Hambone:

Respect your opinion and hope that you are correct.

(03-19-2014 11:55 AM)Hambone10 Wrote:  

(03-18-2014 11:07 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(03-18-2014 08:46 PM)HatchetMan Wrote:  Agreed. We need to move to D3 and play the Ivy League.

Not a viable option. It's simply not on the table.

It also results in spending even LESS on all of our other sports, contrary to the common thought by those who have this opinion. All of the revenue and outreach and alumni interaction go away, but 90% of the cost of competition (including scholarships of a sort) remain... plus an even greater decrease in the academic caliber of competition or a massive increase in the cost of travel.

In just about every sport other than football and basketball, we'd have to spend MORE as an Ivy Leaguer than we do now. Once you get away from full scholarship sports, you minimize the biggest cost difference we have with the Ivies. And when the Princeton women's rugby team has coaches in the press box talking to other coaches with headphones on the sidelines, they're spending more on minor sports than we do.

The Ivies support non-revenue sports better than we do. And they have a lot more of them. Same for most D-3 teams. And Ivies are not D-3, they're 1-AA special, meaning they don't participate in the football championship.

There's a widespread misconception that the Ivy's are above spending big money on athletics. The spend lots on their athletics programs.

They aren't Div III, either. They're Div I. Another misconception.

(03-18-2014 10:56 PM)RiceDoc Wrote:  

(03-18-2014 08:46 PM)HatchetMan Wrote:  

(03-16-2014 07:29 AM)Viejobuho Wrote:  "...We want to bring people to Rice who want to compete at the highest level, but their ambition is to be an engineer or doctor. My ambition is not to be a feeder to the major pro sports teams. We will have some. But that does not define our program's success."--- President Leebron in today's Houston Chronicle

Agreed. We need to move to D3 and play the Ivy League.

I fail to see how dropping to the lowest level is in keeping with the desire to bring people to Rice who aspire to compete at the highest level.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

So there can't be competition in the Ivies at a "high level?"

(03-19-2014 04:47 PM)HatchetMan Wrote:  So there can't be competition in the Ivies at a "high level?"

Highest rated Ivy last year was Princeton at 112. I suspect that wasn't a one-year abberation

So No.

(03-19-2014 04:55 PM)Hambone10 Wrote:  

(03-19-2014 04:47 PM)HatchetMan Wrote:  So there can't be competition in the Ivies at a "high level?"

Highest rated Ivy last year was Princeton at 112. I suspect that wasn't a one-year abberation

So No.

But the Ivies are far above D-III, so dropping to D-III is conceding that we can't compete even at their level.

As 69 points out, the Ivies are kind of a special case.

they have huge numbers of sports, including very esoteric ones (e.g, equestrian, skiing, sailing), and regional ones (hockey, crew)

Their competitiveness in men's sports falls into five bands roughly as follows

1. Football. solid 1-AA. for unknown legacy reasons they don't compete for the championship. But this year the teams in the 1-AA bracket were cumulatively something like 1-6 against the Ivies (and the 1 was Columbia). More than one 1-AA tourney team had a blowout loss to an Ivy on their schedule.

2. Basketball. the best team is typically quite competitive (Harvard is the highest rated Sagarin team on Rice's schedule this year), but the overall depth can be suspect

3. Soccer, hockey, lacrosse. individual track and field. strong to elite. Yale won the NC in hockey last year. Brown had an NCAA javelin champion.

4. Niche sports. crew and others where you can be in the top 20 and bottom 20 at the same time

5. Not competitive. baseball, team track and field. just don't have enough bodies to compete in D1. You can pencil in the Ivy baseball winner as a 4 seed at FSU or South Carolina every year, and I think they are 2-20 in the last ten years.

Talking about the Ivy League seems only obliquely relevant to Rice. It is not going to happen no matter what Rice does, and it makes no sense even if by a miracle or accident it did.

Rice's problem is location: Houston is not near enough schools that are remotely similar to Rice. The school is effectively on an island. As much as some like to think otherwise (including the academic cornerstone down the way) people nationally just don't care a whole hill of beans about Houston when it comes to sports.

