Why play Wagner? JFK said we had to?

If we are left dredging the FCS, let's instead look internationally. Play a Canadian or Mexican University. We lose the auto win? for a bowl but the media gains would be huge. Play AAU schools McGill or UToronto, or the UNAM Pumas. Would not be much of a game but as numerous posters have implied, Bailiff will not run up the score so our guests won't be embarassed.

UNAM would have an entire country behind them and steal a great deal of media away from the TAMU game at the other stadium the same day.

Unconventional Wisdom?

(01-30-2015 09:00 PM)exowlswimmer Wrote:  Why play Wagner? JFK said we had to?

If we are left dregding the FCS, let's instead look internationally. Play a Canadian or Mexican University. We lose the auto win? for a bowl but the media gains would be huge. Play AAU schools McGill or UToronto, or the UNAM Pumas. Would not be much of a game but as numerous posters have implied, Bailiff will coach down to the opposition so our guests won't be embarassed.

UNAM would have an entire country behind them and steal a great deal of media away from the TAMU game at the other stadium the same day.

Unconventional Wisdom?

I actually think this would be a really cool idea. Instead of playing a traditional spring game, play a spring game against a Canadian School. I have no idea what the NCAA rules around something like that would be, but I'd like it!

(01-30-2015 07:56 PM)SaintsOwl Wrote:  

(01-30-2015 07:47 AM)MemOwl Wrote:  I don't want to believe this is a deliberate action by Karlgaard.

Our AD has to step up and start trying to make this program relevant.

What the hell do you expect?

I think JK determined that this was the best available alternative for one simple reason. There weren't any other alternatives that were available that were better.

I don't think some of you realize just how irrelevant our program has become, and how few options that leaves us.

Playing Wagner is not a good option. But that doesn't mean it wasn't the best available.

A bunch of you are insanely acting like Rice had a lot of options here. As I noted in post 33, there were only 3 teams with an open date on 9/5: Air Force, SDSU, and UCF (who has now scheduled FIU). Technically that means FIU was also open (I did not list them because they are a conference opponent). Rice, AF, and SDSU each have 2 road OOC games already on the schedule. I assume none of the 3 were willing to give up what should be a home game. Given the choice between AF on the road, SDSU on the road (both of which would mean Rice doesn't have a home game the first 4 weeks of the season), not playing on opening weekend, or playing Wagner at home, I applaud the AD's decision to schedule Wagner at home. Obviously not ideal, but better than the alternatives at this late date. Unless AF or SDSU coming to Rice was an option (which I doubt), then this is the best we could get.

I admit that I don't get the freak out factor over this game.

A significant majority of FBS teams play at least one FCS opponent each year (note that Wagner is also playing at BYU this year).

We're playing in Waco and Austin. We host Army in a very winnable OOC game against a somewhat name opponent. On paper, this is a 2-2 OOC schedule which allows us to keep full season goals in line while testing ourselves against top competition. We have a full compliment of six home games.

And - as mentioned - it's likely that local FCS options weren't available ... and even then you're talking maybe another 1,000 people in attendance.

EDIT ... here is just a sample of FCS opponents from last season only:
U of H hosted Grambling
Tulane hosted SE Louisiana
East Carolina hosted NC Central
Baylor hosted Northwestern State
TCU hosted Samford

(01-30-2015 10:26 PM)mrbig Wrote:  A bunch of you are insanely acting like Rice had a lot of options here. As I noted in post 33, there were only 3 teams with an open date on 9/5: Air Force, SDSU, and UCF (who has now scheduled FIU). Technically that means FIU was also open (I did not list them because they are a conference opponent). Rice, AF, and SDSU each have 2 road OOC games already on the schedule. I assume none of the 3 were willing to give up what should be a home game. Given the choice between AF on the road, SDSU on the road (both of which would mean Rice doesn't have a home game the first 4 weeks of the season), not playing on opening weekend, or playing Wagner at home, I applaud the AD's decision to schedule Wagner at home. Obviously not ideal, but better than the alternatives at this late date. Unless AF or SDSU coming to Rice was an option (which I doubt), then this is the best we could get.

Exactly. If we were putting 60,000 in the seats, we could buy a better opponent out of a contract. But we're not, and we can't, so we play Wagner.

