A few reactions:
1. Those crowds: Wow, I forgot that home games at Rice were regularly good crowds. I hope we get back to that level of attendance soon.
2. The MOB: So nice to see the MOB with good numbers. Hoping you guys make a comeback.
3. The Defense: Great defensive high lights - Matt Sign, Tony Barker. Mercifully, they didn't show many Houston highlights. I forgot that we had one of the hardest hitting secondaries. By the way, CB Sean Washington (Jones) has been working for the Texans for some time.
4. The home uniforms: Probably one of the coolest set of home unis. Very well done. Definitely up there in my all time favorite Rice Football uniforms.
5. Coverage: The Oilers were perennial powers in the AFC. The Cougars had Heisman winners. A&M and UT were decent. And yet we still managed to have a local network do a season recap with a 5-6 record in 1990 and a 4-7 record in 1991. I don't know if it was a marketing contractual issue or just an interest in a local team.
6. The Offense: Trevor Cobb and Josh LaRocca. Great guys and great football players.
7. U2!
Anyhoo, just a bit of nostalgia as the beginning of the season slowly creeps upon us.
(08-23-2016 02:25 PM)Pan95 Wrote: [ -> ]1. Those crowds: Wow, I forgot that home games at Rice were regularly good crowds. I hope we get back to that level of attendance soon.
5. Coverage: The Oilers were perennial powers in the AFC. The Cougars had Heisman winners. A&M and UT were decent. And yet we still managed to have a local network do a season recap with a 5-6 record in 1990 and a 4-7 record in 1991. I don't know if it was a marketing contractual issue or just an interest in a local team.
We were in the equivalent of a P5 conference. That explains most of it.
Agree on the uniforms - I really wish we would bring back the GREY pants. I don't want to restart the helmet discussion, but I'm in the minority on which I prefer - the "throwback" helmets from a few years ago with the uniform numbers on the side.
Cant believe that was 25 years ago. Trevor Cobb was just awesome. Sure looked we had turned the corner or could see the corner over the prior 2 decades. Sadly, I think we are still trying to get over the hump..........
(08-24-2016 10:25 AM)texowl2 Wrote: [ -> ]Cant believe that was 25 years ago. Trevor Cobb was just awesome. Sure looked we had turned the corner or could see the corner over the prior 2 decades. Sadly, I think we are still trying to get over the hump..........
Yep. And everything has seemed to be one step forward, and at least a half step (if not more) backwards.
(08-23-2016 06:09 PM)Orange County Owl Wrote: [ -> ]
(08-23-2016 02:25 PM)Pan95 Wrote: [ -> ]1. Those crowds: Wow, I forgot that home games at Rice were regularly good crowds. I hope we get back to that level of attendance soon.
5. Coverage: The Oilers were perennial powers in the AFC. The Cougars had Heisman winners. A&M and UT were decent. And yet we still managed to have a local network do a season recap with a 5-6 record in 1990 and a 4-7 record in 1991. I don't know if it was a marketing contractual issue or just an interest in a local team.
We were in the equivalent of a P5 conference. That explains most of it.
It was also the beginning of the end, a parochial athletic department had recently squandered an 'invite' to the SEC with Arkansas!
(11-20-2019 09:27 PM)Ourland Wrote: [ -> ]I'll never believe that. There's no way Rice would have squandered an opportunity to join the SEC.
I had friends with SEC connections who called me to welcome Rice to the SEC. I think that means that the invite was extended. My understanding is that Rice had to commit to something in the range of $150 million in athletic facility improvements, and we were unwilling to do that.
Here's the way the politics have been explained to me from the SEC side. Ex-LSU football coach Charlie McClendon always enjoyed the Rice-LSU series because it helped him recruit Texas, and was a huge proponent of Rice to the SEC. He was living in Orlando at the time, and my understanding is that Florida nominated us (they wanted another AAU school). Vandy wanted a similar academic school so they wouldn't be the only one. LSU wanted it for recruiting. Alabama and Auburn had AAU aspirations, and thought that having Rice as a conference mate would help their case. Ole Miss and Mississippi State both have a lot of alumni in the oil patch in Houston. South Carolina was not a particularly happy choice, kind of the fallback when Rice said no. Georgia and Tennessee, in particular, did not want South Carolina because it infringed on their recruiting territory. South Carolina had kind of a renegade reputation, dating back to their leaving the ACC. There was kind of a feeling among some SEC presidents that Arkansas was a step down academically, and South Carolina was worse. That was 9 out of 10 votes, and Kentucky didn't have strong feelings either way.
Very interesting. If this is true, Rice dropped the ball. It had no idea of the movement that was to follow. It believed the SWC was strong. Too bad. No one had forsight to see what was to come. To be asked to spend $150 million is too much. I don't blame Rice for saying " no" under such circumstances, particularly given that no one saw the end of the SWC coming..
(11-20-2019 11:16 PM)Ourland Wrote: [ -> ]Very interesting. If this is true, Rice dropped the ball. It had no idea of the movement that was to follow. It believed the SWC was strong. Too bad. No one had forsight to see what was to come. To be asked to spend $150 million is too much. I don't blame Rice for saying " no" under such circumstances, particularly given that no one saw the end of the SWC coming..
Rice and TCU were also invited to join the WAC the year that Fred's team played at Air Force. I remember Fred saying, "Well, at least it's nice to know we have a place to go." I am trying to recall the details, but both TexasU and aTm supported it because they figured that it would hasten the demise of the SWC, and they both wanted out. I was told, but have no confirmation, that in order to facilitate it financially, TexasU agreed to a 50-year commitment to play Rice (they had DFW exposure with the OU game, and wanted a Houston presence), and aTm committed the same to TCU (they felt they were close enough to Houston, but wanted a DFW presence that they would lose without the SWC). Had we gone this way, the Super WAC probably would not have happened, we might have been spared the Denver Airport debacle, and we would probably be in the Mountain West (or maybe it would still be called the WAC) today.
I don't know if money was a consideration with that deal, but I do know that when the Super WAC was formed, we got a visit from then-commissioner Kurt Benson, and he pretty much insisted that we make significant facility upgrades (not as extensive as the SEC wanted, but I recall Bobby was a bit taken aback by it).
I still think the breakup of the Super WAC started the first year, when Texas upset Nebraska in the XII championship game. BYU was undefeated, and would have gone to one of what are now called the New Years 6 bowls. But when Texas got the XII automatic slot, that meant that highly ranked Nebraska muscled into the at-large slot that would have gone to BYU. BYU still got a New Years Day bowl, but it was the Cotton Bowl, that had been downgraded until Jerry Jones got involved a few years later. I think BYU came away thinking that they would never make it to a big bowl as long as they associated with the likes of some of the Super WAC's lesser teams, and that ultimately led to the breakup.
I remember that. BYU played Kansas State in the Cotton Bowl that year, beat them, and went undefeated for the season. I'm guessing it was 1996. Sarkisian was the QB. Soon after, the WAC 16 fell apart.