(07-24-2015 12:45 PM)Antarius Wrote:  

(07-24-2015 12:32 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  To me the season is more important than any one game. Given a choice, I'd rather lose to UT and Baylor, win all the rest, and finish 12-2 that beat UT and Baylor, stumble three times and miss out on the conference championship game, and finish 9-3 (plus bowl, win or lose).

I just don't see this happening. If we are good enough to beat a UT or Baylor, we will likely be good enough to beat C-USA. If we lose to an ODU, we likely are already 0-2 against the two P5 teams.

I clearly remember the last time we beat UT. We also beat Tech, Arkansas, UH and lost 7-0 at A&M and still couldn't beat TCU and Baylor and ended up losing the SWC championship.

(07-24-2015 12:32 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(07-24-2015 08:40 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  Last things first - me too. To quote the old cliché, that's why the games are played. Lightning does often strike again in the same place, pun intended.
But if the game goes as most observers think it should, at some point Rice will have a big enough lead that to be sportsmanlike, or for the purpose of getting playing time for the reserves, substitutions could be made liberally. Should they?
A lot of people here are putting all of our 2015 eggs in one basket, the one labeled UT. A loss there will end the season for some, as Baylor is, to them, a foregone conclusion and the other 10 games are meaningless contests against crap opponents. What do we want? A signature win. When do we want it? NOW!!! (well, September 12, anyway).
Game reps are much different than practice reps. So maybe we should get as many as possible before we play the season make or break game. Just a thought, for debate. My personal preference is that Bailiff be his usual sportsmanlike self, pull the starters, and let the back ups get some time. But I think it is a legitimate question if that is the best way to prepare the team for the make or break game the next week.

To me the season is more important than any one game. Given a choice, I'd rather lose to UT and Baylor, win all the rest, and finish 12-2 that beat UT and Baylor, stumble three times and miss out on the conference championship game, and finish 9-3 (plus bowl, win or lose). And the bast way to win 12 or 13 or 14 is to keep the starters healthy and get the reserves up to speed. So rest them if it gets out of hand. But first, make damn sure it gets out of hand, and in a good way.

The more pressing issue to me is do we keep starters in if things go badly against Texas or Baylor and we find ourselves down 30. No point in getting a starter hurt in a game you can't win.

Winning big or losing big, get the starters out and get the backups some PT.

Agree

(07-24-2015 01:15 PM)Rice81 Wrote:  

(07-24-2015 12:45 PM)Antarius Wrote:  

(07-24-2015 12:32 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  To me the season is more important than any one game. Given a choice, I'd rather lose to UT and Baylor, win all the rest, and finish 12-2 that beat UT and Baylor, stumble three times and miss out on the conference championship game, and finish 9-3 (plus bowl, win or lose).

I just don't see this happening. If we are good enough to beat a UT or Baylor, we will likely be good enough to beat C-USA. If we lose to an ODU, we likely are already 0-2 against the two P5 teams.

I clearly remember the last time we beat UT. We also beat Tech, Arkansas, UH and lost 7-0 at A&M and still couldn't beat TCU and Baylor and ended up losing the SWC championship.

The whole landscape has changed. Rice isn't going to beat or lose to anyone 7-0 for starters. The gap between the P5 and the G5 has grown.

(07-24-2015 12:45 PM)Antarius Wrote:  

(07-24-2015 12:32 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  To me the season is more important than any one game. Given a choice, I'd rather lose to UT and Baylor, win all the rest, and finish 12-2 that beat UT and Baylor, stumble three times and miss out on the conference championship game, and finish 9-3 (plus bowl, win or lose).

I just don't see this happening. If we are good enough to beat a UT or Baylor, we will likely be good enough to beat C-USA. If we lose to an ODU, we likely are already 0-2 against the two P5 teams.

Likely...yes.

Certain...no. Rice seems to often find ways to lose to teams we should beat. San Jose State?

(07-24-2015 12:32 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  Winning big or losing big, get the starters out and get the backups some PT.

Seems like a reasonable guideline to me.

(07-24-2015 05:15 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(07-24-2015 12:45 PM)Antarius Wrote:  

(07-24-2015 12:32 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  To me the season is more important than any one game. Given a choice, I'd rather lose to UT and Baylor, win all the rest, and finish 12-2 that beat UT and Baylor, stumble three times and miss out on the conference championship game, and finish 9-3 (plus bowl, win or lose).

I just don't see this happening. If we are good enough to beat a UT or Baylor, we will likely be good enough to beat C-USA. If we lose to an ODU, we likely are already 0-2 against the two P5 teams.

Likely...yes.