2015 nonconference schedule for
Alabama: vs. Wisconsin, Middle Tennessee, ULM, Charleston Southern
TCU: @Minnesota, SFA, SMU
UH: Tenn Tech, @Louisville, Texas St, Vandy

That's three, and I could go on, but a lineup of Wagner, @Baylor, @UT, Army stacks up just fine (except, of course, for the greater percentage of road games).

(01-30-2015 11:04 PM)Frizzy Owl Wrote:  2015 nonconference schedule for
Alabama: vs. Wisconsin, Middle Tennessee, ULM, Charleston Southern
TCU: @Minnesota, SFA, SMU
UH: Tenn Tech, @Louisville, Texas St, Vandy

That's three, and I could go on, but a lineup of Wagner, @Baylor, @UT, Army stacks up just fine (except, of course, for the greater percentage of road games).

All true, but those 3 schools you listed above all play much tougher in-conference schedules than Rice in CUSA. Having said that, I agree with 69 and Mr.Big that we had limited options, and Dr. K made the best decision possible, all things considered.

How many of those complaining about the impact on season ticket sales are season ticket holders themselves? If you aren't, would opening the season against say Alabama have inspired you to buy season tickets?

IMO, if you can't honestly say yes to one or the other of these questions, you have no right to complain.

I am a season ticket holder.

I am not happy with Wagner.

I am 100% confident that Dr. K made the best deal for us he could under the circumstances.

What I am wondering is how we got to the point of being nine months out from the opening date with no scheduled opponent. did somebody cancel, or has it just never been filled? If the latter, do we have any open dates in the 2016 or 2017 seasons that need to be addressed now, before we have to schedule Wagner again?

(01-30-2015 09:34 PM)ExcitedOwl18 Wrote:  

(01-30-2015 09:00 PM)exowlswimmer Wrote:  Why play Wagner? JFK said we had to?

If we are left dredging the FCS, let's instead look internationally. Play a Canadian or Mexican University. We lose the auto win? for a bowl but the media gains would be huge. Play AAU schools McGill or UToronto, or the UNAM Pumas. Would not be much of a game but as numerous posters have implied, Bailiff will not run up the score so our guests won't be embarassed.

UNAM would have an entire country behind them and steal a great deal of media away from the TAMU game at the other stadium the same day.

Unconventional Wisdom?

I actually think this would be a really cool idea. Instead of playing a traditional spring game, play a spring game against a Canadian School. I have no idea what the NCAA rules around something like that would be, but I'd like it!

UNAM owns Rice having defeated the Institute's "lighter team" 47-0 in 1960.

http://www.deportes.unam.mx/noticias/noticia.php?id=437

UNAM scrimmages Texas Lutheran on August 28, 2015. Maybe we can buy them out and get the Pumas to Houston.

(01-31-2015 01:31 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  I am a season ticket holder.

I am not happy with Wagner.

I am 100% confident that Dr. K made the best deal for us he could under the circumstances.

What I am wondering is how we got to the point of being nine months out from the opening date with no scheduled opponent. did somebody cancel, or has it just never been filled? If the latter, do we have any open dates in the 2016 or 2017 seasons that need to be addressed now, before we have to schedule Wagner again?

I'd also like to know the answer to this question. NMSU cancelled last year, and Karlgaard and staff did a good job filling them in with Hawaii. That said, did we somehow believe that NMSU would potentially be able to meet the back end of the home-and-home this year, or was that series considered dead in the water when they cancelled at the beginning of last year? If the latter is true, then I'd like to know when teams started finalizing their exact dates for their 2015 OOC opponents, and, at that point, what teams were then available that had open dates that coincided with ours. Certainly scheduling a better opponent would have needed to be a mutual decision by the other school (ahem, BC), but I sincerely hope that we would have made the effort to reach out to any and all possible schools before having to settle on this team. Either way, like OO said, this better not happen again and we better not be putting all our eggs in a Bayou Bucket reprisal.

While the Mexican or Canadian schools are interesting and much more entertaining thoughts, I seriously doubt the NCAA would let us count a win against a school from a foreign country for bowl purposes. Although the cocky thing to do would be to assume we don't need that win in order to qualify for a bowl game and schedule them anyways.

