Determining which Big 12 South coach had the roughest latter half of September is an easy call.

It’s not the guy plastered all over the Internet, hollering “I’m a man,” and hollering it at a woman. No, not Mike Gundy.

Not Guy Morris, whose Baylor Bears, a program on a treadmill, were bullied by Texas A&M, 34-10, Saturday.

Not Mack Brown, whose Texas Longhorns were humiliated, 41-21, by Kansas State, losing to Ron Prince’s Wildcats for the second year in a row, this time in Austin, Texas. (Somehow Texas remains ahead of K-State in the polls. Ridiculous.)

It’s not even Bob Stoops, whose seemingly invincible Oklahoma Sooners went into Boulder, Colo., and lost.

Could it be Texas Tech’s Mike Leach? After a Sept. 22 loss to Oklahoma State, Leach fumed: “We had an offense that’s extremely powerful, extremely productive, that probably sits and reads their press clippings and in arrogant fashion sat around the sideline with their arms folded for most of the second half. Defensively, in the entire first half we got hit in the mouth and acted like somebody took our lunch money, and all we wanted to do was have pouty expressions on our face until somebody daubed our little tears off and made us … feel better. Then we go out there and try harder once our mommies told us we were OK.”

Good stuff, but not even close.

The winner by landslide of the title “biggest loser in the Big 12 South” is the guy who’s team won big Saturday, Texas A&M’s Dennis Franchione.

The seedy controversy in which Franchione is embroiled blows away any of the troubles colleagues from the erstwhile superior Big 12 South might be having. When all the layers of excuses are peeled back, the integrity of the game is left exposed.

Franchione was selling insider information, including injury updates, to boosters who subscribed to his newsletter for a fee of $1,200 a year. Can you say tout sheet? Questioned about it, Franchione said the subscribers signed something and promised they wouldn’t use the information for gambling purposes. Anyone gullible enough to believe the coach was gullible enough to believe them must think O.J. was working on a tip the real killers were inside that Las Vegas hotel room.

Texas A&M athletic director Bill Byrne said he didn’t know about the newsletter. Aren’t coaches required by NCAA law to report all the income they make when representing the program, such as income generated from speaking engagements? And aren’t there NCAA laws that prohibit boosters from giving money to coaches? The NCAA and Texas A&M can’t and won’t accept the explanation that the money was used to pay for Franchione’s Web site, so it’s not really income. The issue of HIPPA laws that protect a patient’s confidentiality also come into play.

Mostly, it’s the indirect association with gambling and the perception that in some small way it could have changed the way Franchione coached that’s so troubling.

In this free country of ours, a man can make a living as either a football coach or a gambling tout. He can’t do both. Ultimately, the likable Franchione will pay with his job. That’s such a given Vegas doesn’t even offer odds on it.