(11-08-2016 01:30 PM)Rick Gerlach Wrote:  Our penalties may cost us first downs, but evidently we can assume on average that our opponents cost themselves more first downs.

I don't think that's a valid assumption, particularly given the number of yards Rice has given up. To make an extreme example, if you make 20 yards per play, you can afford to have a 10 yard penalties every series, and still not have it stall out your drive. By contrast, if your average scoring drive may involve 6-7 first downs, with most series going to third down, then every 10 yard penalty is likely to stall out a drive entirely.

(11-08-2016 04:51 PM)I45owl Wrote:  

(11-08-2016 01:30 PM)Rick Gerlach Wrote:  

(11-08-2016 11:08 AM)Hambone10 Wrote:  You can't just look at the numbers. You have to see it as part of the philosophy. 6 penalties is too many with a 'control the ball and clock' offense. 55 penalties and 185 first downs (this is what ESPN says) means that you've probably lost 20-30 first downs due to penalties... that's a couple of drive killers per game... and to a team trying to run the clock/shorten the game, that's suicide.
High risk/high reward teams can overcome penalties. Low risk/low reward teams have more trouble with it... and if you can't stop anyone, then every time you stop yourself is a double whammy.
I'll admit that penalties may not be our biggest problem, but they are among the more controllable ones.... and to a coach who values ball control, they should be a major priority.
My point was that there are penalties that are arguably 'good', like 'defensive holding' with seconds in the half, or knowing that you're beat deep so you tackle the guy and give up 15 yards as opposed to 50 (or 6 points). When have we ever seen that? For a team that gets beat deep so often, I'd prefer a few more PI penalties on some of those... or immaterial, like offside on the defense from the 1 foot line.... and there are penalties that are horrible, like a block in the back away from the ball or a late hit/pf etc etc.

I wasn't dealing with your conceptual thoughts earlier. I actually agree with your premise.
I was responding with data on the assumption we are penalized every X plays, and the unstated assumption (widely held here) that we are consistently worse with regard to penalties than other teams or our opponents.

You were countering my made-up numbers with facts.

(11-08-2016 01:30 PM)Rick Gerlach Wrote:  Since penalties virtually always have negative connotations, it is no surprise that penalties are very often seen as 'crucial' or 'impactful'. When our opponents get penalized, it is the righteous outcome of their foul misdeeds. In short, every team's fans see their own penalties as 'robbing' them of the 'rightful' outcome, whether self-inflicted or due to poor referees.

However, note that you will rarely, if ever, see me making those kinds of arguments. To the contrary, I was addressing my perception that a large proportion (at least relative to what I think a well coached team would look like) of penalties on Rice football come from a basic lack of discipline and preparation for various situations or eventualities. My perception is there are too many penalties that come from players being surprised and not knowing what else to do or when they absolutely cannot hold or jump offsides, go in motion, etc... I don't think it's being robbed, I think it's being under-prepared (as in ... our coaching staff - by necessity - goes by the rules on number of hours of practice allowed, and I doubt whether that's the case everywhere).

(11-08-2016 01:30 PM)Rick Gerlach Wrote:  A separate issue that pertains to perception . . . .
Even when we've intentionally taken a delay of game penalty, I've often seen moaning on the board (at the time it occurs), because it's automatically assumed by some that 'we couldn't get our act together'.

To be fair, I think it's the timeout followed by the delay of game penalty that gets the board most unhinged.

Yep, the main body of my post wasn't directed at you specifically.

I get your point, but this:
If our opponents are averaging 20 yards per game more in penalties than we are, I would think that, on average or a pro rata basis, we might also assume that they are committing more of the 'stupid' penalties than we are as well. At least some of our opponents must be more 'under-prepared' than we are. As noted, Baylor is dead last in penalties per game.

There definitely were howls at the delay of game penalties. The timeout definitely caused some to come unglued, but the 5-yard penalty was what we were shooting for before the timeout anyway. The timeout was the mistake for sure.

