(07-19-2016 03:20 PM)Antarius Wrote:  

(07-19-2016 02:54 PM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  

(07-19-2016 11:45 AM)ExcitedOwl18 Wrote:  

(07-19-2016 11:30 AM)HawaiiOwl Wrote:  

(07-19-2016 11:22 AM)ExcitedOwl18 Wrote:  This is UT's current locker room, which many UT people are saying is behind the times and a replacement is in the works.

Our NEW locker room is not going to be that much nicer than UT's current one.

I've been in A&M's locker room, and they have TV's in the bathroom mirror, a barber shop, a food and drink bar that is fully staffed, etc...

They (UT) have so much money, their facilities are constantly upgraded. They had a top ten recruiting class w this facility AND a losing record(
IIRC)

I know... Just using it as an example. Antarius brought up Rice winning a national championship in baseball, so we should look at the schools that fund their program to win a national championship.

Look at Clemson, Bama, Ohio St, etc. and you will see similar.

Just look at UVA.

They went from nothing to something when they (and John Grisham) threw a ton of money at their program, bought them a sweet coach, and built some new digs and it paid off.

It is not a guarantee, but at the time, when it seems like every program across the country is trying their darndest to succeed in football, basketball, and baseball, you will almost undoubtedly fall behind and fail if you don't try and keep up with the Jones'. The path to success will not be guaranteed by addressing the superficial aspects of one of those three big sports programs nowadays, but you are almost guaranteed to fail if you do ignore them.

I mean, just look at what Tom Herman is saying about how they view these upgrades as ways to compensate their players since they cannot be paid - I bet you every coach used that against us when there was mold in our locker rooms and the ceiling tiles were falling down. The coach could point at that and say - see, they don't actually care about you or winning. The good thing is, those opposing teams don't have that ammo anymore.

We have so many examples of winners who have both a good coach and facilities. We have lots of examples of teams with facilities and no coach who are losers. I am yet to see an example of facilities making a major difference without a good/great coach. Please share.

No one has ever argues that better facilities are bad. Simply put, the ROI on 30 million dollars is far higher elsewhere.

You do realize that out of 129 FBS teams, our facility may have literally been #129?

Can you give me an example of a team with similarly terrible facilities that has been a huge winner in recent times?

(07-19-2016 03:25 PM)ExcitedOwl18 Wrote:  

(07-19-2016 03:20 PM)Antarius Wrote:  

(07-19-2016 02:54 PM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  

(07-19-2016 11:45 AM)ExcitedOwl18 Wrote:  

(07-19-2016 11:30 AM)HawaiiOwl Wrote:  They (UT) have so much money, their facilities are constantly upgraded. They had a top ten recruiting class w this facility AND a losing record(
IIRC)

I know... Just using it as an example. Antarius brought up Rice winning a national championship in baseball, so we should look at the schools that fund their program to win a national championship.

Look at Clemson, Bama, Ohio St, etc. and you will see similar.

Just look at UVA.

They went from nothing to something when they (and John Grisham) threw a ton of money at their program, bought them a sweet coach, and built some new digs and it paid off.

It is not a guarantee, but at the time, when it seems like every program across the country is trying their darndest to succeed in football, basketball, and baseball, you will almost undoubtedly fall behind and fail if you don't try and keep up with the Jones'. The path to success will not be guaranteed by addressing the superficial aspects of one of those three big sports programs nowadays, but you are almost guaranteed to fail if you do ignore them.

I mean, just look at what Tom Herman is saying about how they view these upgrades as ways to compensate their players since they cannot be paid - I bet you every coach used that against us when there was mold in our locker rooms and the ceiling tiles were falling down. The coach could point at that and say - see, they don't actually care about you or winning. The good thing is, those opposing teams don't have that ammo anymore.

We have so many examples of winners who have both a good coach and facilities. We have lots of examples of teams with facilities and no coach who are losers. I am yet to see an example of facilities making a major difference without a good/great coach. Please share.

