(11-18-2013 10:40 PM)Afflicted Wrote:  Rice arrogance at it's finest. Aren't y'all just soooooooo smart?

Yep. In Louisiana, Tech is generally considered to have a pretty good engineering school.

The schools in CUSA may not be Rice. They're not private schools, but that doesn't mean there aren't some good programs at those schools, or that they don't have good students and/or hard-working students.

My grandmother, a very wise woman, born pre-1910 who grew up on a farm, did not complete high school (but was certainly as well educated as most high school graduates today, and moreso than quite a few as well), reminded us growing up that "self-praise stinks".

I'm sure that's worth thinking about in threads like this.

(11-18-2013 11:47 PM)Rick Gerlach Wrote:  

(11-18-2013 10:40 PM)Afflicted Wrote:  Rice arrogance at it's finest. Aren't y'all just soooooooo smart?

Yep. In Louisiana, Tech is generally considered to have a pretty good engineering school.

I didn't think y'all got the commercial that Hambone referred to. I don't recall it, but if their promotion describes their own school as the top research school in Northern Louisiana, that's a pretty bad faux pas. Rice should aspire to be amongst better academic institutions, there's no getting around that. We shouldn't necessarily ridicule institutions not named UHou along the way, but I don't think we need to apologize for wanting Rice to be among institutions that are our peers in other regards... academic and research.

But, the criticism of Hambone is misplaced, IMHO. He's lampooning their own failure of a PR campaign, not necessarily the institution itself.

edit: damn ipad ... fixed typos

I can handle that. I just hate when I hear, what I sense as being, condescending language targeted at other schools or other people by folks who think they're intellectual superiors. An old friend of mine used to do that, and in reality he couldn't even count to ten. Being so gifted that someone can go to and graduate from Rice is a blessing. On the other hand, most of us just feel blessed to be able to go to college at all. Keep it in perspective.

I think it is relative to our perception of our rightful place in the hierarchy. Certainly all the schools in CUSA have fine programs in certain areas, some great faculty and do much good in educating their students. But in academics, Rice is usually in the nation's top 20. Further, in what is now the distant past, our football teams were also highly ranked. It is not a put down to our current CUSA brethren to note that we have fallen substantially from our natural peers and in the overall rankings. If we want to get back to where we want to be, we can't afford to lose to the UNTs of CUSA. That does not mean that they didn't deserve to win - just that we didn't meet our own expectations.

(11-19-2013 11:03 AM)Afflicted Wrote:  I can handle that. I just hate when I hear, what I sense as being, condescending language targeted at other schools or other people by folks who think they're intellectual superiors. An old friend of mine used to do that, and in reality he couldn't even count to ten. Being so gifted that someone can go to and graduate from Rice is a blessing. On the other hand, most of us just feel blessed to be able to go to college at all. Keep it in perspective.

All my friends can count to ten.

(11-19-2013 01:17 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(11-19-2013 11:03 AM)Afflicted Wrote:  I can handle that. I just hate when I hear, what I sense as being, condescending language targeted at other schools or other people by folks who think they're intellectual superiors. An old friend of mine used to do that, and in reality he couldn't even count to ten. Being so gifted that someone can go to and graduate from Rice is a blessing. On the other hand, most of us just feel blessed to be able to go to college at all. Keep it in perspective.

All my friends can count to ten.

And that guy with eleven fingers can go one better...

Some of you miss the point entirely... and yes, it matters because most of you wouldn't have attended Rice if it weren't a top academic institution, so to now act as if academics don't matter... or as if athletes don't consider these sorts of things falls a bit flat as far as I'm concerned.

As far as la Tech is concerned... this is from their WIKI page

In the 2014 U.S. News and World Report ranking of public universities, Louisiana Tech is listed 108th, and Louisiana Tech is ranked in the "Top Tier" of national universities at 190th.[33] Forbes 2013 edition of America's Top Colleges ranked Louisiana Tech as the 188th best research university in the nation, the 471st best college overall, and the 113th best college in the South.[34] According to The Washington Monthly's 2013 national universities rankings, which consider research, community service, and social mobility, Louisiana Tech ranked 160th nationally.[35]

Certainly they have some fine graduates and programs, but let's not confuse them with a top 20 school. If any of you find that to be arrogant, so be it. At least they aren't UTSA, who isn't a "top tier" school at all. FTR, New Mexico State and Bowling Green are also in that 180-190 range.... as is our favorite academic whipping boy, UH.