(01-31-2015 01:31 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  I am a season ticket holder.

I am not happy with Wagner.

I am 100% confident that Dr. K made the best deal for us he could under the circumstances.

What I am wondering is how we got to the point of being nine months out from the opening date with no scheduled opponent. did somebody cancel, or has it just never been filled? If the latter, do we have any open dates in the 2016 or 2017 seasons that need to be addressed now, before we have to schedule Wagner again?

I am also a season ticket holder unhappy about Wagner - because I think they will bring no fans and add no local interest. I hope to hear JK say he tried every FCS program within 500 miles and got shut out.

Mademen says we are negotiating the open future spots with UH. I also hope we have a deadline for the Coogs before we move on.

I believe that NMSU actually paid Rice $200K to cancel the home game last year (and thus for this year as well). So you got the benefit of that plus the $ from Hawaii home game (and don't have the cost to go there for many years). Was a windfall for the program.

On the 'who screwed-up?' I think the answer is nobody. You have most all of your future OOC schedule already done. You have a guiding principle of wanting more home games for OOC vs. having to play them on-the-road. Absent playing Coogs at Reliant, the only way you get another home game for this year against a FBS opponent is to do a home/home which means another away game in future years which we don't want. So that takes you to the FCS route. Would have been nice to get someone 'closer to home' for attendance purposes like Lamar but I think reality is that we need a cupcake warm-up game to get ready for a shot against Texas. Biggest improvement for a FB team is between week one and week two. So I think it is great to do something different than the typical Rice P5 body bag first game of one.

(01-31-2015 08:07 AM)owl40 Wrote:  I believe that NMSU actually paid Rice $200K to cancel the home game last year (and thus for this year as well). So you got the benefit of that plus the $ from Hawaii home game (and don't have the cost to go there for many years). Was a windfall for the program.

On the 'who screwed-up?' I think the answer is nobody. You have most all of your future OOC schedule already done. You have a guiding principle of wanting more home games for OOC vs. having to play them on-the-road. Absent playing Coogs at Reliant, the only way you get another home game for this year against a FBS opponent is to do a home/home which means another away game in future years which we don't want. So that takes you to the FCS route. Would have been nice to get someone 'closer to home' for attendance purposes like Lamar but I think reality is that we need a cupcake warm-up game to get ready for a shot against Texas. Biggest improvement for a FB team is between week one and week two. So I think it is great to do something different than the typical Rice P5 body bag first game of one.

Yeah, I honestly don't get the teeth-gnashing on this. We were, frankly, pretty fortunate to get Hawaii at the last minute last year.

And with playing Baylor and UT on the road, I don't think we needed another 'challenge' opponent, and I don't think tying our hands for future years to get another G5 opponent, who for the return game we'd be saying "why are we playing X on the road this year instead of doing Y? Oh right, so we didn't have to open with Wagner 3 years ago, that makes sense!" was worth it.

That's especially true if this is about reviving the Bayou Bucket. If that starts up next year, I think we have pretty good looking OOC schedules...

(01-31-2015 08:52 AM)JustAnotherAustinOwl Wrote:  

(01-31-2015 08:07 AM)owl40 Wrote:  I believe that NMSU actually paid Rice $200K to cancel the home game last year (and thus for this year as well). So you got the benefit of that plus the $ from Hawaii home game (and don't have the cost to go there for many years). Was a windfall for the program.

On the 'who screwed-up?' I think the answer is nobody. You have most all of your future OOC schedule already done. You have a guiding principle of wanting more home games for OOC vs. having to play them on-the-road. Absent playing Coogs at Reliant, the only way you get another home game for this year against a FBS opponent is to do a home/home which means another away game in future years which we don't want. So that takes you to the FCS route. Would have been nice to get someone 'closer to home' for attendance purposes like Lamar but I think reality is that we need a cupcake warm-up game to get ready for a shot against Texas. Biggest improvement for a FB team is between week one and week two. So I think it is great to do something different than the typical Rice P5 body bag first game of one.

Yeah, I honestly don't get the teeth-gnashing on this. We were, frankly, pretty fortunate to get Hawaii at the last minute last year.