No one has ever argues that better facilities are bad. Simply put, the ROI on 30 million dollars is far higher elsewhere.

You do realize that out of 129 FBS teams, our facility may have literally been #129?

Can you give me an example of a team with similarly terrible facilities that has been a huge winner in recent times?

I would say our facilities were the worst in our conference which everyone likes to hate on. So only a sunbelt school might have been worse and looking at schools like ULL id guess most of them were ahead of us. #129 is a fair bet. This point has been beaten into the ground. Just a thinly disguised way for Antarius to hate on the coaching staff more.

(07-19-2016 03:20 PM)Antarius Wrote:  

(07-19-2016 02:54 PM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  Just look at UVA.

They went from nothing to something when they (and John Grisham) threw a ton of money at their program, bought them a sweet coach, and built some new digs and it paid off.

It is not a guarantee, but at the time, when it seems like every program across the country is trying their darndest to succeed in football, basketball, and baseball, you will almost undoubtedly fall behind and fail if you don't try and keep up with the Jones'. The path to success will not be guaranteed by addressing the superficial aspects of one of those three big sports programs nowadays, but you are almost guaranteed to fail if you do ignore them.

I mean, just look at what Tom Herman is saying about how they view these upgrades as ways to compensate their players since they cannot be paid - I bet you every coach used that against us when there was mold in our locker rooms and the ceiling tiles were falling down. The coach could point at that and say - see, they don't actually care about you or winning. The good thing is, those opposing teams don't have that ammo anymore.

We have so many examples of winners who have both a good coach and facilities. We have lots of examples of teams with facilities and no coach who are losers. I am yet to see an example of facilities making a major difference without a good/great coach. Please share.

No one has ever argues that better facilities are bad. Simply put, the ROI on 30 million dollars is far higher elsewhere.

And of course, the legitimate counter-argument is that donors probably are not giving those 30 million dollars for anything other than facilities...

(07-19-2016 03:25 PM)ExcitedOwl18 Wrote:  

(07-19-2016 03:20 PM)Antarius Wrote:  

(07-19-2016 02:54 PM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  

(07-19-2016 11:45 AM)ExcitedOwl18 Wrote:  

(07-19-2016 11:30 AM)HawaiiOwl Wrote:  They (UT) have so much money, their facilities are constantly upgraded. They had a top ten recruiting class w this facility AND a losing record(
IIRC)

I know... Just using it as an example. Antarius brought up Rice winning a national championship in baseball, so we should look at the schools that fund their program to win a national championship.

Look at Clemson, Bama, Ohio St, etc. and you will see similar.

Just look at UVA.

They went from nothing to something when they (and John Grisham) threw a ton of money at their program, bought them a sweet coach, and built some new digs and it paid off.

It is not a guarantee, but at the time, when it seems like every program across the country is trying their darndest to succeed in football, basketball, and baseball, you will almost undoubtedly fall behind and fail if you don't try and keep up with the Jones'. The path to success will not be guaranteed by addressing the superficial aspects of one of those three big sports programs nowadays, but you are almost guaranteed to fail if you do ignore them.

I mean, just look at what Tom Herman is saying about how they view these upgrades as ways to compensate their players since they cannot be paid - I bet you every coach used that against us when there was mold in our locker rooms and the ceiling tiles were falling down. The coach could point at that and say - see, they don't actually care about you or winning. The good thing is, those opposing teams don't have that ammo anymore.

We have so many examples of winners who have both a good coach and facilities. We have lots of examples of teams with facilities and no coach who are losers. I am yet to see an example of facilities making a major difference without a good/great coach. Please share.

No one has ever argues that better facilities are bad. Simply put, the ROI on 30 million dollars is far higher elsewhere.

You do realize that out of 129 FBS teams, our facility may have literally been #129?

Can you give me an example of a team with similarly terrible facilities that has been a huge winner in recent times?