But to the point, yes... the commercial said they were the top RESEARCH University in NORTHERN Louisiana. I can't find the Forbes complete listing where La Tech is 188th best research University, but Rice is number 19 on that same list. How should that academic bowl generally turn out? Given that Forbes Ranks La Tech #471 overall and LSU and Tulane are something like 180 and 135 overall, I suspect that their "Northern Louisiana" comment I heard is spot on... though I can't prove it, other than I heard them say it on a commercial they paid for. The jokes about Lincoln Parish are a knock on the writer of the commercial, not on the University.

THE most important thing about the commercials is that they are our athletic peers... but they are so far removed from our academic peers (as a University, not as individuals or even departments) as to put us in a situation where our students don't have ANY interest in the games. The other school is not our academic rival. Few of our students thought about going there instead of Rice. We don't share much geography. Somebody PLEASE tell me what we have in common with these schools to build a rivalry around?

If some of you find that arrogant, then why did you attend Rice and not La Tech or UTSA or Bowling Green or NMSU or North Texas? My son is a singer and UNT is a GREAT music school and Rice doesn't have a Musical Theater program... so there are certainly exceptions... but how many of you honestly want to go see Rice vs CUSA in an academic bowl? With Rice at 19 and La Tech at 188 in engineering, what do you think the spread on that game would be?

Honestly, I get the impression that some of you see athletes as "hired guns" interested only in football and not in academics... and not as students interested in competing at the highest level available.

Talk about arrogant.

It's not about condescension, Afflicted... other than to the writer of the commercial. It's about where my University strives to be. We're basically saying that if you want excellent football AND academics, you have to go to Duke or Stanford or Vandy. If you are upset because I don't think La Tech is academically in the same league as us, then you aren't being reasonable. The rankings speak for themselves. I guarantee that there are some kids at La Tech who could run circles around me academically... and if La tech had been my best option I would have jumped at it and done the best I could... but I didn't go to Rice because it was easy.... and neither did one single guy on our field.

I'm not mocking La Tech... I'm mocking us because we aren't setting our bar higher.

Um... what's the point again? We should aspire to be in the Ivy League?

(11-17-2013 02:01 PM)At Ease Wrote:  

(11-17-2013 01:41 PM)owl40 Wrote:  We have improved. We are now spanking bad teams rather then trying to squeak out W's against bad teams. This Rice team is a good team and I think would have same results as TCU if we were in the Big X11 or Penn St in Big 10 this year. I think we have progressed to being able to be a .500 or thereabouts (somewhere between 5-7 to 7-5) team in a P5 conference. We are better than the doormats of those conferences (e.g., Colorodo, Purdue, Iowa St, Kentucky, Cal, etc.) and could probably sneak a home win or two against a mid-tier team (e.g., Iowa, Virginia, Maryland, etc.) Unfortunately, the schedule won't allow us to really see how good or bad we can be until likely bowl game (assuming NT wins out). So for now, we will have the 'high class problems' of beating bad teams until late December.. That UAB game on short week really concerned me before the season. Now feel optimistic, not b/c we are that good but they are just as bad as the majority of C-USA..That team has really disappointed this year.

For memories of prior years on Parliament, take a stroll over to So. Miss, La Tech (really brutal this AM), UTEP, etc. message boards.... posters are really giving it to those coaching staffs. Ouch.

We would be significant underdogs to all of those P5 teams you consider us better than. Some of those teams have terrible records, but we would fare no better when you look at the schedules.

Is this mocking (in-kind) hyperbole?

Purdue and Cal are terribadawful.

In the grand scheme, we're probably still bad, and just inflated by our pansy schedule, but we're not that bad.

Yes, there's some hyperbole.

But I haven't seen reason to suspect we wouldn't also be 1-win teams vs. their schedules.

(11-19-2013 04:32 PM)At Ease Wrote:  Yes, there's some hyperbole.

But I haven't seen reason to suspect we wouldn't also be 1-win teams vs. their schedules.

We also might look a little different if we were playing their schedule since that would mean we'd be in a BCS AQ conference.

(11-19-2013 04:01 PM)Frizzy Owl Wrote:  Um... what's the point again? We should aspire to be in the Ivy League?

Picking USNWR, feel free to reference another... I doubt there will be much difference....