Rice is a neat concept of a Div. I-A school in that it seeks to do all things well. This statement, coincidentally, was recently mimicked by Dr. Karlgaard, the new athletic director, indicating he has at least somewhat of a grasp of Rice and what it needs to do to succeed in Div. I-A athletics.

Rice can't be considered successful just having players who are placeholders, who graduate but do not pose any competitive threat. Rice can't be considered successful having hired gun players who care little about college or graduating, even if they play at a high athletic level (whereas most all other Div I-A programs can, and most take this approach to their success.) Rice can't be considered successful just competing in Div I-A sports, but having little success as far as wins.

Losses do not accomplish anything for Rice; in fact the continued predominance of losing in most athletics for more than 40 years, and the "losing" culture and reputation (with the glaring exception of baseball for the last 18 or so years) negatively and substantially harms the Rice brand overall, academically as well as athletically.

Karlgaard hopefully seems to get this, but we still have not heard a vision statement and overall business plan announcement from him yet.

I'd rather look more closely at what another Texas Div I-A program has done to address its athletic isolation; one that also offers a decent engineering program, and has a presence in Texas and the Southwest. Texas A&M, for all we make fun of them, did exactly the right thing: they got the heck out of Texas, and joined with where their leveraging of their athletic brand would do the most good securing their school's future: they looked South and East, not North and West or Midwest.

Texas A&M will be the premier school in the entire region for years and years to come because of their commitment to the Southeast. I'm not an aggie-lover at all. Not by any means. However, I respect A&M's shrewd evaluation of their situation and admire their decision to greatly improve it by getting away from both Texas the State, and UTexas the self-important school.

Several years ago it was rumored that A&M and UT would go to the Pac-10, but that would have been the wrong way to go for the school, and they recognized it. Rice similarly was equally "lost' while in the WAC. C-USA 2.0, while not a big-time conference, at least pointed Rice back toward the right direction regionally, one where it has more of a chance finding peer institutions. C-USA 3.0 is a sad joke, and Rice has virtually nothing in common with any school left in it at this point. In order to survive long-term, Rice has to get out of CUSA. Going west (PAC-10) would eventually spell problems for Rice and put its athletics future at continued risk long-term due to the vast distances and finances needed to maintain membership vs the return of trying to compete with dominant programs who are more contiguously located.

Rice is not now or ever going to go to the Ivy league. Even if by some miracle they expanded and invited Rice, the Ivy league would be folly for Rice to join.

That leaves the BiG (not the worst option, but not ideal due to time-zone and location) or looking mostly East and South as A&M has successfully done. The SEC ship may have sailed and Rice did not get on board with A&M back in the mid-90s when it had a chance to go, and advocate sponsor schools (LSU, Vandy) to help support it. That leaves the ACC, where Rice coincidentally finds the best overall match of location, more similarly-minded schools (Ga Tech, Duke, UVa, Wake Forest) as well as giving the ACC something it could really use and has an interest in possibly acquiring to better compete with the SEC: a foothold in Texas like A&M did for the SEC.

If I was Karlgaard, every hiring decision, every move I'd make for Rice would be to position it and foster relationships and athletic competition with ACC schools as possible. And not for nothing, the ACC has some of the strongest baseball programs around top-to-bottom, one of the few real strengths Rice has going for it.

(03-19-2014 08:45 PM)GoodOwl Wrote:  Talking about the Ivy League seems only obliquely relevant to Rice. It is not going to happen no matter what Rice does, and it makes no sense even if by a miracle or accident it did.

Rice's problem is location: Houston is not near enough schools that are remotely similar to Rice. The school is effectively on an island. As much as some like to think otherwise (including the academic cornerstone down the way) people nationally just don't care a whole hill of beans about Houston when it comes to sports.

Rice is a neat concept of a Div. I-A school in that it seeks to do all things well. This statement, coincidentally, was recently mimicked by Dr. Karlgaard, the new athletic director, indicating he has at least somewhat of a grasp of Rice and what it needs to do to succeed in Div. I-A athletics.

Rice can't be considered successful just having players who are placeholders, who graduate but do not pose any competitive threat. Rice can't be considered successful having hired gun players who care little about college or graduating, even if they play at a high athletic level (whereas most all other Div I-A programs can, and most take this approach to their success.) Rice can't be considered successful just competing in Div I-A sports, but having little success as far as wins.