When you're 1-7, you're not going to get pats on the back for individual, good in-game decisions/outcomes. Even if the same individual, in-game decision would be lionized if called for by Bill Belichek or Jim Harbaugh. The Patriots and Wolverines opponents presumably do not put together 98-yard drives very often.

(11-08-2016 04:58 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  Since people have mentioned Stitt and Baldwin, I figured I'd compare them to Keeler as far as FCS candidates:

Stitt, 17 years, 121-70, 4 playoffs, 3 lost in 1st round, 1 lost in 2nd round
Baldwin, 10 years, 89-34, 6 playoffs, 1 championship, 2 semifinalists, 2 quarterfinalists, 1 lost in 1st round
Keeler, 23 years, 205-82-1, 13 playoffs, 1 championship, 7 finalists, 4 semifinalists, 1 quarterfinalist

I'd say Keeler has a more impressive resume than Stitt, and marginally more impressive than Baldwin, mainly that his teams have hung around somewhat longer in playoffs on average. Plus, this is Keeler's third year at SHSU, so he should have far better established Texas recruiting connections than the other two.

Normalizing...won/loss and playoff appearances by years as HC, and playoff results by number of times in the playoffs.

Stitt, 17 years, 7.12-4.12, 0.24 playoffs, (0.75 lost in 1st round, 0.25 lost in 2nd round)
Baldwin, 10 years, 8.9-3.4, 0.60 playoffs, (0.17 championship, 0.33 semifinalists, 0.33 quarterfinalists, 0.17 lost in 1st round)
Keeler, 23 years, 8.91-3.57-0.04, 0.57 playoffs, (0.08 championship, 0.54 finalists, 0.31 semifinalists, 0.08 quarterfinalist)

The standout difference among these candidates is that Keeler has made the finals one out of every three years (I assume when you say "7 finalists" you mean they lost the championship game... otherwise, it's slightly less than one out of every three years..30.3% versus 34.7%).

I like Van Malone a lot. One thing that I find quite interesting. He took over as SMU DC in 2015. Their defense last year might have been the only one in the country that was as bad as ours. This year, they have improved significantly, to 87th in total defense. That's not lights out, but it's far better than we are. If he could bring about that kind of improvement here, that would be impressive.

Another interesting thing, he is from Houston and has coached at the HS level in both Houston and Conroe.

(11-08-2016 04:58 PM)I45owl Wrote:  

(11-08-2016 01:30 PM)Rick Gerlach Wrote:  Our penalties may cost us first downs, but evidently we can assume on average that our opponents cost themselves more first downs.

I don't think that's a valid assumption, particularly given the number of yards Rice has given up. To make an extreme example, if you make 20 yards per play, you can afford to have a 10 yard penalties every series, and still not have it stall out your drive. By contrast, if your average scoring drive may involve 6-7 first downs, with most series going to third down, then every 10 yard penalty is likely to stall out a drive entirely.

Fair enough, but the fact that our defense is off the end of the bell curve in yards per catch and total yards per game doesn't change the fact that our opponents are making more 'not prepared' penalties than us.

The issues at hand are really our offense being more consistent and our defense not taking a 'bend and then completely shatter' approach.

I tried to find some 'number of long TD plays' or 'number of long plays' metric, but mercifully there aren't any I could find at the NCAA site.

We're not really arguing, but we're looking at different things/priorities. I FEEL like you're trying to find positives, and as a fan that's fine... but as an 'employer' (and this thread is about 'the next guy') I don't see the need to do that.

The fact that we are on the right of the bell curve in and of itself sounds like a positive, and I suppose relative to being on the left, that is true... but to me that misses the forest for the trees. Being successful is a combination of factors and the way those factors inter-relate, and not merely looking at a single factor and saying... we're positive here, so that's good.

IMO, we are too far to the left of the bell curve on offense AND defense for the marginal difference of 'penalties' to really come into play. My point is simply that if you want to be a ball-control offense, then you need to be essentially error free... like Navy is. If you aren't essentially error free, then ball control becomes difficult to execute... and if you have a porous defense and aren't error free, then ball control actually can become an anchor around your neck.

