RE: Expectations? (Football)
I'm not really sure how this season will play out. Several things have changed. I could be completely wrong, but here are my feelings about things as of today:
Previously, I would have considered this past season a building year in looking back on it, and hopeful for a breakout year this coming season with an experienced SR QB. But our board's knowledge strongly indicates we had a LOT of attrition to our defense after this past season, which had some holes to start with, and which caused us to be vulnerable to the better teams we played last year. It may turn out that this season is a building year, and last was more a highlight year.
Spring practice didn't tell us much, as it seemed to mostly be used to take a look at younger players, and our SR QB and several key players were out or didn't appear to get a lot of significant reps. We seem to have strong RBs again which helps, and we seem to be good at developing our TEs most years nowadays, but our kicking game is not what it was a few seasons ago with Boswell, and so that further limits our scoring opportunities. (Boswell was a pretty exceptional kicker and made a huge difference for us.) If we can somehow find a better FG kicker who can hit from farther out than last year, it will make the biggest difference in covering up areas of shortcoming in the upcoming season.
We currently seem to be established as more of a 'field position' team rather than a 'big-play' team like Marshall, WKU and LA Tech, for example. While those teams play a style that seems to attract more national attention, Rice has chosen to go a different route.
We have the same coaching staff once again with no defections, so coaching continuity is there. The head coach is in his ninth season. We have two Offensive Co-Coordinators. We have the general sense that our recruiting is miles ahead of where it used to be and that each year the classes keep getting bigger and stronger. After a rough few years, we've mostly seen a slow, steady climb to the level we're at based on that, but there are questions by some if we are nearing the peak of what recruiting alone by this coaching staff can do without some more imaginative and aggressive in-game coaching. Many appear very satisfied with things just as they are. Our staff generally seems disposed to playing more basically in style, which many seem to really like and root for, but it doesn't appear to help us as much in the "reach" game situations. We have a pet "meercat" the coaching staff seems to particularly adore which some seem to love and some loathe.
We have some real tough early season games against Texas and Baylor. While Texas is not what it once was, they seem to be getting it together and may not be nearly as vulnerable as they were this past season. I am not as hopeful as I once was that an upset can be had, given the other factors that have changed for both teams, especially our apparent defensive questions going into the start of this season. Plus that game is on the road, and last season Rice proved quite vulnerable on the road to better teams.
Beating Texas (or Baylor for that matter) would be a significant upward step for our program at this point, but UT is never an easy place to play at no matter how good you are. Texas will be coming off opening at Notre Dame, and the Rice game will be their home opener. They follow Rice with both Cal and Okla State at home before playing at a very good TCU in Ft Worth. Rice hardly ever beats Texas these days, although there is the law of large numbers and it has been since 1994 since we beat them. Our recent games against Texas have all been blowout losses (9-34 in 2011; 17-34 in 2010; 10-52 in 2008; 14-58 in 2007; 7-52 in 2006, etc...)
If they take us lightly and if we get some defensive stops early and if we play more aggressively than we've ever shown before and if we don't have injuries...well, that's a lot of ifs this year, isn't it? And we probably need a few more ifs than just those to have a realistic shot. Plus we still have Baylor to play at Baylor and at North Texas sandwiched in between. It is more likely we concede the Texas and Baylor games to not get too beat up or injured and try to just focus on beating N Texas on the road as that is a conference game and it will not be easy either. They have played us tough in the past.
Rice finishes the season with Southern Miss at home, at UTSA and Charlotte at home. While South Miss should be better, considering Rice's early schedule, those three games look easier, and we will likely win at least two of those. Rice's mid-season games are at FAU, home against Army, and La Tech, and at UTEP. Again, it is likely we can win two of those. And the beginning of the season, which is probably the hardest part of the schedule, Rice has Wagner at home, at Texas, at N Texas, at Baylor and a fired-up WKU team at home. Again, I think we can pull out at least 2 wins there, and perhaps 3 with a miracle.
That puts Rice at 6 to 7 wins for the season. If we steal one of the harder games somewhere in those three season segments, that puts us at 8 wins. If instead one of them is a "turkey" game like we sometimes have against a lesser team, it puts Rice at 5 to 6 wins. I think 5 wins is the worst case scenario, but that would not be enough to put our current head coach's job in any danger, given all his past unprecedented successes as a head coach. While he'd still be a losing coach going into his 10th season, that does not seem to many to be as important at Rice as it is at other schools.
So, overall, I think this coming season presents a wider range of possibilities in win totals than last year. While it is hard to see Rice not making a bowl game of some sort just due to the sheer number of CUSA G5 bowl games recently added, it is certainly possible our win total could be anywhere from 5 to 8 wins this season, which puts Rice square in the middle of the CUSA pack again. I think anything beyond that looks to be a stretch due to the various circumstances mentioned above. As far as division titles, it will probably take other teams underachieving to give Rice a shot this season, and it seems most of you are not of that mindset this year, so Rice might well fall short once again.
Rice's coaching staff has seemed to have achieved a level where they can beat the very worst teams played with only an occasional turkey performance against them almost regardless of what happens in the games against better teams. Nowadays with bowl inflation that is usually more than enough to go bowling in one of the many lower level December "pre-season" bowl games before the big team match-ups take over. We can often beat or at least play closely one of the better CUSA teams each season, and we start off this season playing FCS Wagner, which most probably is a win for us as it is at home in game 1, though I can imagine they will be fired up and excited to play us as their "shot at the big-time game." (They did go 7-4 in FCS and hung 46 points on St. Francis. They will have a choice of 3 SR QB's and a couple of sophomores as well.) Rice is good, but we are certainly no Michigan, so we have to be careful given all our defensive issues even in the first game.
If our QB gets injured this season, Rice may have a real problem. And if our defense is exposed in the early games against our stronger OOC opponents and that model is successfully exploited by the CUSA teams we play later in the year, it could very well be a long season.
Rice's coaching staff does have a habit of backing themselves into a corner almost every season and at the last possible moment pulling out a streak of wins to save their jobs. I suspect that may well happen again this season, the way the schedule sets up. If LA Tech is having a good year when we play them, I think there is a better chance they break the recent pattern and take that game against us at our house. (The pattern would say it's our 'turn' for the win otherwise.) North Texas is also a concern for me this season, as it looks to be a classic "trap" game for us. I'm pretty sure we will be ready for WKU by the time we play them and they will be ready to put a beating on us, so that will probably be a fun game to watch for both teams' fans.
There is always the possibility that Coach Bailiff finally puts it all together in his ninth season at Rice and has a breakout year where he steals an OOC win against a quality P5 team and wins games outside of expectations in conference. While there is no real current indication that this particular year could be that year, we would be ecstatic if he did, and probably reward him with yet another contract extension carrying him into 2020 and beyond.
In the end, there's just too many variables this season to get a good feel until the games are played. Rice is the 'box of chocolates' team in CUSA this year, and it is harder to project just from looking at last year's win total. They really could go either way.
I think it is most likely we will be touting our unprecedented Fourth Straight Bowl Season while maintaining our plateau. There will probably be some knashing of teeth again this season on our board, but in the end our coach has shown that no matter what happens, he will survive the season same as he always has and head into 2016 with different questions and the same established pattern.
(This post was last modified: 04-28-2015 04:41 PM by GoodOwl.)
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