Dykes has long been a proponent of the spread formation, having apprenticed under Hal Mumme at Kentucky and Mike Leach at Texas Tech.
Mumme was so off-kilter at Kentucky, he went for it on fourth down for an entire season. Mumme and Leach were not up-tempo coaches, though, and neither was Dykes, who was hired as Louisiana Tech coach in 2010 after Derek Dooley left for Tennessee.
Dooley ran a pro-style offense, but Dykes was ready to flip the switch. He led some prolific offenses for Mike Stoops at Arizona, but his "game-changer" moment came when he hired Franklin.
Franklin's fascination with up-tempo offense probably predates Chip Kelly's at Oregon. Strange as it sounds, Franklin got the idea from former Alabama coach Mike DuBose.
Watching the 1999 Orange Bowl game between Michigan and Alabama, Franklin saw the Crimson Tide hand off to tailback Shaun Alexander four or five straight times without huddling. Michigan's defense couldn't keep pace.
"I thought to myself, 'Holy mackerel, that's genius,'" Franklin recalled of the sequence. "It might have been the only time in his life he did it."
Franklin kicked his ideas around for years. Between jobs, he worked as a consultant and sold up-tempo offense to high school programs. Franklin took his act to indoor football in 2003 and then, in 2006, to Troy.
His epiphany came on a Friday night in 2007 when Troy and its up-tempo approach shocked Oklahoma State. Franklin: "We beat the living snot out of them."
Tommy Tuberville hired Franklin to run Auburn's offense in 2008 but fired him midway through his first season when the Tigers' record sank to 4-2.
Franklin said old-line Southeastern Conference thinkers still consider his ideas "blasphemy."
"I was the wrong guy, at the wrong time, at the wrong place," he said.
Louisiana Tech was the right place.
Franklin says the up-tempo revolution will not be halted by a few resistant voices. Alabama Coach Nick Saban, commenting this season on West Virginia's 70-63 win over Baylor, wondered, "Is this what we want football to be?" Saban even suggested up-tempo offenses may lead to more injuries.
"I totally disagree with what he said," Franklin said.
Dykes and Franklin argue that only a handful of programs are able to recruit players who can successfully play Alabama's smash-mouth style of football — most of them from the upper echelon of the SEC.
"In the South, it's still considered a gimmick," Dykes said of the up-tempo. "Good luck finding anyone that thinks Oregon is better than 11th in the SEC."
Dykes and Franklin say Saban is protecting his team and working the officials in the event Alabama has to face Oregon in the Bowl Championship Series title game. The Louisiana Tech coaching staff is hoping Oregon gets that chance.
"It's going to take Oregon winning the national championship to open people's eyes," Dykes said.
Alabama gets a dress rehearsal this week when Texas A&M visits Tuscaloosa with quarterback Johnny Manziel, who originally committed to Oregon. The Aggies' up-tempo offense has scored 63 points on Auburn and 58 on Arkansas.
Dykes and Franklin say it is insanity for teams with lesser talent to attempt to play trench football against bigger SEC schools. "If we played like they do, we would be taking our kids to slaughter," Franklin said.