(10-17-2015 07:31 PM)InterestedX Wrote:  

(10-17-2015 02:46 PM)Antarius Wrote:  

(10-17-2015 02:38 PM)InterestedX Wrote:  For Rice to be a consistently top-50 national football program, Rice will have to change. Admissions will have to be weakened for football. Money will have to be poured into the program. Risks will have to be taken on marginal students who are potential difference-makers. There are simply NOT that many quality players available who also have the academics to succeed at Rice right now.

If you're willing to sacrifice the higher ground and jump into the mud, Rice can be top-50 quality.

Stanford.

This argument is now invalid

If that's your honest response, you're displaying a lack of reading comprehension. Rice isn't even in the same city limits as Stanford in financing athletics. Maybe not even on the same continent.

Stanford, Duke, Northwestern -- all three make Rice look like Little Sisters of the Poor in finances for athletics. Unless Rice jumps into the mud and loosens up the endowment, or one of you JP Getty guys drops a hundred million on the programs, it will be tough to be a national force.

+1. Even though this message board likes to act like it's not like other message boards, a lot of ideas ignore basic problems and present incomplete solutions. We aren't anywhere close to our academic peers people list for comparison when it comes to athletics. We are closer to CUSA schools (go figure).

(10-17-2015 07:12 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(10-17-2015 07:09 PM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  

(10-17-2015 07:05 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(10-17-2015 06:40 PM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  With all due respect 69, which 20 years are you referring to? Seriously. Yes, we went through a miserable stretch record-wise from the mid-1970s through the mid-80s, but who do we play on our schedule who were bottom quartile of college football?

I haven't looked them up on Massey or Sagarin or any other rating service, but I can think of a bunch of losses to teams that, if they weren't in the bottom quartile, they had to be very close, including:
Baylor - 1968 (this game was over Thanksgiving break so no students, teams won 2 games between them all year, and weather was godawful; if there were 1,000 actual paid admissions, I would be surprised)
Cincinnati - 1974
TCU - 1975, 1977 (I don't think TCU won a game between those two), 1979
SW Louisiana - 1982, 1988
Minnesota - 1983
SW Texas - 1986
North Texas - 1988
Duke - 1992

Yeah, and we lost to ODU last year, and should have lost to FAU last weekend.

I'd put those two in the same category. But at least we won 1 of them.

In 92 we lost to Air Force and Duke, notched a win against Sam Houston and beat a 1-10 Navy team to go 6-5. We did beat pretty awful TCU/SMU but had good wins against Baylor and TT. Smoked by UH. By the standard we hold Bailiff to that would be 2/3 awful losses, 2 good wins and about 4 or 5 cream puffs (yawn). The big difference being we actually had the SWC to recruit to. That was a triumph and Goldsmith is revered (probably because he left). We spent most of the 70's and 80's just losing to every quartile.

(10-17-2015 07:31 PM)InterestedX Wrote:  

(10-17-2015 02:46 PM)Antarius Wrote:  

(10-17-2015 02:38 PM)InterestedX Wrote:  For Rice to be a consistently top-50 national football program, Rice will have to change. Admissions will have to be weakened for football. Money will have to be poured into the program. Risks will have to be taken on marginal students who are potential difference-makers. There are simply NOT that many quality players available who also have the academics to succeed at Rice right now.

If you're willing to sacrifice the higher ground and jump into the mud, Rice can be top-50 quality.

Stanford.

This argument is now invalid

If that's your honest response, you're displaying a lack of reading comprehension. Rice isn't even in the same city limits as Stanford in financing athletics. Maybe not even on the same continent.

Stanford, Duke, Northwestern -- all three make Rice look like Little Sisters of the Poor in finances for athletics. Unless Rice jumps into the mud and loosens up the endowment, or one of you JP Getty guys drops a hundred million on the programs, it will be tough to be a national force.

In Antarius's defense, you originally wrote 3 sentences on academic standards and only 1 on finances.

In terms of finances, you're absolutely correct. P5 football programs live in a different financial world than G5 programs. It's going to be difficult to get into the top 25, or consistently in the top 50, without addressing that.

But those schools show that even schools in major conferences can succeed while having respectable academic standards.

IMO the long-term plan for Rice should include increasing the budget, but should not include decreasing academic standards.

(10-17-2015 09:10 PM)Gravy Owl Wrote:  

(10-17-2015 07:31 PM)InterestedX Wrote:  

(10-17-2015 02:46 PM)Antarius Wrote:  

(10-17-2015 02:38 PM)InterestedX Wrote:  For Rice to be a consistently top-50 national football program, Rice will have to change. Admissions will have to be weakened for football. Money will have to be poured into the program. Risks will have to be taken on marginal students who are potential difference-makers. There are simply NOT that many quality players available who also have the academics to succeed at Rice right now.

If you're willing to sacrifice the higher ground and jump into the mud, Rice can be top-50 quality.

Stanford.

This argument is now invalid

If that's your honest response, you're displaying a lack of reading comprehension. Rice isn't even in the same city limits as Stanford in financing athletics. Maybe not even on the same continent.

Stanford, Duke, Northwestern -- all three make Rice look like Little Sisters of the Poor in finances for athletics. Unless Rice jumps into the mud and loosens up the endowment, or one of you JP Getty guys drops a hundred million on the programs, it will be tough to be a national force.

In Antarius's defense, you originally wrote 3 sentences on academic standards and only 1 on finances.

