re: MUCH better than Byrne's Wednesday Weekly!

RC had a cadre of old Ags that absolutely loved him and still do. He was the ultimate "good ole boy". Firing him in '96 was almost impossible when you look at what his record was up to that point, though I agree it would have been for the best. He actually righted the ship but couldn't keep it.

RC's biggest problem was he wouldn't adapt. He absolutely despised the internet and didn't understand it. He wouldn't put out information. He would get Aggies to attack other Aggies if they dared to criticize him. He just didn't get it. Mack OTOH had "Mackbrown.com" and embraced it. The real issue though we he didn't ever win "the big one" and he had way too many inexcusable meltdown losses. In his mind RC was the Joe Pa of A&M (prior to the scandal) and expected to be treated as such. Problem is he never won a New Years Day bowl much less a NC, most of his record was against a SWC that resembled the WAC today, and he inherited a program that was already on top.

He had a very valid point on facilities holding him back but he deserves part of the blame imo. He bitched about it but he didn't get anything changed. For all the bad that Fran did he went out and found new donors to fund his projects. Jackie certainly knew how to go in and get the money folks to listen and drop coin to get Kyle redone and Netum Steed which was the best in the country when it was built by a mile.

RC just said "I need this" and then complained because he couldn't get it. I mean seriously, he let Wally Groff push him around? I don't hate Wally as he is a good man and a good Aggie but a forceful personality he was not. RC needed to sell it. Instead it took until John David took a tour of the new facilities at Texas to get it done but by then it was too late and we were behind. They ended up rushing and going the Bright building half arse and designed it to what donors liked instead of what recruits like. RC just didn't take the ball the way Jackie did or Sumlin is doing now.

This kind of leads to a huge frustration I have that a lot of Aggies have. This perception that somehow Texas and OU are better and have always been better. It just isn't true. We just shite the bed with a series of bad decisions that continued to put us in a hole while Texas and OU simply were rolling 7's and 11's. I remember looking at the paper year after year in the late 80s and early '90s and it was just a given that A&M dominated. The recruiting rankings were all A&M with us getting the pick of whomever we wanted. The All SWC Teams basically had an Aggie at every position just divided between 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Teams. Beating Texas was a given, I'll never forget the feeling of shock when we lost the '90 game on that freaking 2 point conversion that they broadcast our play from the huddle. I really remember the '95 game when I couldn't believe we actually let Texas win at Kyle. It's as though the sips line of "oh, they were just cheating" has washed all of that away and far too many Aggies believe it or they were too young to remember it.

A&M can and will dominate the State of Texas again, our biggest enemy is ourselves. The reason I am so optimistic now is for the first time in a LONG time we actually have everyone pushing in the same direction from the BoR, the Administration, the AD, the donors, and the coach. They may not agree on everything but they are all committed to the end goal and winning and doing whatever they need to do to get there. That is why we will succeed and Texas is about to hit "7 years of lean" because they don't have that unity of purpose.