Preaching Patience and Positivity

There is no doubt that this is not the start to the season James Franklin expected. It is hard to imagine there is any coach in the country who has out-worked Franklin from both a football standpoint and an expectation building standpoint since he took over at Vanderbilt. For the first time though Franklin finds himself in a slightly different and unwelcome situation. Last year's bowl run was fueled by a strong start which got the school behind the program. This year he is going to have to work in reverse as a noise making offseason has been followed by a frustratingly slow start on the field.

Certainly some of this can be put down to the caliber of opposition. Last year Vandy may have started 2-0, but the wins were against an FCS school (Elon) and a UConn team who made no waves at all in a bowless 5-7 season. This year's 0-2 start on the other hand featured a one score loss to a South Carolina team who believe they can win the SEC and on the road at a Northwestern club which constantly wins at least 6 games a season. Not to mention that both those games featured a controversial late calls which did not go in Vandys favor.

For most head coaches tasked with the job at Vanderbilt those close losses would be enough, but Franklin is on a mission to make the Commodores viable at the national level. His tweet from September 10th pretty much says everything you need to know about how he is reacting to the media talk of 'the same old Vandy'.

"Stay positive & stick w/ the plan, we ARE building something special, stick 2gether,believe in urself & stay the course, I promise its coming!"

Some cynics will say that this is nothing more than spin mongering from a coach whose team is under-performing to start the season, but I think that would be taking the coach out of character. You can see from the way he handles the media that Franklin is a savvy guy who uses all the tools (twitter, facebook) available to him in order to keep his team on task. He is at the stage right now where the players will do anything for him and the group solidly believes they have what it takes to win every game left on the schedule and make another bowl game.

Doing this after a slow start would be another coup for Franklin. Keeping the teams spirits high and the city buzzing about the Commodores is not going to be easy, but Vanderbilt have the right man in charge to make it possible.