Stanford is 5, Duke is 7, Northwestern is 12, Vandy is 17, Notre Dame is 18, Cal-Berkeley is 20, UCLA is 23 as is USC, VA and Wake Forest. Michigan is 28 , UNC is 30, BC is 31, Ge Tech is 36, Penn State is 37, Miami is 47, FLA is 49, Ohio State is 52 as is Texas. Ga is 60, BYU is 62 as are Clemson, Syracuse, Pitt and Maryland. Purdue and Rutgers are 68 and 69, as is A&M and Va Tech. Mich State is 73 as is Iowa. Baylor is 75 with Indiana. Alabama is 86, Auburn 91 with Fla Stat and Missou at 97. At 101 are OU, Nebraska, Tenn, Kansas and Iowa State. Heck, Arkansas is 128.

SMU, Tulane and Tulsa are in the top 100, but no longer in our league. Throw in UH as an in-town rival and we can at least TRY and create some rivalries.

Marshall isn't considered a National University, but a regional one. They are 39th. I honestly don't know how that compares... but around them are a couple of the Tennessee satellite schools... and the main Tenn location is #101, so I don't know what to make of that. UT and A&M are significantly better ranked academically than their satellites, but that may not be anywhere near the case in Tennessee, I just don't know. I can't imagine they are better, but maybe they are. Few regional schools seem to play FBS football.

Outside of that unknown... UAB is now the closest academic peer in CUSA that I can find at 152, then Bowling Green at 181 with WMU and ECU. Are they still in our league? I can't keep up.... and La Tech at 190 with NMSU and UH, no longer in our league.

FIU is unranked as is UTSA, UTEP, North Texas, FAU, MTSU, USM, ODU. Have I left anyone out?

The SWC had both academic and regional rivalries with Tech at 161 and UH at 190 being BY FAR the "worst"... UT, A&M, Baylor, SMU and TCU are all in the top 100 along with Rice. Old CUSA has top 100 schools in SMU, Tulane and Tulsa as academic peers and UH as a regional one. All of them are now gone, replaced by far weaker academic schools.

We can't do anything about CUSA or getting invited to another conference. Those are all beyond our control... but we CAN schedule some top 100 schools OOC as we do in Kansas and a few others. The problem is that we can't count on Kansas or others to be so weak as to be competitive with us. We have been fairly uncompetitive with UT, UCLA, Vandy and others recently and we will soon see with Notre Dame.

Our goal needs to be NOT to be competitive in CUSA, or even to win CUSA... but to be competitive with 4 other top 100 schools each year, which generally means being a top 30-50 team every single year.... and it is unrealistic to expect that kind of performance given the resources we put forth. How that works out in CUSA has more to do with other teams than with us. If we are a top 40 team and are competitive with top rated academic national universities on the football field and somehow some other CUSA school fields a top 20 team with a top 200 academic school such that we don't win the conference, then I'll just have to live with that.

I want a top 30-50 football team to go along with my top 20 academics. A top 30-50 football team would be competing for the CUSA championship every year and knock off, or at lest put some REAL fear into some teams of note generating positive press and notoriety for the University.... and we aren't going to get there spending what we are spending.

How many top 20 schools remotely consistently field top 40 football teams? I think we can do it because we play many more winnable conference games and get to go to bowls more often than teams from Vandy and Duke. Turning our disadvantage into an advantage.

But it takes more money

(11-19-2013 04:36 PM)d1owls4life Wrote:  

(11-19-2013 04:32 PM)At Ease Wrote:  Yes, there's some hyperbole.

But I haven't seen reason to suspect we wouldn't also be 1-win teams vs. their schedules.

We also might look a little different if we were playing their schedule since that would mean we'd be in a BCS AQ conference.

We wouldn't be 1 win teams against their schedule because they play 4 home games against teams like the ones we are beating. Yes, we might only win one conference game, but that still only puts us one game short of a bowl.

Let's look... using Sagarin as a proxy,
#40 would be
6th in the ACC
4th in the AAC
4th in the big10
6th in the Big12
1st in CUSA (isn't that our goal?)
1st in the MAC
tied for 2nd in the MWC
10th of 13 in the Pac-12
10th out of 15 in the SEC (right behind Vandy)

Having said that, we aren't in an AQ conference and not likely to be in one any time soon. If we're a top 40ish team, we're going to win 2-3 games in just about ANY conference, combine that with 4 OOC HOME games and we're in the exact same bowls we're looking at as the CUSA champ.