How often have we seen Bailiff or Hatfield teams go on 8+ minute drives down by 14+ (sometimes 21+) points? How about go on a 5+ minute drive and come up empty because of a penalty? That actually plays into our opponents hands. Hatfield didn't have that much of it because his defenses were decent (relatively) until late. Still, the fact that he was still essentially error free (low penalties) even with still a stout rushing attack, wasn't nearly as important as how bad his defenses got. We currently have Hatfield's last teams, without the offensive execution.

So having said that... I'll take more penalties if we have the offense and/or defense to make up for it... but obviously I'd prefer not only having the offense AND defense to make up for mistakes, but also not have many mistakes to make up for. THAT is a championship.

One interesting quirk with penalties is that at most levels, the more penalized team wins more often than it loses. While that seems counterintuitive, there is one factor that probably explains a lot of it. The statistics measure accepted penalties. If the result of the play is bad, you're less likely to take the penalty. If the other team holds and scores a TD on the play, you take the penalty. If the other team holds and throws a pick-6 on the play, you decline. Since winning teams typically make more good plays, they would stand to have fewer penalties declined. I don't think that explains all the difference. Some of it is probably due to the fact that more aggressive teams typically 1) win more and 2) get penalized more. John Wooden's comment, "The team that makes the most mistakes usually wins the game," because mistakes come from aggressive play and aggressive teams win games.

I was the source of the Al Davis quote about 5 yard penalties hurting worse than 15 yard penalties. That also makes sense, although perhaps counterintuitive. 15 yard penalties normally come from doing something that could help you win the game, only doing so overly aggressively. You hold to keep a rusher from killing your QB, you rough the passer because you were applying great pressure, and next time the opposing QB will hear your footsteps and maybe do something stupid. 5 yard penalties are typically from stupidity or ill-discipline or lack of focus or concentration, and most are for things that would not help you win the game if they were not called.

(11-08-2016 05:24 PM)Hambone10 Wrote:  We're not really arguing, but we're looking at different things/priorities. I FEEL like you're trying to find positives, and as a fan that's fine... but as an 'employer' (and this thread is about 'the next guy') I don't see the need to do that.

No, we're not really arguing.

And to be fair, I'm not trying to find positives, I just was reacting to something I-45 posted that (I believe) turned out to be incorrect (i.e., our frequency of penalties). And was not really wanting to argue with him either . .

but as he put it, I was resorting to the 'data card'. There's plenty this season to bemoan and our stats, particularly defensively, are in some cases off-the-charts bad right now. Just that the penalty factor isn't really one of them this year, at least not relative to other D1 teams.

Now if I start a thread (or change topic mid-thread) trying to convince people we're having a decent year, then that's certainly a different story.

I like a witch-hunt as much as the next guy, but just don't tell me "she turned me into a newt".

(OK, I admit, I hate witch hunts. There, you got me. But the 'turned me into a newt' thing still applies.)

I’m a first time poster and as a SFA fan, I've had plenty of time to browse different message boards because my team is out of the hunt. I see you guys mentioned Keeler, and let me just say, id be happy to have him out of our conference. We hired our HC because we thought he could out recruit SHSU's former head coach. Although we made some strides, since KC took over SHSU, he has out recruited every FCS team in the the state of Texas, and those boarding it, as well as numerous FBS schools. I was sold after watching 402 total Offense & 42 points in just the FIRST half against SFA it the Battle of the Piney Woods game. They were fun to watch!

Before I decided to do this post I did some research…


1. He runs a Spread/Up Tempo Offense:
- Ranked #1 in the country total O; 596.2 yds/game
- Ranked #1 in the country in scoring; 54 plus pts/game
- Ranked #2 in passing O; 386/game
- Ranked top 25 in rushing O; 210/game
2. Has many years of HC experience:
- He got his 200th win as HC (at that NRG game I was at) in just 22 yrs http://www.gobearkats.com/ViewArticle.db...=211214989
- He is the 9th fastest coach to reach the 200-win mark in the history of
college football, and is the 12th youngest to reach the plateau.
- He’s taken 12 teams to the Final 4 in 22 years (Wow!)
(easy info to find on the SHSU website) and as of Monday they will be the
#1 ranked FCS team in the country.
3. Texas Ties:
- Has been very successful in recruiting Texas (the young receivers they have
are crazy good!) http://m.herosports.com/news/fcs-footbal...s-football
- He took over a team 3 yrs ago that lost 10 starters on D and all the skill
players on O that ran the Option & rebuilt it pretty quickly with Texas kids
running his own version of the Up Tempo.

