January 21st, 2011
Franchione names coaching staff

STAFF REPORT

Texas State football coach Dennis Franchione named his staff Thursday.

The staff includes his son, Brad Franchione, who won two national junior college championships as head coach at Blinn College, and former North Texas head coach Darrell Dickey as co-offensive coordinator.

“I can’t tell you how extremely pleased that I am to have been able to attract such a quality staff here,” Dennis Franchione said. “They bring a tremendous amount of experience in coaching at the FBS level. As a group, they also have a lot of energy, and each of them is coaching for all the right reasons. They have the ability to help players to reach new levels athletically, academically and socially that they themselves didn’t dream possible.”

The younger Franchione will serve as linebackers coach and special teams coordinator. He won national titles at Blinn in 2006 and 2009 and had a 62-16 record there in six seasons.

Franchione also named former Texas Christian (TCU) offensive coordinator Mike Schultz as assistant head coach. Schultz also will be co-offensive coordinator and quarterback coach. Schultz was offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach last season at Middle Tennessee State after being offensive coordinator at Illinois in 2009. The Illini finished 17th nationally that year in total offense. Before going to Illinois, Schultz was TCU’s offensive coordinator for 11 years.

Dickey was head coach at North Texas for nine years through 2006, winning four straight Sun Belt Conference championships there from 2001-04. Dickey later was offensive coordinator and running backs coach for two years at New Mexico and offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach for two years at Utah State. Dickey also will serve as running backs coach.

The lone holdover from former head coach Brad Wright’s staff is Charlie Reeve, who will serve as recruiting coordinator and director of operations.

Franchione also announced the return of Craig Naivar, who will be defensive coordinator and coach defensive backs. Naivar was the defensive coordinator at Texas State from 2004-2006, which includes the 2005 run to the Division 1-AA semifinals. Naivar has been defensive line coach at Rice for the past four seasons.

Mike Hudson returns for his third go at Texas State, this time as the defensive line coach. Hudson has worked for the past six seasons at Montana, where his duties included assistant head coach and director of operations. Hudson worked as a graduate assistant at Texas State from 1987-91, working with the defensive line for Franchions’s Bobcat teams in 1990 and 1991. Hudson returned to Texas State as an assistant coach from 1995-2002.

Rueben Vaughn, who coached defensive linemen at Texas State in 2002, is returning as defensive tackles coach.

The new wide receivers coach is Jason Johnson, who was wide receivers coach and recruiting coordinator last season at Kentucky State after three years on the staff at Sul Ross.

Dennis Darnell will be the offensive line coach. Darnell was Franchione’s offensive coordinator at New Mexico and TCU from 1992-98.