I just read the last several pages of the Bailiff gets a 3 year extension thread, where many commenters spoke of a 13-1 year as a great way to get rid of Bailiff. And a question occurred to me I thought I'd throw out there:

Take away the fact that personally he's slime, but as strictly a football coach and this Rice squad with this first game: what would your expectations have been for this game of the Toad if he was the coach for Rice against ATM coming up vs. Bailiff?

Not trying to restart all the mudslinging, just wondered if any of ya'll thought T would have a better shot at preparing for and winning this one game to start the season with the present Rice squad and if so, why?

I think TG's teams are better prepared for games than DB's teams are, New Orleans Bowl notwithstanding, so if you are asking the question in a vacuum then my answer is yes.

But such questions don't arise in vacuums, and there's a lot more to it than individual game preparation. For example, would TG have been able to recruit and assemble as much talent as DB has?

And DB beats TG big time in most of those other things. What I'd like is DB with Bear Bryant's skills at preparation.

The impression I have from afar is that TG is more demanding, exacting and better at preparing a team than DB has shown. The cost for that is perhaps too high when considering the relative integrity of the two. But I would expect a TG team to be more likely to play above their talent level against a superior physical team than DB. I don't expect the Owls to win, but hope we are respectable and do better than we did against UCLA last year.

my first impulse was to go back to the NO Bowl and say no. But then, I thought again, you said first game, so Iwne t back to his first game, the 31-30 loss to UH, and the answer became yes. But UH is not A&M, so I once again went to his games against UTand FlaSt, the third and fourth games of his season, in which we were routed 52-7 & 55-7, and the answer is no again.

T had the advantage of the emotional boost of the first game under a new coach.

I think we will just have to wait a week to see,

(08-24-2013 09:23 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  my first impulse was to go back to the NO Bowl and say no. But then, I thought again, you said first game, so Iwne t back to his first game, the 31-30 loss to UH, and the answer became yes. But UH is not A&M, so I once again went to his games against UTand FlaSt, the third and fourth games of his season, in which we were routed 52-7 & 55-7, and the answer is no again.
T had the advantage of the emotional boost of the first game under a new coach.
I think we will just have to wait a week to see,

I think you are focusing way too much on isolated data points. If you want to compare emotional boost for first game under a new coach, TG wins by a knockout. If you want to compare bowl games, DB wins. If you want to compare games where the opponents are light years ahead in the talent department, DB's resume looks a lot like the two games of TG's that you reference.

Week in and week out, TG's 2006 team was better prepared than DB's teams have been. Same for TG's post-2006 teams elsewhere compared to SB's contemporaneous teams. TG has certainly had games where his team failed to show up. But they weren't as numerous as DB and they were to quality teams, not the donkeys that we've no-showed for under DB.

I think we'll get blown out next Saturday, unless aTm no-shows. I just hope the score line ends up looking halfway respectable. If we play them as close as Sam did last year, I'll be ecstatic.

I don't think making it respectable after being blown out will help much for a TV game. Hope you're wrong. A$M - 26.5 should be attractive for those who expect a blowout. It is for me also,except I will take Rice.

the question was for a single data point - this next game - which can be characterized in different ways - opener, nationally ranked opponent, road. i just looked for similar games.

I hope we show up. If we do, we have a chance to make a statement. aTm have certainly had their share of preseason distractions. But I'm just not optimistic that we'll be ready.

As I said, if we play them closer than Sam did last year, I'll be pleasantly surprised. I'm trying to keep my expectations low in order that my surprises will be pleasant ones.

(08-24-2013 11:49 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  I hope we show up. If we do, we have a chance to make a statement. aTm have certainly had their share of preseason distractions. But I'm just not optimistic that we'll be ready.

As I said, if we play them closer than Sam did last year, I'll be pleasantly surprised. I'm trying to keep my expectations low in order that my surprises will be pleasant ones.

same approach I take with my gramdchildren. Low barsmake life more pleasant. the eldest has decided to become a plumber. Yay.

maybe I am overly optimistic; maybe you are overly pessimistic. we will see when the game is played.

I appreciate your taking the question as a legitimate discussion topic. Thank you for that.

I guess the thoughts I was having after reading the other thread go to DB's seeming lack of preparedness vs other coaches who are more successful.

I don't know the man, and don't follow him around, so perhaps he actually does spend a tremendous amount of time doing what preparation he thinks is adequate. Yet over the years the observation on this board seems to be pretty consistent that DB lacks in team preparedness, and I wanted to point that out by contrasting with our most recent reference point of TG.