Keeler has won at 3 different spots, made a jump from D3 to FCS, from the East Coast to Texas and did it seamlessly.


The biggest question mark on Keeler, as I see it, is that he’s never been on a D1 staff. So I did some research and this is my take on it; 1) He has a track record of recruiting stud QB’s, Flacco and link above, 2) Coaching at high level FCS schools like Delaware and SHSU is no different then coaching in the MAC, Sun Belt, Conf USA or many in the AAC. This year alone we’ve seen NDSU beat Iowa, Eastern Washington beat Wash State, NIU beat Iowa State and Richmond take Virginia apart. SHSU had a game with New Mexico on the books for their opener but NM backed out. Probably because they saw Sammy take TTU to a 59-45 game, and 3) He played Navy 5 times, beating them twice with FCS teams during years when Navy had teams that went to Bowl games. (Ask Herman how tough it is to beat the Naval Academy in Annapolis)

Takeaway…1) Confident 2) Kids like playing for him 3) He WINS.

Just sharing my thoughts. He's been a headache to play against, so this is my effort to move him along so we have a chance to win again.

(11-08-2016 04:58 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  Since people have mentioned Stitt and Baldwin, I figured I'd compare them to Keeler as far as FCS candidates:

Stitt, 17 years, 121-70, 4 playoffs, 3 lost in 1st round, 1 lost in 2nd round
Baldwin, 10 years, 89-34, 6 playoffs, 1 championship, 2 semifinalists, 2 quarterfinalists, 1 lost in 1st round
Keeler, 23 years, 205-82-1, 13 playoffs, 1 championship, 7 finalists, 4 semifinalists, 1 quarterfinalist

I'd say Keeler has a more impressive resume than Stitt, and marginally more impressive than Baldwin, mainly that his teams have hung around somewhat longer in playoffs on average. Plus, this is Keeler's third year at SHSU, so he should have far better established Texas recruiting connections than the other two.

You won’t get any argument from me over Keeler’s credentials. He’s had a ton of sustained success and his Sam Houston squad this year is very impressive. That being said, what puts Stitt on top for me is where he’s had the majority of his success. Recruiting and winning at schools like Rice and Colorado School of Mines is a far cry from Sam Houston. Keeler has certainly sustained the success at Sam (Willie Fritz gets credit for building it), but I worry about his (or any coach from an FCS power) ability to repeat that success at a place like Rice when he has to do it recruiting from a much smaller pool and without the benefit (for the most part) of FBS transfers. Stitt, on the other hand, has actually done more with less and built a winner at a school with stringent academic requirements.

(11-08-2016 05:16 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  I like Van Malone a lot. One thing that I find quite interesting. He took over as SMU DC in 2015. Their defense last year might have been the only one in the country that was as bad as ours. This year, they have improved significantly, to 87th in total defense. That's not lights out, but it's far better than we are. If he could bring about that kind of improvement here, that would be impressive.

Another interesting thing, he is from Houston and has coached at the HS level in both Houston and Conroe.

I really like Malone. If SMU’s offense would have held up their end of the bargain in the games against Baylor and TCU, SMU might have pulled off another upset like they were able to do against UH. Malone had great game plans in both contests and made some good adjustments that kept SMU close well into the second half. In the end, the talent and depth discrepancies were too much to overcome without the offense doing anything. It’s a bonus that he’s recruited to SMU where there are some restrictions on the student-athletes they can bring in (albeit not to the level of Rice’s restrictions).

