Before James Franklin many Vandy fans attended with the hope of winning football games and a realistic expectation that they may not, and when leaving after losing a football game it was actually expected and then we would go to the next game with that same hope - repeating this each season.
What James Franklin did was change the mindset for the fans to expect to win versus having only hope we would win as noted. Thus, we as fans were highly excited to have Mason continue that trend — and the Temple game happened, and then the Ole Miss game happened and so on.... which then made it even harder to go and watch having tasted the better side of college football and seeing VU teams that looked unprepared and poorly IN GAME coached.
With a smaller fan base it was much easier to see the lack of fan support compared to other schools that were over running with fan support and can hide many of those that stop attending. But at Vanderbilt when a small percentage of us stop attending it’s very noticeable w/those larger fan bases overrun our stadium and are happy to rub it in our faces and stings even more.
So, it wasn’t that James Franklin left it is how he was replaced and the results that immediately followed.... but had James Franklin come on board and won 4-6 games per year instead of the nine, which still would offered new job chances, our fan support would still be better than it is today under “trey or quad”.
Sad but true!
What James Franklin did was change the mindset for the fans to expect to win versus having only hope we would win as noted. Thus, we as fans were highly excited to have Mason continue that trend — and the Temple game happened, and then the Ole Miss game happened and so on.... which then made it even harder to go and watch having tasted the better side of college football and seeing VU teams that looked unprepared and poorly IN GAME coached.
With a smaller fan base it was much easier to see the lack of fan support compared to other schools that were over running with fan support and can hide many of those that stop attending. But at Vanderbilt when a small percentage of us stop attending it’s very noticeable w/those larger fan bases overrun our stadium and are happy to rub it in our faces and stings even more.
So, it wasn’t that James Franklin left it is how he was replaced and the results that immediately followed.... but had James Franklin come on board and won 4-6 games per year instead of the nine, which still would offered new job chances, our fan support would still be better than it is today under “trey or quad”.
Sad but true!