Losses do not accomplish anything for Rice; in fact the continued predominance of losing in most athletics for more than 40 years, and the "losing" culture and reputation (with the glaring exception of baseball for the last 18 or so years) negatively and substantially harms the Rice brand overall, academically as well as athletically.

Karlgaard hopefully seems to get this, but we still have not heard a vision statement and overall business plan announcement from him yet.

I'd rather look more closely at what another Texas Div I-A program has done to address its athletic isolation; one that also offers a decent engineering program, and has a presence in Texas and the Southwest. Texas A&M, for all we make fun of them, did exactly the right thing: they got the heck out of Texas, and joined with where their leveraging of their athletic brand would do the most good securing their school's future: they looked South and East, not North and West or Midwest.

Texas A&M will be the premier school in the entire region for years and years to come because of their commitment to the Southeast. I'm not an aggie-lover at all. Not by any means. However, I respect A&M's shrewd evaluation of their situation and admire their decision to greatly improve it by getting away from both Texas the State, and UTexas the self-important school.

Several years ago it was rumored that A&M and UT would go to the Pac-10, but that would have been the wrong way to go for the school, and they recognized it. Rice similarly was equally "lost' while in the WAC. C-USA 2.0, while not a big-time conference, at least pointed Rice back toward the right direction regionally, one where it has more of a chance finding peer institutions. C-USA 3.0 is a sad joke, and Rice has virtually nothing in common with any school left in it at this point. In order to survive long-term, Rice has to get out of CUSA. Going west (PAC-10) would eventually spell problems for Rice and put its athletics future at continued risk long-term due to the vast distances and finances needed to maintain membership vs the return of trying to compete with dominant programs who are more contiguously located.

Rice is not now or ever going to go to the Ivy league. Even if by some miracle they expanded and invited Rice, the Ivy league would be folly for Rice to join.

That leaves the BiG (not the worst option, but not ideal due to time-zone and location) or looking mostly East and South as A&M has successfully done. The SEC ship may have sailed and Rice did not get on board with A&M back in the mid-90s when it had a chance to go, and advocate sponsor schools (LSU, Vandy) to help support it. That leaves the ACC, where Rice coincidentally finds the best overall match of location, more similarly-minded schools (Ga Tech, Duke, UVa, Wake Forest) as well as giving the ACC something it could really use and has an interest in possibly acquiring to better compete with the SEC: a foothold in Texas like A&M did for the SEC.

If I was Karlgaard, every hiring decision, every move I'd make for Rice would be to position it and foster relationships and athletic competition with ACC schools as possible. And not for nothing, the ACC has some of the strongest baseball programs around top-to-bottom, one of the few real strengths Rice has going for it.

Wow, very thought provoking. I had always thought that the best scenario for Rice Athletics (at least as far as surviving in D1) would be the SEC. But you raise a great point about the ACC and their possible desire to get a toehold in Texas and for that matter the Central Time Zone. So the counterpoint question for the ACC would be, who is best qualified as a Texas toehold for the ACC? Let's consider all of the non- Big12 Texas schools and A&M.

So, you are the ACC, and have your pick of SMU, Rice, UH, UNT, TState, UTEP, who do you choose? This gets very problematic if one of the Big 12 decides to jump, say TCU or Baylor. TCU is one I would fear. They have been the program with the most purpose and leadership IMHO. And they probably don't care to stay in UT's shadow.

Hard to say this, but we should look at A&M as having provided the best example. I would hate the travel, but ACC would have a lot going for it. And we could always then schedule local Texas teams for non-conference.

OK class … discuss...

Any talk of jumping to a P5 conference is outrageous unless you can figure out how to make the networks think we are worth enough to make the members of that conference split the pie. UH tried the "TV market" thing in their jump to the AAC. It didn't work. We don't generate enough value to a P5 conference to make it worth the effort.

We have to fix our own problems, which are numerous and have been detailed here quite a bit. If we can do that, maybe we can find a better spot. The best I see right now is the AAC. But even that may be difficult to pull off.

