there old enough to remember Steve Sloan, Vandy coach in the mid-70s? He had them turned around and left. If he never left, I am convinced that Vandy would have become a winning program. If you look it up Vandy was a dominant program in the early 1900s to the1930s when they lost their savior whose name escapes me. Subsequent coaches never lived up to what the “Dores had been in the past, except Sloan, and he left. This is all about the coaches. If UGA had never had the coaches it did in the early years which begat Butts, then Dooley, then Richt, UGA would not be where UGA is. If Nothwestern can win the Big 10 and become a consistent contender in that conference, then Vandy can do the same in the SEC.

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    • Mayor of Dawgtown
      January 19, 2012 at 5:17 PM

      Dan McGugin was the Vandy coach’s name. Won 197 games.

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      • Mayor of Dawgtown
        January 19, 2012 at 5:21 PM

        His record was 197-55-19 and Vandy won 13 conference championships in the predecessor to the SEC against basically the same teams that now make up the SEC less Tulane, GA Tech and some others.

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    • The Lone Stranger
      January 19, 2012 at 10:37 PM

      Wouldn’t this (VU=NU) imply that the B1G competition is comparable to that of the SEC? I don’t think that has ever been the case, even when the over-the-air networks pumped up the midwestern hype (60s/70s). Northwestern is in a vastly larger city than Vandy as well, not to mention that alot of those football goons that go there get sold on the “get into the sports broadcasting biz after your playing career” which I believe helps in luring recruits who might otherwise wash into Wisconsin or Iowa or Minnesota-type places. You know, they can get on board and be “sports journalists” like all the people at SI.

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    • Biggus Rickus
      January 20, 2012 at 6:16 AM

      Yale was good once too. The game has changed so much since Vandy was a power that it is hardly recognizable as the same sport. As for Sloan, he compiled a 12-9-2 record in two seasons including a 4-7-1 record in the SEC. If he’d stayed, maybe Vandy would have been to a few more bowl games in the last forty years, but they weren’t going to win anything substantial. However, this is Vandy’s problem. Should they ever get a coach good enough to legitimately turn them around he will be hired away by someone else before he can get that job done. Bobby Johnson is the best coach they’ve had in my lifetime, and he had exactly won winning season, and that barely.

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  7. Norcalvol
    January 20, 2012 at 1:21 AM

    Robert Neyland was hired in the 1920s and given a single goal: Beat Vanderbilt. Imagine that.

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  8. jdjrip
    January 20, 2012 at 10:09 PM

    I for one do actually expect that short fused son of a bitch to hit someone and i hope it is in Athens so he’ll be prosecuted.

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