Certain...no. Rice seems to often find ways to lose to teams we should beat. San Jose State?

I've convinced myself that game did not occur

(07-24-2015 12:45 PM)Antarius Wrote:  

(07-24-2015 12:32 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  To me the season is more important than any one game. Given a choice, I'd rather lose to UT and Baylor, win all the rest, and finish 12-2 that beat UT and Baylor, stumble three times and miss out on the conference championship game, and finish 9-3 (plus bowl, win or lose).

I just don't see this happening. If we are good enough to beat a UT or Baylor, we will likely be good enough to beat C-USA. If we lose to an ODU, we likely are already 0-2 against the two P5 teams.

+1

(07-24-2015 12:45 PM)Antarius Wrote:  

(07-24-2015 12:32 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  To me the season is more important than any one game. Given a choice, I'd rather lose to UT and Baylor, win all the rest, and finish 12-2 that beat UT and Baylor, stumble three times and miss out on the conference championship game, and finish 9-3 (plus bowl, win or lose).

I just don't see this happening. If we are good enough to beat a UT or Baylor, we will likely be good enough to beat C-USA. If we lose to an ODU, we likely are already 0-2 against the two P5 teams.

It was a hypothetical. Should it actually happen? Of course not. But when you play up or down to the level of your competition, things like that do happen.

(07-24-2015 05:15 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(07-24-2015 12:45 PM)Antarius Wrote:  

(07-24-2015 12:32 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  To me the season is more important than any one game. Given a choice, I'd rather lose to UT and Baylor, win all the rest, and finish 12-2 that beat UT and Baylor, stumble three times and miss out on the conference championship game, and finish 9-3 (plus bowl, win or lose).

I just don't see this happening. If we are good enough to beat a UT or Baylor, we will likely be good enough to beat C-USA. If we lose to an ODU, we likely are already 0-2 against the two P5 teams.

Likely...yes.

Certain...no. Rice seems to often find ways to lose to teams we should beat. San Jose State?

That was the beginning of the end for Hatfield. Wasn't the final score 70-67 or something? I think we blew a 21-0 lead.

For some reason when I see our first opponent's name I mentally pronounce it VOGner (even though I'm not a classical audiophile).
This opener reminds me of 1982 - we were riding high with back to back 5-6 and 4-7 records (doesn't sound like much, but against brutal schedules we had wins over Tech, LSU, Arkansas, TCU (twice), aggy, uh). One DCTF prognosticator even picked us to finish second in the SWC in '82 (albeit that blowhard idiot Skip Bayless). We proceeded to lose our season opener at home to SW NE Louisiana Middle College, not to mention the rest of our games that season. We need to take Wagner seriously.

(07-25-2015 12:01 PM)Afflicted Wrote:  

(07-24-2015 05:15 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(07-24-2015 12:45 PM)Antarius Wrote:  

(07-24-2015 12:32 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  To me the season is more important than any one game. Given a choice, I'd rather lose to UT and Baylor, win all the rest, and finish 12-2 that beat UT and Baylor, stumble three times and miss out on the conference championship game, and finish 9-3 (plus bowl, win or lose).

I just don't see this happening. If we are good enough to beat a UT or Baylor, we will likely be good enough to beat C-USA. If we lose to an ODU, we likely are already 0-2 against the two P5 teams.

Likely...yes.

Certain...no. Rice seems to often find ways to lose to teams we should beat. San Jose State?

That was the beginning of the end for Hatfield. Wasn't the final score 70-67 or something? I think we blew a 21-0 lead.

70-63. The lead was 34-7.

I think the odds that we can name the score vs. Wagner are less than 50%

(07-25-2015 12:15 PM)wrysal Wrote:  For some reason when I see our first opponent's name I mentally pronounce it VOGner (even though I'm not a classical audiophile).
This opener reminds me of 1982 - we were riding high with back to back 5-6 and 4-7 records (doesn't sound like much, but against brutal schedules we had wins over Tech, LSU, Arkansas, TCU (twice), aggy, uh). One DCTF prognosticator even picked us to finish second in the SWC in '82 (albeit that blowhard idiot Skip Bayless). We proceeded to lose our season opener at home to SW NE Louisiana Middle College, not to mention the rest of our games that season. We need to take Wagner seriously.

I remember that game well. I had cherry picked that game is one to drive from Austin to see because I knew we were going to win. as I recall we lost the coin flip the opening kickoff was returned against us for a touchdown and we never could overcome that touchdown deficit.