ETA: I agree with Owl40 that this team could probably compete with some middle p5 teams and we all hope we get that chance... My only issue is that it is one of our peaks and not our norm. I want to give DB the resources so that beating some weaker to middle p5 teams is the norm rather than the exception.... so that in our more peak years, we're putting real scares into top 20 teams and beating some GOOD p5 teams. THAT is where we need to be, and if we take advantage of what is before us, I think we can get there without breaking the bank (in fact, while expanding the bank significantly)

(11-19-2013 05:20 PM)Hambone10 Wrote:  We wouldn't be 1 win teams against their schedule because they play 4 home games against teams like the ones we are beating. Yes, we might only win one conference game, but that still only puts us one game short of a bowl.

You haven't looked at the schedules of Cal or Purdue.

(11-19-2013 04:01 PM)Frizzy Owl Wrote:  Um... what's the point again? We should aspire to be in the Ivy League?

That academic reputation is extremely important to the health and opportunity of the university, and athletic affiliations that erode it should be avoided?

(11-19-2013 05:41 PM)At Ease Wrote:  

(11-19-2013 05:20 PM)Hambone10 Wrote:  We wouldn't be 1 win teams against their schedule because they play 4 home games against teams like the ones we are beating. Yes, we might only win one conference game, but that still only puts us one game short of a bowl.

You haven't looked at the schedules of Cal or Purdue.

I'd see 3 or 4 wins tops for this Rice team on those schedules (still better than Cal or Purdue). We'll likely end up with 9 in C-USA 2013. Funny how much context matters.

Adressing a few different points: of all the D-1A schools in the top 25 of USNWR, the only other one that is not in a P5 conference is Notre Dame. Non-P5 teams do not control their own destiny when it comes to scheduling. It's not as simple as picking up the phone and telling an AD to pencil us in. Favorable scheduling of non-conference opponents is more difficult than some seem to appreciate.

P5 membership isn't simple either. Vandy, NW, Stanford, and Duke have the advantage of being legacy P5 members who didn't have to earn their place. Getting there takes major commitment.

I agree that athletic reputation and visibility is important to the university's reputation. But a BOT that's afraid to act and afraid not to act means we drift... slowly downward. I'd be encouraged if a stadium renovation announcement were forthcoming, or even an announcement that Kaarlgard's hands were no longer tied when fundraising.

(11-19-2013 06:03 PM)Frizzy Owl Wrote:  Adressing a few different points: of all the D-1A schools in the top 25 of USNWR, the only other one that is not in a P5 conference is Notre Dame. Non-P5 teams do not control their own destiny when it comes to scheduling. It's not as simple as picking up the phone and telling an AD to pencil us in. Favorable scheduling of non-conference opponents is more difficult than some seem to appreciate.

YOu mean other than us... and Notre Dame is an exception to the p5 rule, so they really are "in".

Other than that, true. The number of CONSISTENTLY poor p5 teams is small, so in order to increase our chances of signature wins, we have to increase our number of opportunities.... which means more of them and fewer NMSUs and UTSAs (when they're not in conference)

Quote:P5 membership isn't simple either. Vandy, NW, Stanford, and Duke have the advantage of being legacy P5 members who didn't have to earn their place. Getting there takes major commitment.

Also true. We can't control getting in, but we CAN control deserving to be in.

Quote:I agree that athletic reputation and visibility is important to the university's reputation. But a BOT that's afraid to act and afraid not to act means we drift... slowly downward. I'd be encouraged if a stadium renovation announcement were forthcoming, or even an announcement that Kaarlgard's hands were no longer tied when fundraising.

I am hopeful/optimistic that because of where we are... (still a chance at the conference championship... a certain bowl announcement... Kaarlgard still meeting the "players") that we are merely spreading out our good news to maximize impact.

It IS important that the board see the changes around us as an opportunity to string some winning seasons and bowl games back to back that can be transformative if we take advantage of the momentum, and merely transitive if we do not. We don't need to throw money at the problem, but we DO need to fix a lot of old ills IN ADDITION to taking some new steps.

It is important to note that salaries for assistant coaches and recruiting budgets and marketing opportunities and game day events are short-lived if they fail, but long-lived if they succeed. If I remember correctly, David already uses (or did use) a significant chunk of his own salary to increase the assistants income.... so merely replacing this is actually a bump for him... and if we do just a little bit more, I suspect we could help him attract some top notch assistants, GAs and consultants without breaking the bank OR somehow unintentionally downgrading/devaluing David's significant efforts. It might put us slightly out of whack vis a vis CUSA, but we have to be honest and agree that new CUSA isn't the sort of comparison we want to be making.