(03-19-2014 09:04 PM)Vegas Owl Wrote:  

(03-19-2014 08:45 PM)GoodOwl Wrote:  Talking about the Ivy League seems only obliquely relevant to Rice. It is not going to happen no matter what Rice does, and it makes no sense even if by a miracle or accident it did.

Rice's problem is location: Houston is not near enough schools that are remotely similar to Rice. The school is effectively on an island. As much as some like to think otherwise (including the academic cornerstone down the way) people nationally just don't care a whole hill of beans about Houston when it comes to sports.

Rice is a neat concept of a Div. I-A school in that it seeks to do all things well. This statement, coincidentally, was recently mimicked by Dr. Karlgaard, the new athletic director, indicating he has at least somewhat of a grasp of Rice and what it needs to do to succeed in Div. I-A athletics.

Rice can't be considered successful just having players who are placeholders, who graduate but do not pose any competitive threat. Rice can't be considered successful having hired gun players who care little about college or graduating, even if they play at a high athletic level (whereas most all other Div I-A programs can, and most take this approach to their success.) Rice can't be considered successful just competing in Div I-A sports, but having little success as far as wins.

Losses do not accomplish anything for Rice; in fact the continued predominance of losing in most athletics for more than 40 years, and the "losing" culture and reputation (with the glaring exception of baseball for the last 18 or so years) negatively and substantially harms the Rice brand overall, academically as well as athletically.

Karlgaard hopefully seems to get this, but we still have not heard a vision statement and overall business plan announcement from him yet.

I'd rather look more closely at what another Texas Div I-A program has done to address its athletic isolation; one that also offers a decent engineering program, and has a presence in Texas and the Southwest. Texas A&M, for all we make fun of them, did exactly the right thing: they got the heck out of Texas, and joined with where their leveraging of their athletic brand would do the most good securing their school's future: they looked South and East, not North and West or Midwest.

Texas A&M will be the premier school in the entire region for years and years to come because of their commitment to the Southeast. I'm not an aggie-lover at all. Not by any means. However, I respect A&M's shrewd evaluation of their situation and admire their decision to greatly improve it by getting away from both Texas the State, and UTexas the self-important school.

Several years ago it was rumored that A&M and UT would go to the Pac-10, but that would have been the wrong way to go for the school, and they recognized it. Rice similarly was equally "lost' while in the WAC. C-USA 2.0, while not a big-time conference, at least pointed Rice back toward the right direction regionally, one where it has more of a chance finding peer institutions. C-USA 3.0 is a sad joke, and Rice has virtually nothing in common with any school left in it at this point. In order to survive long-term, Rice has to get out of CUSA. Going west (PAC-10) would eventually spell problems for Rice and put its athletics future at continued risk long-term due to the vast distances and finances needed to maintain membership vs the return of trying to compete with dominant programs who are more contiguously located.

Rice is not now or ever going to go to the Ivy league. Even if by some miracle they expanded and invited Rice, the Ivy league would be folly for Rice to join.

That leaves the BiG (not the worst option, but not ideal due to time-zone and location) or looking mostly East and South as A&M has successfully done. The SEC ship may have sailed and Rice did not get on board with A&M back in the mid-90s when it had a chance to go, and advocate sponsor schools (LSU, Vandy) to help support it. That leaves the ACC, where Rice coincidentally finds the best overall match of location, more similarly-minded schools (Ga Tech, Duke, UVa, Wake Forest) as well as giving the ACC something it could really use and has an interest in possibly acquiring to better compete with the SEC: a foothold in Texas like A&M did for the SEC.

If I was Karlgaard, every hiring decision, every move I'd make for Rice would be to position it and foster relationships and athletic competition with ACC schools as possible. And not for nothing, the ACC has some of the strongest baseball programs around top-to-bottom, one of the few real strengths Rice has going for it.

Wow, very thought provoking. I had always thought that the best scenario for Rice Athletics (at least as far as surviving in D1) would be the SEC. But you raise a great point about the ACC and their possible desire to get a toehold in Texas and for that matter the Central Time Zone. So the counterpoint question for the ACC would be, who is best qualified as a Texas toehold for the ACC? Let's consider all of the non- Big12 Texas schools and A&M.

