Thought this thread may be a good one to make my first post on....
I also played under fran (not capitalized for a reason) during my time in College Station. To be more specific, I shared his exact years there...committed to Slocum's staff, re-committed to fran's staff, red shirted, played 4 years, and then watchedfran announce his "stepping down" in the locker room after whooping Texas.
Grant says it well in his description that we really did have a strong player bond in result of our feelings towards our head coach. As important as our bond to each other was, it still didn't hide the giant disconnect with fran. Good teams thrive off of top down management in my opinion. You have kids ranging up to 5 years in age from all different walks of life and a nucleus is needed.
To understand T-Murph's comments, you need to understand his love and big brother like feelings for his peers and teammates. He, like most of us, saw through fran and where his true priorities were, which revolved around him at all costs. In short, Murph goes to bat for good people and won't shy away from exposing the not so good people. My first time I made it to the end zone, a second had not passed before Murph was in my face getting crunk and hugging me. Great dude!
Obviously there is some hesitation in making a post like this and hopefully it does not come off as fishing for pity. I usually avoid people asking me about fran because my true answer could make it seem like I don't handle authority well (not something you want to portray in the working realm). I just find it interesting to give perspective and for other people to get a little nugget of insight to different eras of there beloved school. Every school and player have their own stories of good and bad, why not share them. Let me also say, these comments do not pertain to his assistant coaches, as I am still close to my position coach to this day.
As far as players reading TexAgs and being careful what you say on the boards, I couldn't disagree more. First of all, you barely have any time to routinely get on any website. Second, TexAgs was always fun and FUNNY to read. I can't tell you how much entertainment we all got from player look a likes. Yeah, there might be something negative posted about you but it won't be something you haven't already heard. In terms of ranking what affects your psyche most, if a bunch of faceless posters from a website is up there, you have other issues.
I apologize for dwelling on the past, as we have a team to be extremely proud and excited for. I CANNOT wait for September 4th and to Beat The Hell Out Of SMU.
Happy Memorial Day weekend.... make it a good one!