We all can disagree on exactly how good we are, or what will make us better, or how many games we would win against what competition... but it seems self-evident that our athletic performance is far less impressive than our academic performance measured against "the best"... and athletic performance matters... and that in general (but not without exceptions) it takes paying more to be better with any consistency.

So we need to unite around encouraging the powers that be to spend more... REGARDLESS of whether or not we agree on how it should be spent.

(11-18-2013 11:52 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(11-17-2013 10:27 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(11-17-2013 09:42 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

Quote: chronic underachievement

Interesting topic after a 52-14 win.

But winning this game 52-14 does make losing to UH and UNT look more like underachievement.

I once saw a picture in Sports Illustrated of two basketball players standing side by side. That 7'8" guy sure made the 6'7" guy look short.

I think the UH and UNT games did represent a bit of underachievement, and the LaTech game a bit of overachievement, but isn't some variation about the mean expected? If every game is our best, then our best is just average. Or if all the games are the same, then average is our best. Somebody who understands math help me here!

Okay, I'll bite....

You are correct. Some people have been falling into the fallacy of thinking an outstanding performance is achievable every game. It isn't. That's why it's called "outstanding" - the performance "stands out" from other performances. It's the way nature works. There are always random factors that influence performances that are beyond human control.

Let's look at Rice's performance this season using the Massey performance ratings. One of the reasons that I'm compiling these numbers this season is precisely to answer questions like the ones posed in this thread. As of now, here's a list of Rice's opponents in chronological order and the performance rating generated in each game:

Texas A&M: 51.32
Kansas: 46.00
Houston: 50.57
Florida Atlantic: 43.28
Tulsa: 39.82
Texas-San Antonio: 50.07
New Mexico State: 49.46
Texas-El Paso: 58.43
North Texas: 41.94
Louisiana Tech: 61.98

The median of this dataset is 49.77, and the mean is 49.29 with a standard deviation of 7.01. That's who the Owls are right now. They're not the team that beat Louisiana Tech by 38, and they're not the team that had to go into overtime to scrape by Tulsa. Those results were outliers. That's why it's foolish to say that Rice should always perform the way that it did against Louisiana Tech. The evidence, and the laws of statistics, argue otherwise.

These data also can help us understand just what "performing well" (and "performing poorly") mean. From what I've read in The Parliament, people were in general satisfied by the performance in the A&M game but think we underperformed against Houston. In fact, if you look at the numbers, the Owls' performance against each was almost identical. It's an example of how perception often trumps reality. In this case, people seem to be overrating Texas A&M and underrating Houston.

Another way to look at this question is to compare the Owls to a team that's very good, one that must be performing at a high level. Because Rice played Texas A&M this season, I've been tracking their performance ratings throughout the season. Right now, the Aggies have a median rating of 68.42, with a mean of 69.23 and standard deviation of 8.36. Their best performance of the season is an 89.00 against Vanderbilt, and the low is 61.20 in last week's game against Mississippi State. That's nearly a 28-point spread over the season. Given those numbers and the data I've collected for other Division I FBS teams, that's an entirely reasonable spread. Should we expect A&M to be performing every game like it did against Vanderbilt? Not according to the laws of statistics, nor should they perform as poorly as they did against Mississippi State.

Rice, Texas A&M, and every other team for that matter all vary in their performances from game to game, irrespective of any outside influences. It's the way the world works, and the foundations of statistics are laid upon that fact. Before we start complaining about underperformance, let's first do the intellectual work necessary to quantify just exactly what an underperformance would be (and also make sure we understand the concept of "regression to the mean"). Furthermore, let's also understand that underperformances and overperformances are natural occurrences and must be expected occasionally. By doing so, we'll avoid mistaking natural variation for systemic issues, and consequently our analyses will be substance-based rather than (as I think some of the posts I read are) emotionally- or agenda-driven.

(11-19-2013 05:41 PM)At Ease Wrote:  You haven't looked at the schedules of Cal or Purdue.

Neither team did themselves many favors with their OOC schedules:
Cal - vs. Northwestern, vs. Portland St., vs. Ohio St.
Purdue - @ Cin, vs. Indiana St., vs. Notre Dame, vs. N. Illinois