So, you are the ACC, and have your pick of SMU, Rice, UH, UNT, TState, UTEP, who do you choose? This gets very problematic if one of the Big 12 decides to jump, say TCU or Baylor. TCU is one I would fear. They have been the program with the most purpose and leadership IMHO. And they probably don't care to stay in UT's shadow.

Hard to say this, but we should look at A&M as having provided the best example. I would hate the travel, but ACC would have a lot going for it. And we could always then schedule local Texas teams for non-conference.

OK class … discuss...

Ok. I'll play.

If the ACC really wanted Texas to expand their market. You left out the most obvious target.

They would go after Texas (just as the PAC 10 has expressed interest in that direction in the past)

Wake Forest might have interest in Baylor, but the ACC is not going to fly their teams into Waco or Lubbock.

Now someone else's turn to discuss. Why wouldn't the ACC be infinitely more interested in Texas than anyone else in the state?

(03-19-2014 09:13 PM)d1owls4life Wrote:  Any talk of jumping to a P5 conference is outrageous unless you can figure out how to make the networks think we are worth enough to make the members of that conference split the pie. UH tried the "TV market" thing in their jump to the AAC. It didn't work. We don't generate enough value to a P5 conference to make it worth the effort.

We have to fix our own problems, which are numerous and have been detailed here quite a bit. If we can do that, maybe we can find a better spot. The best I see right now is the AAC. But even that may be difficult to pull off.

Good point. I would say our biggest weakness there is MBB. FB at least has a future. MBB is so far in the depths, we need a real shock to the system. JVG. And all that it would take to make that happen.

I think I have deviated enough from the thread here. Probably should start a new topic for this so the Parliament can gnash their collective teeth together some more…

(03-19-2014 09:13 PM)d1owls4life Wrote:  Any talk of jumping to a P5 conference is outrageous unless you can figure out how to make the networks think we are worth enough to make the members of that conference split the pie. UH tried the "TV market" thing in their jump to the AAC. It didn't work. We don't generate enough value to a P5 conference to make it worth the effort.

We have to fix our own problems, which are numerous and have been detailed here quite a bit. If we can do that, maybe we can find a better spot. The best I see right now is the AAC. But even that may be difficult to pull off.

I think that's absolutely correct.

GoodOwl argued we should look south and east.

Isn't that exactly what we did when we moved from the WAC to CUSA?

Obviously not the SEC, but we have teams in Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, Florida, Virginia (Old Dominion).

Just sayin'

It all boils down to hopefully getting into a P5 one day. But we've got the regional situation GoodOwl described.

I know, the national media and our fans 'don't care' about the other CUSA schools as we've heard time and time again here. Until we do something to change perception, I think there's a reason we're keeping the company we currently have.

And I make that point rhetorically. I really don't think it does any good for us to run down our conference mates at every opportunity. To anyone outside of Rice it makes us look either arrogant or delusional, take your pick. Or worse, both at the same time.

(03-19-2014 09:15 PM)Rick Gerlach Wrote:  

(03-19-2014 09:04 PM)Vegas Owl Wrote:  

(03-19-2014 08:45 PM)GoodOwl Wrote:  Talking about the Ivy League seems only obliquely relevant to Rice. It is not going to happen no matter what Rice does, and it makes no sense even if by a miracle or accident it did.

Rice's problem is location: Houston is not near enough schools that are remotely similar to Rice. The school is effectively on an island. As much as some like to think otherwise (including the academic cornerstone down the way) people nationally just don't care a whole hill of beans about Houston when it comes to sports.

Rice is a neat concept of a Div. I-A school in that it seeks to do all things well. This statement, coincidentally, was recently mimicked by Dr. Karlgaard, the new athletic director, indicating he has at least somewhat of a grasp of Rice and what it needs to do to succeed in Div. I-A athletics.

Rice can't be considered successful just having players who are placeholders, who graduate but do not pose any competitive threat. Rice can't be considered successful having hired gun players who care little about college or graduating, even if they play at a high athletic level (whereas most all other Div I-A programs can, and most take this approach to their success.) Rice can't be considered successful just competing in Div I-A sports, but having little success as far as wins.

Losses do not accomplish anything for Rice; in fact the continued predominance of losing in most athletics for more than 40 years, and the "losing" culture and reputation (with the glaring exception of baseball for the last 18 or so years) negatively and substantially harms the Rice brand overall, academically as well as athletically.

