The SEC schools have one other consideration. They have so many alumni making contributions to get football tickets that they can't come close to accommodating them. One way to do it is give them primo packages to out of town games. That's one big attraction of Vandy. They have maybe 30,000 seats available at every home game. So Alabama or Auburn or Georgia or Florida or LSU have a place to take care of the fans who don't quite give enough yet to get the good home game seats, but they don't want to lose either. And given the demographics of SEC fans, the self-proclaimed Music City USA is a very attractive road destination. With the new schedule, unless they go to 9 conference games, the West teams aren't getting to Vandy but something like once every 12 years. A school in the west with 40-50,000 seats for second tier Auburn or Alabama or LSU donors would actually be quite good for their business model. A place to keep 20,000 minor givers happy enough until they start being able to make major gifts is not without considerable appeal. And Houston may not have Nashville's music scene, but it's not an unattractive destination.

That was one big motivation for the invite that we refused. Another was obviously the Houston TV market. With aTm that is already taken care of. A footprint for recruiting was also a reason. Les Miles has said publicly (before aTm came in, so may feel differently now) that he would take a home-and-home with Rice in a heartbeat. I don't know whether his AD would go along, but probably so. To be in the SEC we would have to do what Vandy has done. Be on the fringe of football competitiveness, enough to make the road trip interesting for Bama fans, but kick ass and take names in the minor sports. Baseball is there with Graham. If Rhoades gets basketball there, we could still look good to them.

But just as Hambone said, if they could schedule another conference win (or what they thought was another conference win) and that would position them better for bowls, yes, they would have done it in 1990. Would they do it today? I really don't know.

One other thing about SEC schools. They all have a lot of primo suites and the like. And the suiteholders have common areas to congregate before and after the game and at halftime. And the president and other fundraising people are very prominently available. My brother has seats in one of the primo areas at Auburn, between Jason Dufner (who before he got married had an incredible flow of beautiful women in and out, my son would just grab a beer and go hang out) and Charles Barkley. My son and I were seated across the way at the Iron Bowl last year, so we weren't there, but my brother was laughing afterward, saying that he saw the president out shaking hands with everyone present as soon as the miracle field goal return play ended, and in his words, "I think I saw three buildings get donated in five minutes."

Of course, the flip side of the Rice-to-SEC dream is that Rice might never make another bowl game. Seriously, 5 SEC West teams in the AP Top 10! Improved recruiting, coaching, and facilities can only take Rice so far when going up against a schedule of semi-pro teams where the students barely need to study.

(09-17-2014 03:44 PM)mrbig Wrote:  Of course, the flip side of the Rice-to-SEC dream is that Rice might never make another bowl game. Seriously, 5 SEC West teams in the AP Top 10! Improved recruiting, coaching, and facilities can only take Rice so far when going up against a schedule of semi-pro teams where the students barely need to study.

Sure, but is that a big loss? I mean, while it is nice to make bowl games, I would rather play the big boys year in and year out than just be one of the 60+ teams that plays in a random bowl each year.

Then there is the potential upside. Stanford now hangs with and beats the big boys, so who knows what could happen.

(09-17-2014 03:44 PM)mrbig Wrote:  Of course, the flip side of the Rice-to-SEC dream is that Rice might never make another bowl game. Seriously, 5 SEC West teams in the AP Top 10! Improved recruiting, coaching, and facilities can only take Rice so far when going up against a schedule of semi-pro teams where the students barely need to study.

By the time we get bored of not making a bowl game as hypothetical SEC members, the landscape of college football will have changed completely.

We would need to upgrade HRS to where it could take 70,000 again or have too many NRG games. In hindsight, we should have been willing to agree to upgrade around 1990 when we could have followed Arkansas into the SEC. In the old days, we were making a lot of money playing A&M and LSU home and home every year. Either a remodeled HRS or NRG would have at least 50,000 seats for the visitors. Adding another Texas school could help even further in nailing down recruiting and televisions for the SEC. Also, adding Rice could provide for now an easier conference game for them instead of the SEC gauntlet they have now-hopefully we would improve our recruiting with SEC membership.

I gave up watching the Big 12-2 when it lost the teams I care about in it-Colorado, Missouri and Texas A&M. I will watch SEC football when I am not looking at Rice football.

