Vandy’s James Franklin Throws Anchor Down With Cliff Jump

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It’s just over a month until Ole Miss travels to Vanderbilt to begin the 2013 SEC football season with a Thursday night kickoff in Nashville.

How does Vanderbilt follow up on a nine win campaign, the most successful football season in 97 years? 

Well, part of the plan gets developed by Vanderbilt’s coaching staff on their annual football coaches retreat. The Vandy staff works on football from eight in the morning until one in the afternoon and then spends the rest of the day and evening having fun. Working hard and playing hard is why Franklin believes Vandy was the only staff in the SEC who didn’t lose a single coach last year. Last year’s retreat was in Birmingham; this year’s is in Chattanooga.

Today half of the coaches went golfing at the Chattanooga Golf and Country Club and the other half spent the day on a pontoon boat out on Chickamauga Lake.

James Franklin led the pontoon boat brigade.  

And as part of an afternoon spent on the pontoon boat, Franklin was challenged to jump off a fifty foot cliff. And if you’ve recently been called the nation’s most insane head coach, you don’t run from a challenge. 

So Franklin accepted.

With wide receiver coach Josh Gattis providing the narration, Kevin Threlkel, Assistant Director of Football Operations, snapping the photo, and player personnel coach Andy Frank on the camera phone — you can blame him for not turning the phone sideways — the below video is the result. 

Can you see any other SEC coach trying this? (Les Miles doesn’t count. Because Les would have jumped naked while riding on the back of an alligator).

Yep. 

Anchor. 

Down. 

It’s just 36 days until our first SEC football game. 

 

 Your move, Hugh Freeze. 

Written by Clay Travis

Clay Travis is the founder of the fastest growing national multimedia platform, OutKick, that produces and distributes engaging content across sports and pop culture to millions of fans across the country. OutKick was created by Travis in 2011 and sold to the Fox Corporation in 2021.

One of the most electrifying and outspoken personalities in the industry, Travis hosts OutKick The Show where he provides his unfiltered opinion on the most compelling headlines throughout sports, culture, and politics. He also makes regular appearances on FOX News Media as a contributor providing analysis on a variety of subjects ranging from sports news to the cultural landscape.

Additionally, Travis serves as a co-host of The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show, a three-hour conservative radio talk program syndicated across Premiere Networks radio stations nationwide.

Previously, he launched OutKick The Coverage on Fox Sports Radio that included interviews and listener interactions, and started an iHeartRadio Original Podcast called Wins & Losses that featured in-depth conversations with the biggest names in sports.

Travis is a graduate of George Washington University as well as Vanderbilt Law School. Based in Nashville, he is the author of Dixieland Delight, On Rocky Top, and Republicans Buy Sneakers.