Karlgaard hopefully seems to get this, but we still have not heard a vision statement and overall business plan announcement from him yet.

I'd rather look more closely at what another Texas Div I-A program has done to address its athletic isolation; one that also offers a decent engineering program, and has a presence in Texas and the Southwest. Texas A&M, for all we make fun of them, did exactly the right thing: they got the heck out of Texas, and joined with where their leveraging of their athletic brand would do the most good securing their school's future: they looked South and East, not North and West or Midwest.

Texas A&M will be the premier school in the entire region for years and years to come because of their commitment to the Southeast. I'm not an aggie-lover at all. Not by any means. However, I respect A&M's shrewd evaluation of their situation and admire their decision to greatly improve it by getting away from both Texas the State, and UTexas the self-important school.

Several years ago it was rumored that A&M and UT would go to the Pac-10, but that would have been the wrong way to go for the school, and they recognized it. Rice similarly was equally "lost' while in the WAC. C-USA 2.0, while not a big-time conference, at least pointed Rice back toward the right direction regionally, one where it has more of a chance finding peer institutions. C-USA 3.0 is a sad joke, and Rice has virtually nothing in common with any school left in it at this point. In order to survive long-term, Rice has to get out of CUSA. Going west (PAC-10) would eventually spell problems for Rice and put its athletics future at continued risk long-term due to the vast distances and finances needed to maintain membership vs the return of trying to compete with dominant programs who are more contiguously located.

Rice is not now or ever going to go to the Ivy league. Even if by some miracle they expanded and invited Rice, the Ivy league would be folly for Rice to join.

That leaves the BiG (not the worst option, but not ideal due to time-zone and location) or looking mostly East and South as A&M has successfully done. The SEC ship may have sailed and Rice did not get on board with A&M back in the mid-90s when it had a chance to go, and advocate sponsor schools (LSU, Vandy) to help support it. That leaves the ACC, where Rice coincidentally finds the best overall match of location, more similarly-minded schools (Ga Tech, Duke, UVa, Wake Forest) as well as giving the ACC something it could really use and has an interest in possibly acquiring to better compete with the SEC: a foothold in Texas like A&M did for the SEC.

If I was Karlgaard, every hiring decision, every move I'd make for Rice would be to position it and foster relationships and athletic competition with ACC schools as possible. And not for nothing, the ACC has some of the strongest baseball programs around top-to-bottom, one of the few real strengths Rice has going for it.

Wow, very thought provoking. I had always thought that the best scenario for Rice Athletics (at least as far as surviving in D1) would be the SEC. But you raise a great point about the ACC and their possible desire to get a toehold in Texas and for that matter the Central Time Zone. So the counterpoint question for the ACC would be, who is best qualified as a Texas toehold for the ACC? Let's consider all of the non- Big12 Texas schools and A&M.

So, you are the ACC, and have your pick of SMU, Rice, UH, UNT, TState, UTEP, who do you choose? This gets very problematic if one of the Big 12 decides to jump, say TCU or Baylor. TCU is one I would fear. They have been the program with the most purpose and leadership IMHO. And they probably don't care to stay in UT's shadow.

Hard to say this, but we should look at A&M as having provided the best example. I would hate the travel, but ACC would have a lot going for it. And we could always then schedule local Texas teams for non-conference.

OK class … discuss...

Ok. I'll play.

If the ACC really wanted Texas to expand their market. You left out the most obvious target.

They would go after Texas (just as the PAC 10 has expressed interest in that direction in the past)

Wake Forest might have interest in Baylor, but the ACC is not going to fly their teams into Waco or Lubbock.

Now someone else's turn to discuss. Why wouldn't the ACC be infinitely more interested in Texas than anyone else in the state?

I thought about that, but figured that UT will never play in someone else's sandbox. They own the sandbox, and they have the most profitable Athletic Dept. Unless and until that changes, nothing will change for UT.

