Ok-so let's admit for grins that AAC is stronger and why is that? UConn is pretty much the only reason, maybe Cincy, and the minute they get an invite from P5 (which I suspect they are working really really hard at), they will be gone so fast you won't be able to see them leave regardless of expense or any other aspects.

(01-05-2015 03:51 PM)wavefan12 Wrote:  How you can say that CUSA gives you a better shot is asinine and insinuates that all the best members of CUSA who left were all morons.

There are several different motivations for CUSA schools to have left for the AAC because the AAC was in several different states when the schools decided to leave to join it (remember, for some - but I think not all - it was the Big East). Some of the schools aspired to join the Big East basketball league - that subsequently disintegrated. Some had long aspired to join the Big East because it had BCS status (which had an expiration date, as we've observed). Some probably did join because of the revenue disparity... others because they thought the AAC may become the P6. Some may not have jumped into an uncertain situation but sure didn't want to be one of the left behind. All of them probably were probably motivated at least in part by all of those reasons. IMHO, none of them jumped solely because it offered a better path to perhaps one of 1-2 conceivably possible P5 invites.

Rice won CUSA last year (as I'm sure you're aware), was in the running this year, and has a very good shot at it next year. Even though the AAC was bad this year, I don't think Rice would be in the running year in and year out as they can be in CUSA. But having that kind of back story is a necessary situation for Rice to even be in the conversation... running 2nd or 3rd in the division every year in the AAC and perhaps winning the division 1 year in 5 would not help at all. Consider Boise State was just as much in the conversation for P5 invites when they were in the WAC as they are in the MWC. They're still in Boise, and that's what will keep them out until there's a huge population boom in Idaho. The path that public commuter U needs to travel to get to a P5 invite is not remotely the same path that Rice needs to travel.

I understand your frustration about the discussion of P5 revenue... that's not remotely relevant. The delta of $2mm+ in conference revenue (and I think bowl revenue is insignificant in the discussion) is significant and should weigh in the balance, but it's not a massive amount of money.

Given the available G5 conferences, I'd rather Rice be associated with those in the AAC. None of the G5 conferences are prestigious enough to warrant a jump on those merits, though.

College football is all about entertainment. What determines who plays where and when is not based on record of wins and losses but the ability to capture a large audience mostly on TV. TCU deserved to be in the playoff but didn't get invited because Florida State has a lot more fans and draws much better on TV. The system got setup to get the teams with the most entertainment value in the playoffs.

You'd be surprised at how little conference affiliation may mean as to whether a team can move to a P5 conference or not. Fan support, name recognition, location, and such play a much bigger role in this. Like someone pointed out, Boise State deserves to be in a P5 conference but won't unless somehow Idaho grows by several million people in the next couple of years.

As we have seen in many areas, including the ambivalence about Rice's declining rankings, the administration would rather be outperform in a pool of mediocre competition than strive to be the best and take the lumps where necessary to learn its shortcomings and improve.

Wow Tulane fans sound like UH fans now.

The problem with that approach is that we wind up moving up or down to match the level of our competition.

I do not think the administration likes the decline in where we have wound up in conference affiliation but rather realizes that trying to do something about it has to be done in private. It does not help to complain about it in public. I do make an exception about Greenspan who was too lazy to want to do anything about it.

(01-05-2015 07:07 PM)Riceman2004 Wrote:  As we have seen in many areas, including the ambivalence about Rice's declining rankings, the administration would rather be outperform in a pool of mediocre competition than strive to be the best and take the lumps where necessary to learn its shortcomings and improve.

(01-05-2015 07:07 PM)Riceman2004 Wrote:  As we have seen in many areas, including the ambivalence about Rice's declining rankings, the administration would rather be outperform in a pool of mediocre competition than strive to be the best and take the lumps where necessary to learn its shortcomings and improve.

Sorry, I simply can't agree that the current administration is ambivalent about Rice 's declining rankings. The decline started 30+ years ago, maybe more like 50 years ago. David Leebron's stewardship of Rice has been commendable even if it has not yet achieved his vision.

(01-05-2015 06:57 PM)I45owl Wrote:  Rice won CUSA last year (as I'm sure you're aware), was in the running this year, and has a very good shot at it next year. Even though the AAC was bad this year, I don't think Rice would be in the running year in and year out as they can be in CUSA. But having that kind of back story is a necessary situation for Rice to even be in the conversation... running 2nd or 3rd in the division every year in the AAC and perhaps winning the division 1 year in 5 would not help at all.

IMO -- if we don't think Rice (as a hypothetical AAC member) could compete year in and year out in the AAC, then our chances for a P5 invite are slim.

(01-05-2015 08:46 PM)MerseyOwl Wrote:  

(01-05-2015 07:07 PM)Riceman2004 Wrote:  As we have seen in many areas, including the ambivalence about Rice's declining rankings, the administration would rather be outperform in a pool of mediocre competition than strive to be the best and take the lumps where necessary to learn its shortcomings and improve.

Sorry, I simply can't agree that the current administration is ambivalent about Rice 's declining rankings. The decline started 30+ years ago, maybe more like 50 years ago. David Leebron's stewardship of Rice has been commendable even if it has not yet achieved his vision.

+1000.

(01-05-2015 01:37 PM)wavefan12 Wrote:  well for starters Tulane got the first ticket to the AAC and its not as if we had a compelling resume.

I don't know what you mean by "first ticket?
Tulane, Tulsa, and ECU (and Boise, and SDSU) all announced their move to the Big East in the year after Memphis, UH, UCF, and SMU did.