We could go back further and ask the same question of how you'd feel in this game with this team of Hatfield, Goldsmith, Jerry Berndt (who was the coach during most of my time at Rice, and I think DB is miles ahead of him) and even Jess.

My hope is that DB has gotten the idea that whatever preparation he has been doing in the past is perhaps less than adequate to what he could do, and has chosen to adjust accordingly.

I have no idea what will happen next week. I can see reasons for it to go many ways, as our team and current coach combination has been and is truly an enigma to me before most games.

I do hope, and would be satisfied with, if DB can have our guys prepared to win if possible, and to play up to the very top of each of their abilities as far as effort, discipline, understanding of and execution of the system and plays they are being directed to by the coaches, and that they do not give up and pack it in if they get down early, but provide a consistent, thorough effort for the entire game. I hope DB looks to find a way to win the game and that that is the genus of his coaching choices from the first practice this summer to the final whistle of the fouth quarter. I hope he chooses to be creative, take a well-considered risk here and there to push us into a position to do something great, and pulls out all the stops instead of holding anything back for conference. I belive we have a good enough team this year to do very well in if not win conference, even if people see all our secret plays at the beginning. Let's take it to them this year! I hope that DB does NOT choose to "just get through" this one without anyone getting hurt and focus instead on trying to win in conference games.

This game is a rare opportunity for Rice football. Rice does not get many real opportunities to be this visible on the national stage in football these days. I don't believe we should waste this opportunity because we don't know when or if the next one will come along. Due to the Manziel situation, his Heisman, general curiosity, and the pent up demand for football fans to want to see the first game, any game, we will have a larger than normal audence, and thus scrutiny, for this game than even the many UT games we have played recently, which have been the only real "showcase" game opportunities we have had the last several years.

Let's at least be sure that we can give national football fans/pundits/writers a real reason to say "something good is going on down at Rice Football" after this game, if not find a way to win it.

I think that he lacks in successful preparation, meaning that if we lost, he didn't do it. I don't think he lacks in effort to be prepared, just in direction.

The IRS wanted to audit me. I spent a lot of time getting papers together, being ready to answer a lot of questions, and checking on tax regulations and law. I thought I was ready. The SOBs still drilled me. Clearly, I lacked preparation.

I think the definition of preparation used by most on this board pretty much boils down to, we lost, so we were unprepared.

If he takes a chance, and it doesn't work, it was not well-considered. But if it works, it was.

I hope we win this, because if we don't, he was unprepared. Even if we lose 42-41 on a missed Boswell FG as time runs out. Clearly, in that case, if he had just prepared a little bit better...

I am expecting him to be prepared 10 or more times this year.

Todd Graham would have had a 6 hour practice in pads the afternoon before the game, then when we lost by 9 TD would have blamed the players for not working out hard enough in the off-season.

(08-24-2013 03:09 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  I think that he lacks in successful preparation, meaning that if we lost, he didn't do it. I don't think he lacks in effort to be prepared, just in direction.
The IRS wanted to audit me. I spent a lot of time getting papers together, being ready to answer a lot of questions, and checking on tax regulations and law. I thought I was ready. The SOBs still drilled me. Clearly, I lacked preparation.
I think the definition of preparation used by most on this board pretty much boils down to, we lost, so we were unprepared.
If he takes a chance, and it doesn't work, it was not well-considered. But if it works, it was.
I hope we win this, because if we don't, he was unprepared. Even if we lose 42-41 on a missed Boswell FG as time runs out. Clearly, in that case, if he had just prepared a little bit better...
I am expecting him to be prepared 10 or more times this year.

I think you are missing the point by a pretty wide margin. Every loss is not because we were unprepared, nor is every win because we were prepared. Sometimes you can be prepared and still lose, sometimes you can be unprepared and still win. Sometime the other team just has better players and no matter how well prepared you are, you still lose. We didn't lose to UT and Fla State by 52-7 and 55-7 in 2006 because we were poorly prepared; we lost because they had a helluva lot better athletes than we did, to the extent there probably wasn't anything we could have done in the way of preparation that would have changed the outcome.

Losing because you get out-athleted is not preparation. Losing because of a stupid mental error is probably preparation. Poor discipline, poor execution, lack of focus are all preparation issues. When you beat somebody better than you, or even play them tough and close, you were probably better prepared. When you lose to somebody worse than you, you were probably poorly prepared. The Todd/Bailiff comparisons are a bit hard to make because this team has a lot better talent than Todd's team did. Todd's team won games when they were out-athleted, because of superior mental preparation. Bailiff's teams don't get out-athleted as often, because the talent is a lot better.