I can give you an example of a Hall of Fame Coach (based on work at Air Force, Arkansas, Clemson) with numerous coaching awards, including Coach of the Decade, coming to a school with lousy facilities, winning a conference co-championship, beating Texas, winning 7 games back to back, 8 games another year, and slowly being knee-capped by changing admissions hurdles, drops in conference affiliations, losing assistants to higher paying jobs and the lousy locker rooms.

I believe our offense in 1996-1997 was as well-oiled as Hatfield's Arkansas teams.

Discussing the merits of the EZF is ridiculous. It helps our recruiting, and maybe/probably in a huge way. 'nuf said.

If a couple of folks think the money should've been spent elsewhere, fine, but it's too late. Evidently the AD (AD's?) think(thought) otherwise, as did the people who fronted the money. I have no doubt the players disagree. (edit - i.e., they disagree that EZF money should've gone somewhere else).

And Reckling (and the statement it made about our program and how it caused us to be perceived in the national spotlight) played a key role in our success since 2000.

Here is a video of the Idaho Vandals' facility. They are probably the most inept FBS team, and as a result, are moving to FCS. The relevant portion is from 7:00-11:00 or so:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uf2qdnYDCs

10x nicer than our facility.

To Rick Gerlach's point about Hatfield, you do realize that was almost 20 years ago now, before the college football arms race truly took off?

(07-19-2016 03:25 PM)ExcitedOwl18 Wrote:  

(07-19-2016 03:20 PM)Antarius Wrote:  

(07-19-2016 02:54 PM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  

(07-19-2016 11:45 AM)ExcitedOwl18 Wrote:  

(07-19-2016 11:30 AM)HawaiiOwl Wrote:  They (UT) have so much money, their facilities are constantly upgraded. They had a top ten recruiting class w this facility AND a losing record(
IIRC)

I know... Just using it as an example. Antarius brought up Rice winning a national championship in baseball, so we should look at the schools that fund their program to win a national championship.

Look at Clemson, Bama, Ohio St, etc. and you will see similar.

Just look at UVA.

They went from nothing to something when they (and John Grisham) threw a ton of money at their program, bought them a sweet coach, and built some new digs and it paid off.

It is not a guarantee, but at the time, when it seems like every program across the country is trying their darndest to succeed in football, basketball, and baseball, you will almost undoubtedly fall behind and fail if you don't try and keep up with the Jones'. The path to success will not be guaranteed by addressing the superficial aspects of one of those three big sports programs nowadays, but you are almost guaranteed to fail if you do ignore them.

I mean, just look at what Tom Herman is saying about how they view these upgrades as ways to compensate their players since they cannot be paid - I bet you every coach used that against us when there was mold in our locker rooms and the ceiling tiles were falling down. The coach could point at that and say - see, they don't actually care about you or winning. The good thing is, those opposing teams don't have that ammo anymore.

We have so many examples of winners who have both a good coach and facilities. We have lots of examples of teams with facilities and no coach who are losers. I am yet to see an example of facilities making a major difference without a good/great coach. Please share.

No one has ever argues that better facilities are bad. Simply put, the ROI on 30 million dollars is far higher elsewhere.

You do realize that out of 129 FBS teams, our facility may have literally been #129?

Can you give me an example of a team with similarly terrible facilities that has been a huge winner in recent times?

Winners don't seem to make the facilities cures all argument and run with it. That's a loser only exclusive teams like Brauns MBB and UNT etc.

This is exhausting. Let's see how year 10 goes. It's unlikely to be worth a damn so that should settle this debate for good.

(07-19-2016 03:32 PM)mrbig Wrote:  

(07-19-2016 03:20 PM)Antarius Wrote:  

(07-19-2016 02:54 PM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  Just look at UVA.

They went from nothing to something when they (and John Grisham) threw a ton of money at their program, bought them a sweet coach, and built some new digs and it paid off.