In terms of finances, you're absolutely correct. P5 football programs live in a different financial world than G5 programs. It's going to be difficult to get into the top 25, or consistently in the top 50, without addressing that.

But those schools show that even schools in major conferences can succeed while having respectable academic standards.

IMO the long-term plan for Rice should include increasing the budget, but should not include decreasing academic standards.

There might be a few posters here that could support a little academic exception for athletes. My guess is that the average Rice alum would say.. definitely no.

Rice's academic standards for athletes are less than what many people think. Especially football, basketball, and baseball.

Curious to know, what is Rice's position on exceptions? Know for a fact Duke has some. Vandy has loosened up at least during Franlin tenure from what I'm told. How does Rice address it?

(10-17-2015 09:27 PM)ExcitedOwl18 Wrote:  Rice's academic standards for athletes are less than what many people think. Especially football, basketball, and baseball.

Yeah. I guess im sorta aware of that.
I think one of our handicaps in that area is that compared to the Big State Schools Etc we have fewer academic options to offer the prospective student athlete. We can't recruit a good athlete that could make good grades in law enforcement, food science or land management because we don't... And likely never will have those disciplines.
Although we might have generally lower academic admission standards for athletes, they still have to go to classes at Rice. And figure out a degree plan at Rice.

(10-17-2015 09:27 PM)ExcitedOwl18 Wrote:  Rice's academic standards for athletes are less than what many people think. Especially football, basketball, and baseball.

True.

(10-17-2015 09:27 PM)ExcitedOwl18 Wrote:  Rice's academic standards for athletes are less than what many people think. Especially football, basketball, and baseball.

Maybe, but you offer no standard for us or our peers save for "what many people may think"? The fact that we actually graduate a high percentage of our athletes is a huge impediment (we get to look at maybe 8-10 less football players per year because we don't fire any). One point that is not open for debate is that we get our kids Rice degrees at a high rate. That's what we are promising that other schools can't, and should be the standard, regardless of incoming scores or grades relative or otherwise.

(10-17-2015 09:42 PM)Gravy Owl Wrote:  

(10-17-2015 09:27 PM)ExcitedOwl18 Wrote:  Rice's academic standards for athletes are less than what many people think. Especially football, basketball, and baseball.

True.

One of the few times I would disagree. The McKinsey report highlighted the differences and there have been no changes to our standards since then (obviously). It's on record. We all have circumstantial evidence to apply, but I found our standards to be onerous even against my local college (plenty of friends that balled at Yale that couldn't sniff 1,000 on old school SAT).

(10-17-2015 09:42 PM)greyowl72 Wrote:  

(10-17-2015 09:27 PM)ExcitedOwl18 Wrote:  Rice's academic standards for athletes are less than what many people think. Especially football, basketball, and baseball.

Yeah. I guess im sorta aware of that.
I think one of our handicaps in that area is that compared to the Big State Schools Etc we have fewer academic options to offer the prospective student athlete. We can't recruit a good athlete that could make good grades in law enforcement, food science or land management because we don't... And likely never will have those disciplines.
Although we might have generally lower academic admission standards for athletes, they still have to go to classes at Rice. And figure out a degree plan at Rice.

And we still have pretty good graduation rates.

(10-17-2015 09:53 PM)mebehutchi Wrote:  

(10-17-2015 09:42 PM)Gravy Owl Wrote:  

(10-17-2015 09:27 PM)ExcitedOwl18 Wrote:  Rice's academic standards for athletes are less than what many people think. Especially football, basketball, and baseball.

True.

One of the few times I would disagree. The McKinsey report highlighted the differences and there have been no changes to our standards since then (obviously). It's on record. We all have circumstantial evidence to apply, but I found our standards to be onerous even against my local college (plenty of friends that balled at Yale that couldn't sniff 1,000 on old school SAT).

I'm not sure what years you are discussing, but as I write this there are almost certainly no more than 8 football players (ie, 2 per recruiting class) on the Yale squad with less than 1000 on the two part SAT (Critical reading, math). The minimum selection index for the Ivy League athletics is 171, but all but two players have to be within 2.5 standard deviations of the university mean, which at Yale would mean being above 185. It is very difficult to get an AI of 185 if your 2-part SAT is below 1000.

Moreover, I consider it highly improbable that there is a football player in the Ivy League (or even in the Patriot League) that Rice declined to admit, assuming the player was offered a scholarship by our coaching staff.

And this whole tread was started because of some raving lunatic on TV!! Sorry, but I've never seen the guy and hope to never again!

(10-17-2015 09:53 PM)mebehutchi Wrote:  One of the few times I would disagree. The McKinsey report highlighted the differences and there have been no changes to our standards since then (obviously). It's on record. We all have circumstantial evidence to apply, but I found our standards to be onerous even against my local college (plenty of friends that balled at Yale that couldn't sniff 1,000 on old school SAT).

Obviously you have a pretty good idea of what the standards are. I wouldn't be surprised if you know more about it than I do.

I think a lot of people, including posters here, don't know what the McKinsey report said, and also don't look at some of the publicly-available information about our recruits since then.

(10-17-2015 11:15 PM)RiceDad Wrote:  And this whole tread was started because of some raving lunatic on TV!! Sorry, but I've never seen the guy and hope to never again!

And people in lots of places (France, Quebec, parts of South Louisiana) think this guy is a total bastard anyway.

Yes.. I'd suggest some of you look at the ACT/SAT information on Rivals for a better idea. Only some players have it, but a few of the low end scores are pretty low.