If we lose to aTm, it will almost certainly be because we got out-athleted, and probably by a wide margin. If we beat them, it will almost certainly be because we were better prepared. If we play them close, but make a stupid mental error to lose, then we were generally well prepared but our preparation was deficient in whatever area gave rise to the mental error. This is where coaching gets difficult. You have only so many hours to work with the team. You can only cover so many things. A big part of coaching is determining what to work on in practice. You simply don't have time to cover everything, so you have to prioritize. And one other thing is that going over something in a meeting, but not practicing it on the field, almost certainly means that you'll screw it up if the situation comes up in a game.

We are going to get out-athleted al lot. We have to overcome that by being the better prepared team. We will get beat physically; we cannot afford to beat ourselves mentally.

(08-25-2013 06:03 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(08-24-2013 03:09 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  I think that he lacks in successful preparation, meaning that if we lost, he didn't do it. I don't think he lacks in effort to be prepared, just in direction.
The IRS wanted to audit me. I spent a lot of time getting papers together, being ready to answer a lot of questions, and checking on tax regulations and law. I thought I was ready. The SOBs still drilled me. Clearly, I lacked preparation.
I think the definition of preparation used by most on this board pretty much boils down to, we lost, so we were unprepared.
If he takes a chance, and it doesn't work, it was not well-considered. But if it works, it was.
I hope we win this, because if we don't, he was unprepared. Even if we lose 42-41 on a missed Boswell FG as time runs out. Clearly, in that case, if he had just prepared a little bit better...
I am expecting him to be prepared 10 or more times this year.

I think you are missing the point by a pretty wide margin. Every loss is not because we were unprepared, nor is every win because we were prepared. Sometimes you can be prepared and still lose, sometimes you can be unprepared and still win. Sometime the other team just has better players and no matter how well prepared you are, you still lose. We didn't lose to UT and Fla State by 52-7 and 55-7 in 2006 because we were poorly prepared; we lost because they had a helluva lot better athletes than we did, to the extent there probably wasn't anything we could have done in the way of preparation that would have changed the outcome.

Losing because you get out-athleted is not preparation. Losing because of a stupid mental error is probably preparation. Poor discipline, poor execution, lack of focus are all preparation issues. When you beat somebody better than you, or even play them tough and close, you were probably better prepared. When you lose to somebody worse than you, you were probably poorly prepared. The Todd/Bailiff comparisons are a bit hard to make because this team has a lot better talent than Todd's team did. Todd's team won games when they were out-athleted, because of superior mental preparation. Bailiff's teams don't get out-athleted as often, because the talent is a lot better.

If we lose to aTm, it will almost certainly be because we got out-athleted, and probably by a wide margin. If we beat them, it will almost certainly be because we were better prepared. If we play them close, but make a stupid mental error to lose, then we were generally well prepared but our preparation was deficient in whatever area gave rise to the mental error. This is where coaching gets difficult. You have only so many hours to work with the team. You can only cover so many things. A big part of coaching is determining what to work on in practice. You simply don't have time to cover everything, so you have to prioritize. And one other thing is that going over something in a meeting, but not practicing it on the field, almost certainly means that you'll screw it up if the situation comes up in a game.

We are going to get out-athleted al lot. We have to overcome that by being the better prepared team. We will get beat physically; we cannot afford to beat ourselves mentally.

This is pretty reasonable. Wish more people shared it. But I think for most, it is still a results-oriented judgment. If we lose, we should have been better prepared. If we win, who cares how prepared we were?

I disagree somewhat about the mental error being evidence of a lack of preparation. Sometimes you can drill something into a player forever in practice and meetings, but when push comes to shove, he still freezes up. I don't see that as a lack of prep, just a lack of whatever it is that makes one player do it right and another not, on the same prep. Talent? Maybe the difference between 4 stars and 2 stars?

I don't think we are going to get outathleted much anymore in CUSA, and not by much when we are. Against the BCS teams, yeah. Even Kansas.

Let's just win a bunch this year, and we (the Parliament) can argue over how Bailiff lost the others later. I just hope there are no more than a couple that we can hang on him.

Has anyone noticed that in addition to a second straight road trip to Tulsa, they also have a bye week before the Rice game?