(07-11-2017 03:18 AM)JHS55 Wrote:  Iam just shocked that an actual rice owl fan posted on here

Oh I pop on quite a bit... and there's more of us... so many realignment threads, so little time. We have a lot of drama on our own board to keep up with, too. My favorits threads here are the ones where Rice crops up (suggested by fans of other schools) as a P5 promotion candidate. That's a good goal but we still have a lot of boxes we need to check in terms of, yup, fan and community support.
Our best shot at getting back up to the "top tier" might be sneaking in to a 80-team Power Group structure like the one suggested here. There are some other contrived scenarios where it could happen, too.
The OP is on record as saying it'll never happen - and he may well be right. I haven't given up on hoping for it, and my personal opinion is that the AD is doing the right things to put us in a position to be in those conversations in 5, 10 years.
But if you told me today we could play in the AAC and have a defined path to a playoff, I'd take that in a second. Even if the AAC in this scenario looks a lot like C-USA does today.

I also think the idea of an 18 or 20 team conference could work well, especially if the teams have something in common and the conference has an identity.