The Big East was an autobid football conference with really good basketball. After changing names, they kept the autobid one more year, so at least UCF got to earn it (and win their bowl)

After Tulane announced their move (but before they joined) I believe the league lost at least 10 members, including the Catholic 7 and the western schools changing their mind about coming over, apparently since the auto-bid was going away.

I would suggest that in the last two years C-USA football has suffered the loss of two really good programs (UCF and ECU), which has virtually been offset by the loss of several really bad programs (SMU leading the way), and also by the addition of several good and very good programs (like Louisiana Tech)

Meantime Boise still earned their access bowl without using the Big East autobid, and all G5 champions have a path to the access bowl (not just the former 6th best football conference)

Quote:How you can say that CUSA gives you a better shot is asinine and insinuates that all the best members of CUSA who left were all morons.

Not all of them. UCF got to earn a BCS berth. Louisville and TCU got P5 invites. I'd just rather not join only to turn around and pay an AAC exit fee a couple years further down the road. That would probably wipe out most of any marginal financial benefit.

(01-06-2015 08:44 AM)owl at the moon Wrote:  Not all of them. UCF got to earn a BCS berth. Louisville and TCU got P5 invites. I'd just rather not join only to turn around and pay an AAC exit fee a couple years further down the road. That would probably wipe out most of any marginal financial benefit.

If you're talking about an AAC exit fee to join a P5 conference, then I think that money is trivial in context. If there were any path to P5 where you could plop down $10mm, then it's a no-brainer to do so.

But, there's a problem with correlation and causation in the following post... It's the programs that were invited, not the conferences. The conference is not a magic carpet ride to P5. Consider that most, if not all of those programs in those conferences will never be invited to P5, yet nearly all of them think they deserve to be at some point in the future, after they've dominated their conference.

(01-05-2015 03:51 PM)wavefan12 Wrote:  The only schools to go to a P5 TMK came from the MWC and BE. I agree the AAC is no huge step but it is a clear step up IMO. How you can say that CUSA gives you a better shot is asinine and insinuates that all the best members of CUSA who left were all morons.

If we knew that Rice could get a P5 invite at some point, I might agree that staying in CUSA is a better/faster way to get there then moving to AAC. But we don't know that and we can't control that. I view the AAC as an incremental step in the right direction. Sure, AAC has been unstable. But it is unstable because its schools are trying to get to P5 conferences. CUSA is unstable because its schools have been moving to the AAC and get backfilled from even lower conferences.

Maybe the money is not significant. But given what Owl 69/70/75 keeps saying about the financial state of Rice athletics, isn't any increase good at this point? Invest that money back into programs. AAC has more bowls against P5 teams (this year AAC had 4, CUSA had 1). Also, bowl payouts are higher (AAC: Military $1,000,000, Birmingham $900,000, Armed Forces $600,000, St. Petersburg $537,500) (CUSA: HOD $800,000, Hawaii $650,000, New Mexico $456,250, Boca Raton $400,000) (Miami Beach and Bahamas not released). Most conferences, including CUSA (not sure about AAC) divide bowl revenues amongst all schools. But a couple hundred thousand here and a couple hundred thousand there add up.

And more academic peers in AAC then CUSA.

And while big schools like UTSA, FIA, and FAU have some upside, there is no doubt that, right now, UH>UTSA, SMU>NT, Memphis>MTSU, UCF+SoFl>FIU+FAU, etc. (in terms of across-the-board athletic perception). And of course, there are P5 teams in all those states that are way ahead of the AAC teams. I'm not sure any of the CUSA teams can ever catch the AAC programs that they are already behind, its not like those AAC schools are just treading water. They are striving for more as well.

So unless the exit fees were prohibitive, I'll take the AAC for Rice in a heartbeat. A small step forward is better than no step forward, especially when there are no guarantees of ever getting a P5 invite.

I think that if offered, Rice would move.

I will note that bowl payouts are a pittance. Schools will generally find a way to burn through about $400,000, which means that the schools not participating in a given bowl would split what remains of the payout. With the numbers above, CUSA would split $700,000 13 ways, and AAC would split $1,540,000 ~12 ways. I'd be surprised if either conference actually paid out any more than $250,000 out of the net earnings from bowl bids, with the exception of the access bowl.

(01-06-2015 12:50 PM)I45owl Wrote:  I think that if offered, Rice would move.

I think this would be the case with either the AAC or MWC. It might turn out to be a lateral move, but no worse. Refuse and we risk the rest of our division moving on and us defacto moving down a notch.

(01-06-2015 01:08 PM)JustAnotherAustinOwl Wrote:  

(01-06-2015 12:50 PM)I45owl Wrote:  I think that if offered, Rice would move.

I think this would be the case with either the AAC or MWC. It might turn out to be a lateral move, but no worse. Refuse and we risk the rest of our division moving on and us defacto moving down a notch.

Agreed.

There would also be the non-athletic side. Playing more peer schools wouldn't hurt.

I personally agree with all the reasons stated above... I'm still not certain that 'the administration' would 'do it in a heartbeat' though. I think there are some that believe that we can build basketball to respectability faster from CUSA (primarily because there are fewer 'basketball' schools to compete with) and I believe that the educational 'pitch' (which is far more significant in 'other' sports) may sell better. No, those aren't over-riding factors that cause you to ignore all of the other factors, but they aren't immaterial either. I think we'd do it... and try and keep UTSA, UNT and maybe La Tech as OOC opponents... but I don't think any of us know enough to make an informed decision about 'the program'... only perhaps individual aspects of it.

I'd also note that Rice is far less unique in the northeast... so our 'regional' outlook may not be the same as the AAC.