(03-16-2014 07:29 AM)Viejobuho Wrote:  "...We want to bring people to Rice who want to compete at the highest level, but their ambition is to be an engineer or doctor. My ambition is not to be a feeder to the major pro sports teams. We will have some. But that does not define our program's success."--- President Leebron in today's Houston Chronicle

The first 15-words of this statement are getting zero focus on this thread but actually the most important. Unfortunately, this thread is giving 100% of attention to those 'feeder to pro sports team' words and result in Ivy League, playing down, etc. discussions vs. the other way around which is that we want athletes who want to compete at highest level but also want to do something w/ their lives beyond sports.

Ivy League is clearly not highest level. Not even close. C-USA is not highest level either. I see a glass half-full, not half-empty in his remarks. He is making a statement w/out making a statement (b/c he can't talk down C-USA publicly) of getting Rice to a P5 state as that is 'the highest level'. Alabama is the highest level, Texas is highest level, etc....'competing' against FIU, FAU, NT, Princeton, etc. is not.

I see a President using some clever, unconventional wisdom here w/ the press.

(03-19-2014 09:31 PM)Vegas Owl Wrote:  

(03-19-2014 09:15 PM)Rick Gerlach Wrote:  Ok. I'll play.

If the ACC really wanted Texas to expand their market. You left out the most obvious target.

They would go after Texas (just as the PAC 10 has expressed interest in that direction in the past)

Wake Forest might have interest in Baylor, but the ACC is not going to fly their teams into Waco or Lubbock.

Now someone else's turn to discuss. Why wouldn't the ACC be infinitely more interested in Texas than anyone else in the state?

I thought about that, but figured that UT will never play in someone else's sandbox. They own the sandbox, and they have the most profitable Athletic Dept. Unless and until that changes, nothing will change for UT.

I agree, VegasOwl. U Texas' "problem" is that they have spent a lot of time, effort and money alienating a lot of potential partners by their lack of team-effort when it comes to being good conference-mates, and their proclivity towards inequity, which major conferences like the BiG and the ACC care little for. Plus UTexas has their ESPN deal, and probably will be reluctant to ever willingly give away their status to jump to a conference they can't dictate to like they can in Big XII-II. If not for that, then, yes, UTexas would be the logical choice for all P5 conferences.

As it stands, it opens a very small crack in the window for Rice because Rice is located in the far eastern half of the state. TCU/SMU are farther west, but could be choices as well. However, with investment and dogged determination, I think Rice could build the most effective case if it decides to dedicate the next decade to dominating CUSA 3.0 and show it is serious about sports again.

Baylor has no real need to jump. They are doing fine with their place in the Big XII-II. And it's Waco, not Houston or Dallas.

My biggest fear with Karlgaard, or any Rice AD or coach, is that they are PAC-12 and/or California oriented. I think it is too hard to recruit effectively west to east vs east to west, at least in football nowadays, and even in Basketball. Rice is just a stone's throw from Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Alabama, and Florida. While SEC would be better overall, ACC has teams just a bit farther east, but closer and in the right direction than the PAC. But California, Wash. State, Oregon? Too much.

When I said Time Zone is an issue for the BiG, esp. vis-a-vis Rice, I meant that a majority of the nation's sports machinery is east coast dominated. I think that is an unstated but very real reason they grabbed Maryland and Rutgers--it levels their playing field vs. the SEC. While CUSA is east, it is nowhere near a major conference. It is not so much the TV markets argument, it is also the easter-region exposure. This is what Texas A&M did in reverse for the SEC--no one cared about College Station per se, they cared about giving their brand access to the Texas market. Rice can do more of that for the ACC than any other conference.

Then again, the WAC and MWC are not major conferences either. Thee AAC? At this point, why bother? It will implode soon enough on its own anyway. As bad as it is now, CUSA is better than the WAC or MWC, although only marginally. At least LaTech, UNT, UTSA are closer than Hawaii, Nevada-Reno, et. al. were. It is purgatory, but a more affordable purgatory for Rice to try to rebuild to heaven.

(03-19-2014 10:02 PM)GoodOwl Wrote:  

(03-19-2014 09:31 PM)Vegas Owl Wrote:  

(03-19-2014 09:15 PM)Rick Gerlach Wrote:  Ok. I'll play.

If the ACC really wanted Texas to expand their market. You left out the most obvious target.

They would go after Texas (just as the PAC 10 has expressed interest in that direction in the past)

Wake Forest might have interest in Baylor, but the ACC is not going to fly their teams into Waco or Lubbock.