And with playing Baylor and UT on the road, I don't think we needed another 'challenge' opponent, and I don't think tying our hands for future years to get another G5 opponent, who for the return game we'd be saying "why are we playing X on the road this year instead of doing Y? Oh right, so we didn't have to open with Wagner 3 years ago, that makes sense!" was worth it.

That's especially true if this is about reviving the Bayou Bucket. If that starts up next year, I think we have pretty good looking OOC schedules...

I am not gnashing any teeth, mine cannot take it any more. But I do think it unlikely that I will make the trip to Houston for this game, and assume others will feel the same. I see the benefits of a "warm-up" in game one, so not that unhappy. I usually miss one or two home games each season, so Wags will be one. I have full confidence in Dr. K, and I don't require an explanation from him to prove that Wagner is the best choice at this this point.

My question is less "Who screwed up" than "How did we get here?" I care little for the apportionment of blame, and more for the reassurance whatever the path that brought us to Wagner, that we have learned our lesson and it will not happen again.

If the best teams in the land are playing FCS teams, and they aren't where we want to be, then where do we want to be?

All things considered, I'm ok with opening with Wagner. Unless we lose. Or just squeak by.

I hope we take the opponent and go crazy with the Wagner promotions/Long Island tie-ins. Maybe have a Wagner performance from some music school group in the pregame? Sell Long Island ice teas in the Roost during the game? Those are two quick promos that come to mind.

(01-31-2015 03:16 AM)exowlswimmer Wrote:  UNAM owns Rice having defeated the Institute's "lighter team" 47-0 in 1960.

http://www.deportes.unam.mx/noticias/noticia.php?id=437

From page 11 of the Oct. 21, 1960 Thresher:

U. Of Mexico Conquers
Lightweights In Debut

By JOHN BRENNAN

The Rice Lightweights ran into a steamroller last Friday night as they were overwhelmed by the University of Mexico Pumas, 47-0. Coach Cecil Griggs' previously untested gridders made their debut before 25,000 firecracker tossing fans in Mexico City's Olympic Stadium.

Although inexperience, size and the 7,500 feet altitude were factors contributing to the Pumas' success, the lightweights gave the Mexican team high praise for their speed and precision. The Riceites found themselves up against flashy backs, as unpredictable as the city's taxis, and larger linemen that provided very efficient blocking. Although the Pumas made most of their yardage on quick opening plays, the "big play" figured very prominently in their scoring thrusts as their punt returns and running passes caught the lightweights off balance. Things would have been worse except for the crisp tackling of Paul Timme, Tom Fatjo, and Ron Nichols, and John Hurlburt's brilliant pass interception.

Rice's offense moved well at times, but despite hard running by Ronnie Marshall, Lou Waters, and Steve Thomas, the lightweights were unable to score. In the last four minutes the Rice offense really got going, but the
clock ran out as Ben Lanford snared a pass on the two yard line.

The lop-sided score was quite a shock to the Mexico City newspapers, who had compared the Rice team to the powerhouse Randolph Field team of 1947. The big build-up through the newspapers, radio, and television was rationalized by some with charges of fraud. Nobody had indicated such, but apparently the Mexeian press thought the Pumas were taking on the Rice varsity.

Next Friday they take on Monterey Technical College, who were beaten 26-0 by the U. of Mexico, The lightweights are eager for their first home game, which may take on the aspect of an international rivalry.

The article was topped by a photo showing five Mexico City newspapers' lavish reports on of the game:



Coincidentally, the Rice varsity trounced SMU that weekend by the same score: 47-0.

(BTW, Rice won their next game -- against Monterey Tech, 39-12 --before a Rice Stadium crowd of "some 200 people," according to an article on p. 7 of the Nov. 4, 1960 Thresher.)

Ostensibly limited to players weighing at most 150 pounds, Rice's first "lightweight" squad was formed in Spring 1959 (see article on p. 4 of the March 13, 1959, Thresher.)

Quote: "Although unique in the Southwest Conference, the Military and Naval academies and many of the Ivy League schools have had a similar limited weight football teams for some years.

Rice fielded a lightweight team, coached by Cecil Grigg, until at least 1963. (Rice beat Monterey Tech in Houston again, 16-0 on Nov. 8, 1963, according to an article on p. 9 of the Nov. 13, 1963 Thresher.)