It is not a guarantee, but at the time, when it seems like every program across the country is trying their darndest to succeed in football, basketball, and baseball, you will almost undoubtedly fall behind and fail if you don't try and keep up with the Jones'. The path to success will not be guaranteed by addressing the superficial aspects of one of those three big sports programs nowadays, but you are almost guaranteed to fail if you do ignore them.

I mean, just look at what Tom Herman is saying about how they view these upgrades as ways to compensate their players since they cannot be paid - I bet you every coach used that against us when there was mold in our locker rooms and the ceiling tiles were falling down. The coach could point at that and say - see, they don't actually care about you or winning. The good thing is, those opposing teams don't have that ammo anymore.

We have so many examples of winners who have both a good coach and facilities. We have lots of examples of teams with facilities and no coach who are losers. I am yet to see an example of facilities making a major difference without a good/great coach. Please share.

No one has ever argues that better facilities are bad. Simply put, the ROI on 30 million dollars is far higher elsewhere.

And of course, the legitimate counter-argument is that donors probably are not giving those 30 million dollars for anything other than facilities...

That is a valid point.that said you need much less than 30 million to get a decent coach.

(07-19-2016 03:42 PM)ExcitedOwl18 Wrote:  Here is a video of the Idaho Vandals' facility. They are probably the most inept FBS team, and as a result, are moving to FCS. The relevant portion is from 7:00-11:00 or so:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uf2qdnYDCs

10x nicer than our facility.

To Rick Gerlach's point about Hatfield, you do realize that was almost 20 years ago now, before the college football arms race truly took off?

Just to clarify - - my point was that Rice conditions, including our facilities and general apathy and lack of support, eventually wore down and overcame the ability of a universally-acknowledged, high caliber coach, who actually managed to accomplish things here that had not been accomplished in over 30 years prior to his arrival.

Which argues strongly that the 'a good coach doesn't need facilities' argument doesn't hold water, at least not when the facilities and other handicaps are as severe as they sometimes get at Rice. (and dropping from SWC to WAC16 to WAC leftovers, etc, was NOT on the coaches, at least it wasn't on Goldsmith or Hatfield).

edit - in short, I definitely am on Excited's 'side' in this discussion.

(07-19-2016 03:53 PM)Rick Gerlach Wrote:  

(07-19-2016 03:42 PM)ExcitedOwl18 Wrote:  Here is a video of the Idaho Vandals' facility. They are probably the most inept FBS team, and as a result, are moving to FCS. The relevant portion is from 7:00-11:00 or so:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uf2qdnYDCs

10x nicer than our facility.

To Rick Gerlach's point about Hatfield, you do realize that was almost 20 years ago now, before the college football arms race truly took off?

Just to clarify - - my point was that Rice conditions, including our facilities and general apathy and lack of support, eventually wore down and overcame the ability of a universally-acknowledged, high caliber coach, who actually managed to accomplish things here that had not been accomplished in over 30 years prior to his arrival.

Which argues strongly that the 'a good coach doesn't need facilities' argument doesn't hold water, at least not when the facilities and other handicaps are as severe as they sometimes get at Rice. (and dropping from SWC to WAC16 to WAC leftovers, etc, was NOT on the coaches, at least it wasn't on Goldsmith or Hatfield).

edit - in short, I definitely am on Excited's 'side' in this discussion.

Wayne Graham proved that good coaches need facilities. There's a reason he lobbied for Reckling.

(07-19-2016 03:42 PM)ExcitedOwl18 Wrote:  Here is a video of the Idaho Vandals' facility. They are probably the most inept FBS team, and as a result, are moving to FCS. The relevant portion is from 7:00-11:00 or so:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uf2qdnYDCs

10x nicer than our facility.

To Rick Gerlach's point about Hatfield, you do realize that was almost 20 years ago now, before the college football arms race truly took off?

That "lounge area" looks like someone's basement setup. Sad that was better than what we had.