(11-09-2016 01:15 AM)Owlmar Little Wrote:  

(11-08-2016 05:16 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  I like Van Malone a lot. One thing that I find quite interesting. He took over as SMU DC in 2015. Their defense last year might have been the only one in the country that was as bad as ours. This year, they have improved significantly, to 87th in total defense. That's not lights out, but it's far better than we are. If he could bring about that kind of improvement here, that would be impressive.

Another interesting thing, he is from Houston and has coached at the HS level in both Houston and Conroe.

I really like Malone. If SMU’s offense would have held up their end of the bargain in the games against Baylor and TCU, SMU might have pulled off another upset like they were able to do against UH. Malone had great game plans in both contests and made some good adjustments that kept SMU close well into the second half. In the end, the talent and depth discrepancies were too much to overcome without the offense doing anything. It’s a bonus that he’s recruited to SMU where there are some restrictions on the student-athletes they can bring in (albeit not to the level of Rice’s restrictions).

So what happened to his defense last week against Memphis in a home loss of 51-7?

Rice to consider a DC from a 4-5 G5 program?

That's the kind of idiotic thinking that helped to drive our football program into the ditch.

First thing that Harbaugh did at Michigan was go hire a couple of local H.S. coaches. Whoever the Head coach at Rice is (Baliff) or whoever we decide to hire, I would love for him to go in and tap in to the local high school ranks. It is a no brainer to make sure we hold on to some of the kids that are right underneath our noses...

(11-09-2016 09:39 AM)Tiki Owl Wrote:  So what happened to his defense last week against Memphis in a home loss of 51-7?

Don’t get me wrong, SMU’s defense has a lot to improve upon and the Memphis game was certainly a bad result. However, I don’t believe the defensive performance was as bad as the score suggests. 21 of Memphis’ 1st half points came on a Kickoff Return for touchdown, a fumble that gave Memphis the ball at SMU’s 6 yard line that resulted in a touchdown, and a fumble that gave Memphis the ball at SMU’s 35 yard line that resulted in a touchdown. Also, the SMU offense did almost nothing all game against a defense that was averaging giving up 27 points/game going into the contest. As we Rice fans know all too well, an unproductive offense can add stress to a defense that is otherwise playing pretty well. Ultimately, what intrigues me about Van Malone is (1) the ability he’s shown to implement a defensive game plan to, at the very least, slow down high-powered offenses with far superior talent; (2) that he and his defensive staff have coached their players up well enough to execute the game plan despite their talent deficiencies; and (3) he’s shown the ability to make in-game adjustments going toe-to-toe with some of the best offensive minds in the country.

(11-09-2016 11:02 AM)WRCisforgotten79 Wrote:  Rice to consider a DC from a 4-5 G5 program?

That's the kind of idiotic thinking that helped to drive our football program into the ditch.

Idiotic? Maybe. Certainly if you base a candidate’s worthiness solely on his current school’s conference affiliation and record. I guess it was idiotic for Western Michigan to hire a 32 year-old position coach from a 7-9 NFL team with no coordinator experience and all of five years full-time coaching experience—Rice definitely wouldn’t want to hire a coach like P.J. Fleck.

I bring up candidates like Van Malone because--*Disclaimer: Please don’t read the next statement as an endorsement.*--of the candidates that are arguably available to Rice (and I only include him in this category because I believe he is desperate to coach again and realizes with all that continues to come out that it is highly unlikely he’ll have a job at the P-5 level), Art Briles is the only coach that I’m 100% certain would be successful at Rice--and Rice won’t and shouldn’t hire him.

The point being, with no “realistic” sure thing candidate available and a job as unique as Rice, you have to think outside the box and look beyond what may be deemed a good hire at a majority of the other schools in the FBS based on traditional coaching search criteria. In fact, I'd argue that trying to do it the same way as everybody else with less resources and more restrictions is "the kind of idiotic thinking that helped to drive our football program into the ditch," and it's why I prefer taking a shot on a candidate that may be viewed as non-traditional choice for a FBS school.

