Reports have surfaced that Texas A&M head football coach Dennis Franchione was selling his program’s ‘insider’ information to boosters via a secret e-mail newsletter called the VIP Connection, without the knowledge of the university.

“I knew it was probably going to be controversial,” Franchione said. “I certainly didn’t mean for it to be that. When I knew you guys were starting to ask around a bit, I thought, ‘Maybe we shouldn’t do this.’”

So he thought it was a good idea…until people found out about it.

After hearing reports of the newsletter, Aggie AD Bill Byrne paid Coach Franchione a visit. While he claims he didn’t explicitly ask Franchione to stop his secrets for sale operation, he must have strongly suggested it, because the newsletter has been discontinued.

According to the San Antonio Express News, Coach Fran (as the Aggies call him) was charging $1,200 for the e-mail and subscribers were asked to sign a letter of confidentiality. The newsletter was written by his personal assistant Mike McKenzie and it provided them with detailed personnel reports, including injury updates (information Fran is notoriously vague about to the public).

Two days before A&M’s opener against Montana State earlier this month, six players were listed in the newsletter as “unavailable for action.” The newsletter included each player’s name and his injury.

“A seventh player, Roger Holland, is iffy,” the newsletter said. “He recovered drastically from a mile (sic) concussion carried over from Sunday, but not fully.”

The newsletter also provided a candid assessment of the Aggies’ receiving corps.

“Privately, Coach told me last night that Earvin (Taylor) and Pierre (Brown) are very steady but with average speed,” McKenzie wrote. “Kerry (Franks) has great speed, but (is) inconsistent in receiving.”

The money made by selling this highly sought after inside scoop (and by ‘highly sought after,’ I mean there were a dozen subscribers) was used to underwrite Coach Franchione’s personal Web site ‘coachfran.com.’ He and McKenzie maintain that neither of them benefitted financially from the newsletter. We should obviously believe this, as Franchione has always been a man of his word…just ask Alabama.