Franchione is thorn in UH's side

By Ferd Lewis
Advertiser Staff Columnist

•	Alabama vs. Hawai'i WHAT: NCAA football, Alabama (9-3) at Hawai'i (9-2) KICKOFF: Today at 2:45 p.m., Aloha Stadium TV/RADIO: Live on ESPN/Live on 1420 AM Warrior Nemeses Coaches who have beaten UH at multiple schools since Hawai'i went Division I-A. (Coach, school names). Ken Hatfield, Air Force, Arkansas, Rice Dennis Franchione, New Mexico, TCU John Robinson, USC, Nevada-Las Vegas

For the University of Hawai'i, he is Dennis Franchione — and he's baaaack.

He wears a different polo short to be sure and today at Aloha Stadium it is the Crimson of Alabama, for whom he is the head football coach. For now, at least. But in a short span we've also seen him in the purple and white of Texas Christian and the cherry and silver of New Mexico, too.

Very few autumns have passed in the past 10 years when he hasn't been standing on some sideline, somewhere, opposite the Warriors. Always victorious, he has had Hawai'i's number and it is at 5-0.

In UH's quarter-century as a Division I-A member, Franchione is bidding to become only the second coach to beat the Warriors as the head coach of three different schools, a distinction so far achieved by just Ken Hatfield (Air Force, Arkansas and Rice).

Franchione is a remarkable coach with the well-deserved reputation as a rebuilder of football programs and Hawai'i knows it better than most. Franchione takes fixer-uppers and makes them shine. All too frequently, it seems, at the Warriors' expense.

Witness what he did at New Mexico, where the Lobos had suffered 11 consecutive losing seasons preceding his arrival, including a 94-17 dismantling by Fresno State. In short order Franchione turned New Mexico into a winner and, in 1997, into a bowl team for the first time in 37 years.

The tide of the UNM-UH series pretty much told the tale of the revival. New Mexico, which had lost nine consecutive times to UH before Franchione's arrival, hardly any of them close, beat the Warriors in all three meetings during his tenure, all by at least two touchdowns.

Next up was TCU, where a 1-10 season preceded Franchione's arrival in 1998. He took the Horned Frogs to three consecutive bowls, climbing over UH, 34-14 and 41-21, to help get there.

Now, he's shepherded Alabama through a year of NCAA probation to a 9-3 record, no easy task, and has brought the Crimson Tide here for their "bowl" game.

Other coaches have beaten UH more often or by bigger margins, recall LaVell Edwards at Brigham Young. But few seem to have gotten the Warriors' goat or taken more delight in it than Franchione.

Though he professes the utmost respect for June Jones and never misses an opportunity to praise the UH coach, you get the feeling that Franchione also relishes an occasional jab of the needle, too.

When Jones had called out Mack Brown over Texas' cancellation of its 2000 opener here, Franchione chimed in with: "I'd say that guy (Jones) spends too much time worrying about what other coaches are doing."

And when Jones angrily blasted TCU coaches for a pattern of chop blocks after the 1999 game, Franchione dryly predicted for their 2000 meeting, "We'll probably play dirty again. If we played dirty out there, we'll probably play dirty again (at TCU)."

In a season in which the Warriors have exorcised some of their long-term demons — winning for the first time at Bulldog Stadium in Fresno, Calif., and finally beating Rice — it figures that Franchione looms as their biggest challenge in balancing the books.

In the meantime, UH might want to think twice about scheduling Texas A&M.