(11-09-2016 12:08 AM)Owlmar Little Wrote:  

(11-08-2016 04:58 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  Since people have mentioned Stitt and Baldwin, I figured I'd compare them to Keeler as far as FCS candidates:

Stitt, 17 years, 121-70, 4 playoffs, 3 lost in 1st round, 1 lost in 2nd round
Baldwin, 10 years, 89-34, 6 playoffs, 1 championship, 2 semifinalists, 2 quarterfinalists, 1 lost in 1st round
Keeler, 23 years, 205-82-1, 13 playoffs, 1 championship, 7 finalists, 4 semifinalists, 1 quarterfinalist

I'd say Keeler has a more impressive resume than Stitt, and marginally more impressive than Baldwin, mainly that his teams have hung around somewhat longer in playoffs on average. Plus, this is Keeler's third year at SHSU, so he should have far better established Texas recruiting connections than the other two.

You won’t get any argument from me over Keeler’s credentials. He’s had a ton of sustained success and his Sam Houston squad this year is very impressive. That being said, what puts Stitt on top for me is where he’s had the majority of his success. Recruiting and winning at schools like Rice and Colorado School of Mines is a far cry from Sam Houston. Keeler has certainly sustained the success at Sam (Willie Fritz gets credit for building it), but I worry about his (or any coach from an FCS power) ability to repeat that success at a place like Rice when he has to do it recruiting from a much smaller pool and without the benefit (for the most part) of FBS transfers. Stitt, on the other hand, has actually done more with less and built a winner at a school with stringent academic requirements.

I share your concern about transfers. But, I wouldn't let that discourage you too much from Keeler. You could've said something similar about Wayne Graham 25 years ago, but he has adapted very well to Rice.

(11-09-2016 11:02 AM)WRCisforgotten79 Wrote:  Rice to consider a DC from a 4-5 G5 program?
That's the kind of idiotic thinking that helped to drive our football program into the ditch.

If he's a good coach, that may be the time to get him cheap. I understand that SMU is looking to pony up a bunch of money to sweeten the pot to keep him there. If they're that worried about losing him, then maybe we ought to take a look.

He's not at the top of my list, maybe in the second or third tranche.

My top three would be Jasper, Grinch, and Keeler.

(11-09-2016 12:00 PM)formerowl Wrote:  First thing that Harbaugh did at Michigan was go hire a couple of local H.S. coaches. Whoever the Head coach at Rice is (Baliff) or whoever we decide to hire, I would love for him to go in and tap in to the local high school ranks. It is a no brainer to make sure we hold on to some of the kids that are right underneath our noses...

This gets into staff construction issues. What I think would be the optimum approach is:

Pick an OC and DC that you can trust to implement the systems you want to run, along with somebody to coordinate special teams who is also well connected for recruiting purposes (this could very well be a senior Texas HS coach). As long as these guys understand the schemes in sufficient depth, they can coach up the position coaches to give you what you want there. Keep a couple of guys off the current staff for continuity, particularly guys who were involved in recruiting to help hang onto the ones you have (I'm thinking probably Sloan and Patterson for the Canada connection which I would like to retain). The other four slots I would fill with HS coaches, preferably successful coaches who are also well regarded in the profession. Maybe something like the last 4 presidents of the THSCA would be idea.

One question. Why is so much emphasis being put on guys' offensive schemes in evaluating possible head coach candidates?

I don't really care what offense he runs, I want somebody who knows how to win.

Looking at this year, our offense hasn't been very good, but it's been a damn sight better than our defense. Defense, particularly pass defense, is where we need to get light years better if we are going to improve the bottom line. We're currently around 90th in offense, but we are 128th in defense. There's a big difference. If we improved to 90th in defense (that's about the progress that Malone has made in two years at SMU), that's over a 100 yards per game improvement. With that, we'd probably have won 2 or 3 more games (North Texas, UTSA, FAU), and still be in the bowl picture. I understand the fan's preoccupation with offense, but defense is where you win games and defense is where we are truly dreadful. Becoming the best defense in CUSA would put us in the title hunt, year in and year out.