(07-19-2016 03:32 PM)mrbig Wrote:  

(07-19-2016 03:20 PM)Antarius Wrote:  No one has ever argues that better facilities are bad. Simply put, the ROI on 30 million dollars is far higher elsewhere.

And of course, the legitimate counter-argument is that donors probably are not giving those 30 million dollars for anything other than facilities...

Nor will a coach that already commands a $30mm contract come here if we have crappy facilities, so you won't even have the opportunity to potentially seek a higher ROI on your $30mm, through hiring a stud coach. Nick Saban would not come here even if we magically were able to pay him more money than Alabama, because the rest of the intangibles (recruiting ability, institutional support, FACILITIES) suck compared to Alabama.

(07-19-2016 03:50 PM)Antarius Wrote:  

(07-19-2016 03:32 PM)mrbig Wrote:  

(07-19-2016 03:20 PM)Antarius Wrote:  

(07-19-2016 02:54 PM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  Just look at UVA.

They went from nothing to something when they (and John Grisham) threw a ton of money at their program, bought them a sweet coach, and built some new digs and it paid off.

It is not a guarantee, but at the time, when it seems like every program across the country is trying their darndest to succeed in football, basketball, and baseball, you will almost undoubtedly fall behind and fail if you don't try and keep up with the Jones'. The path to success will not be guaranteed by addressing the superficial aspects of one of those three big sports programs nowadays, but you are almost guaranteed to fail if you do ignore them.

I mean, just look at what Tom Herman is saying about how they view these upgrades as ways to compensate their players since they cannot be paid - I bet you every coach used that against us when there was mold in our locker rooms and the ceiling tiles were falling down. The coach could point at that and say - see, they don't actually care about you or winning. The good thing is, those opposing teams don't have that ammo anymore.

We have so many examples of winners who have both a good coach and facilities. We have lots of examples of teams with facilities and no coach who are losers. I am yet to see an example of facilities making a major difference without a good/great coach. Please share.

No one has ever argues that better facilities are bad. Simply put, the ROI on 30 million dollars is far higher elsewhere.

And of course, the legitimate counter-argument is that donors probably are not giving those 30 million dollars for anything other than facilities...

That is a valid point.that said you need much less than 30 million to get a decent coach.

But it may take 30 million (example only) to get a decent coach if he has to work with/around crappy facilities.

If the Owls do get a new head coach and staff in the near future, it will be easier to attract candidates with the EZF and other planned improvements to HRS.

Edit: Westside types faster than I do

(07-19-2016 04:18 PM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  

(07-19-2016 03:53 PM)Rick Gerlach Wrote:  

(07-19-2016 03:42 PM)ExcitedOwl18 Wrote:  Here is a video of the Idaho Vandals' facility. They are probably the most inept FBS team, and as a result, are moving to FCS. The relevant portion is from 7:00-11:00 or so:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uf2qdnYDCs

10x nicer than our facility.

To Rick Gerlach's point about Hatfield, you do realize that was almost 20 years ago now, before the college football arms race truly took off?

Just to clarify - - my point was that Rice conditions, including our facilities and general apathy and lack of support, eventually wore down and overcame the ability of a universally-acknowledged, high caliber coach, who actually managed to accomplish things here that had not been accomplished in over 30 years prior to his arrival.

Which argues strongly that the 'a good coach doesn't need facilities' argument doesn't hold water, at least not when the facilities and other handicaps are as severe as they sometimes get at Rice. (and dropping from SWC to WAC16 to WAC leftovers, etc, was NOT on the coaches, at least it wasn't on Goldsmith or Hatfield).

edit - in short, I definitely am on Excited's 'side' in this discussion.

Wayne Graham proved that good coaches need facilities. There's a reason he lobbied for Reckling.

A true statement that is not and has not ever been disputed.

But notice the good coach came first. We don't really have a lot of time here before the window likely shuts for good, so getting that good coach is of the essence.