(07-25-2015 01:18 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(07-25-2015 12:01 PM)Afflicted Wrote:  

(07-24-2015 05:15 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(07-24-2015 12:45 PM)Antarius Wrote:  

(07-24-2015 12:32 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  To me the season is more important than any one game. Given a choice, I'd rather lose to UT and Baylor, win all the rest, and finish 12-2 that beat UT and Baylor, stumble three times and miss out on the conference championship game, and finish 9-3 (plus bowl, win or lose).

I just don't see this happening. If we are good enough to beat a UT or Baylor, we will likely be good enough to beat C-USA. If we lose to an ODU, we likely are already 0-2 against the two P5 teams.

Likely...yes.

Certain...no. Rice seems to often find ways to lose to teams we should beat. San Jose State?

That was the beginning of the end for Hatfield. Wasn't the final score 70-67 or something? I think we blew a 21-0 lead.

70-63. The lead was 34-7.

Whoa. This game was before my time at Rice, and I knew the score, but didn't realize we choked up a 34-7 lead.

This puts our collapse from down 28-24 to 76-31 vs LaTech to shame. Although this was pretty lousy too.

(07-25-2015 03:12 PM)Antarius Wrote:  

(07-25-2015 01:18 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(07-25-2015 12:01 PM)Afflicted Wrote:  

(07-24-2015 05:15 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(07-24-2015 12:45 PM)Antarius Wrote:  I just don't see this happening. If we are good enough to beat a UT or Baylor, we will likely be good enough to beat C-USA. If we lose to an ODU, we likely are already 0-2 against the two P5 teams.

Likely...yes.

Certain...no. Rice seems to often find ways to lose to teams we should beat. San Jose State?

That was the beginning of the end for Hatfield. Wasn't the final score 70-67 or something? I think we blew a 21-0 lead.

70-63. The lead was 34-7.

Whoa. This game was before my time at Rice, and I knew the score, but didn't realize we choked up a 34-7 lead.

This puts our collapse from down 28-24 to 76-31 vs LaTech to shame. Although this was pretty lousy too.

San Jose St pulled their starter and the backup came in an threw for about 600 yards. The team never recovered after that game.

Alcorn State and ODU were the recent terrible losses and both with Bailiff

(07-25-2015 05:22 PM)Afflicted Wrote:  

(07-25-2015 03:12 PM)Antarius Wrote:  

(07-25-2015 01:18 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(07-25-2015 12:01 PM)Afflicted Wrote:  

(07-24-2015 05:15 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  Likely...yes.

Certain...no. Rice seems to often find ways to lose to teams we should beat. San Jose State?

That was the beginning of the end for Hatfield. Wasn't the final score 70-67 or something? I think we blew a 21-0 lead.

70-63. The lead was 34-7.

Whoa. This game was before my time at Rice, and I knew the score, but didn't realize we choked up a 34-7 lead.

This puts our collapse from down 28-24 to 76-31 vs LaTech to shame. Although this was pretty lousy too.

San Jose St pulled their starter and the backup came in an threw for about 600 yards. The team never recovered after that game.

That SJSU game is legendary.

And I think you mean Nicholls St., OldOwl.

In the SJSU game the worm turned after we intercepted a long 4th down pass attempt by SJSU from their side of the 50. We gave up about 50 yards of field poition, didn't move the ball and gave them decent field position and it went downhill from there.

AS for ODU -- really disappointing loss, but I don't think I ever saw a team lose so many secondary players to injury in one game -- ever. And Driphus got hurt too in the 1st half. If not for the freakish batch on injuries we win that game.

Not only did we not move the ball, we promptly fumbled it away and set them up inside our 10 for the tying score.

SJSU scored 70 points on 11-24 passing with 4 INTs. They didn't win another game that year in conference.

And counter to the notion that we never recovered after this game, we went out and beat SMU 44-10 the next week.

(07-24-2015 12:45 PM)Antarius Wrote:  

(07-24-2015 12:32 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  To me the season is more important than any one game. Given a choice, I'd rather lose to UT and Baylor, win all the rest, and finish 12-2 that beat UT and Baylor, stumble three times and miss out on the conference championship game, and finish 9-3 (plus bowl, win or lose).

I just don't see this happening. If we are good enough to beat a UT or Baylor, we will likely be good enough to beat C-USA. If we lose to an ODU, we likely are already 0-2 against the two P5 teams.

Besides being unlikely, I don't follow the thinking. Sweeping UT and Baylor would be 10x more satisfying for a lot of our fans than winning a CUSA championship, the value of which has been diminished by the absence of any meaningful tie-in with the loss of the Liberty Bowl. And just as few if any on this board could tell you who won the Sun Belt last year, we'd get significantly more national attention with a 3-0 start that included wins over Texas and Baylor.