Now someone else's turn to discuss. Why wouldn't the ACC be infinitely more interested in Texas than anyone else in the state?

I thought about that, but figured that UT will never play in someone else's sandbox. They own the sandbox, and they have the most profitable Athletic Dept. Unless and until that changes, nothing will change for UT.

I agree, VegasOwl. U Texas' "problem" is that they have spent a lot of time, effort and money alienating a lot of potential partners by their lack of team-effort when it comes to being good conference-mates, and their proclivity towards inequity, which major conferences like the BiG and the ACC care little for. Plus UTexas has their ESPN deal, and probably will be reluctant to ever willingly give away their status to jump to a conference they can't dictate to like they can in Big XII-II. If not for that, then, yes, UTexas would be the logical choice for all P5 conferences.

As it stands, it opens a very small crack in the window for Rice because Rice is located in the far eastern half of the state. TCU/SMU are farther west, but could be choices as well. However, with investment and dogged determination, I think Rice could build the most effective case if it decides to dedicate the next decade to dominating CUSA 3.0 and show it is serious about sports again.

Baylor has no real need to jump. They are doing fine with their place in the Big XII-II. And it's Waco, not Houston or Dallas.

My biggest fear with Karlgaard, or any Rice AD or coach, is that they are PAC-12 and/or California oriented. I think it is too hard to recruit effectively west to east vs east to west, at least in football nowadays, and even in Basketball. Rice is just a stone's throw from Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Alabama, and Florida. While SEC would be better overall, ACC has teams just a bit farther east, but closer and in the right direction than the PAC. But California, Wash. State, Oregon? Too much.

When I said Time Zone is an issue for the BiG, esp. vis-a-vis Rice, I meant that a majority of the nation's sports machinery is east coast dominated. I think that is an unstated but very real reason they grabbed Maryland and Rutgers--it levels their playing field vs. the SEC. While CUSA is east, it is nowhere near a major conference. It is not so much the TV markets argument, it is also the easter-region exposure. This is what Texas A&M did in reverse for the SEC--no one cared about College Station per se, they cared about giving their brand access to the Texas market. Rice can do more of that for the ACC than any other conference.

Then again, the WAC and MWC are not major conferences either. Thee AAC? At this point, why bother? It will implode soon enough on its own anyway. As bad as it is now, CUSA is better than the WAC or MWC, although only marginally. At least LaTech, UNT, UTSA are closer than Hawaii, Nevada-Reno, et. al. were. It is purgatory, but a more affordable purgatory for Rice to try to rebuild to heaven.

Delusions of grandeur with the ACC talk - will never happen to any realist. The Stanford model is ideal but we'll never attain that level, at least not in this lifetime. The best and most efficient move to promote Rice's brand would be to move to the Ivies. Now, is that possible, who the hell knows, but I think it's a better possibility than ACC (or something equivalent). Rice is stuck in a rut and needs to make a move.

BIG 10? PAC12? ACC? Seriously?

(03-19-2014 11:10 PM)HatchetMan Wrote:  Delusions of grandeur with the ACC talk - will never happen to any realist. The Stanford model is ideal but we'll never attain that level, at least not in this lifetime. The best and most efficient move to promote Rice's brand would be to move to the Ivies. Now, is that possible, who the hell knows, but I think it's a better possibility than ACC (or something equivalent). Rice is stuck in a rut and needs to make a move.

No, I think everyone but you knows. The Ivies will never, ever let anyone else in. Period. Why would they? And sports are only secondary, it's their overall brand. "Ivy League" is synonymous with "best, most elite schools in the country" and they aren't going to share that with anyone. Us getting into the SEC or Big 10 is *much* more likely even though it's highly, highly improbable because the chance of the Ivies ever letting someone else in is zero. Not .000000000000000001%, zero.

The most realistic scenario to move to a P5 conference would be to go to the Big XII if they are to go back to twelve (or fourteen) teams. I know this isn't as glamorous as going to the ACC or SEC, but I surely wouldn't complain if we had either UT or OU coming to town each year. To me, the ACC or SEC moves seem unattainable, whereas the Big XII seems like a stretch, but infinitely more attainable.