(09-17-2014 03:35 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  The SEC schools have one other consideration. They have so many alumni making contributions to get football tickets that they can't come close to accommodating them. One way to do it is give them primo packages to out of town games. That's one big attraction of Vandy. They have maybe 30,000 seats available at every home game. So Alabama or Auburn or Georgia or Florida or LSU have a place to take care of the fans who don't quite give enough yet to get the good home game seats, but they don't want to lose either. And given the demographics of SEC fans, the self-proclaimed Music City USA is a very attractive road destination. With the new schedule, unless they go to 9 conference games, the West teams aren't getting to Vandy but something like once every 12 years. A school in the west with 40-50,000 seats for second tier Auburn or Alabama or LSU donors would actually be quite good for their business model. A place to keep 20,000 minor givers happy enough until they start being able to make major gifts is not without considerable appeal. And Houston may not have Nashville's music scene, but it's not an unattractive destination.

That was one big motivation for the invite that we refused. Another was obviously the Houston TV market. With aTm that is already taken care of. A footprint for recruiting was also a reason. Les Miles has said publicly (before aTm came in, so may feel differently now) that he would take a home-and-home with Rice in a heartbeat. I don't know whether his AD would go along, but probably so. To be in the SEC we would have to do what Vandy has done. Be on the fringe of football competitiveness, enough to make the road trip interesting for Bama fans, but kick ass and take names in the minor sports. Baseball is there with Graham. If Rhoades gets basketball there, we could still look good to them.

But just as Hambone said, if they could schedule another conference win (or what they thought was another conference win) and that would position them better for bowls, yes, they would have done it in 1990. Would they do it today? I really don't know.

One other thing about SEC schools. They all have a lot of primo suites and the like. And the suiteholders have common areas to congregate before and after the game and at halftime. And the president and other fundraising people are very prominently available. My brother has seats in one of the primo areas at Auburn, between Jason Dufner (who before he got married had an incredible flow of beautiful women in and out, my son would just grab a beer and go hang out) and Charles Barkley. My son and I were seated across the way at the Iron Bowl last year, so we weren't there, but my brother was laughing afterward, saying that he saw the president out shaking hands with everyone present as soon as the miracle field goal return play ended, and in his words, "I think I saw three buildings get donated in five minutes."

(09-17-2014 03:55 PM)Antarius Wrote:  

(09-17-2014 03:44 PM)mrbig Wrote:  Of course, the flip side of the Rice-to-SEC dream is that Rice might never make another bowl game. Seriously, 5 SEC West teams in the AP Top 10! Improved recruiting, coaching, and facilities can only take Rice so far when going up against a schedule of semi-pro teams where the students barely need to study.

Sure, but is that a big loss? I mean, while it is nice to make bowl games, I would rather play the big boys year in and year out than just be one of the 60+ teams that plays in a random bowl each year.

Then there is the potential upside. Stanford now hangs with and beats the big boys, so who knows what could happen.

Antarius, exactly! This is an opportunity to become the Stanford of the SEC. Why isn't Vandy the Stanford of the SEC? Texas athletes. They don't have access to as many of the qualified student athletes we have just in Houston alone. But on the flipside, playing on the SEC network would bring National recruiting to Rice especially for basketball, baseball, and the Olympic sports. We would also enjoy an increased academic profile in the South. And we offer a travel partner to A&M.

And its not a forgone conclusion that we would be the dregs of the SEC. Our goal is Top 25. We going to have to play and beat those type of teams eventually. Perhaps the BigXII would be an easier route, but unless the university relocates, the other conferences won't make as much sense from a travel cost aspect. Furthermore, I like Texas, but they ain't bringing Rice in.

Financially, at a minimum of 6 home games, we'd LSU, or MSU, or Ole Miss, or Alabama, or Auburn, or Arkansas. I hazard to guess that we are looking at 30k crowds easily.

And think of the material for the MOB!!! Bulldogs, Tigers, and Bears (Rebels), Oh my!

oh, and one more thing. I understand that this is foolish fantasy. But if Rice ever got an invitation to join the SEC, I would think that maybe the BigXII invites UH? Or would the BigXII be content to presume that they still have a major share of the Houston market and thus not be concerned about A&M and Rice?

if we really did turn down an invite to the SEC, whoever made that decision should be hunted down, tarred, feathered, drawn, hung and quartered.

(09-17-2014 04:39 PM)texowl2 Wrote:  if we really did turn down an invite to the SEC, whoever made that decision should be hunted down, tarred, feathered, drawn, hung and quartered.

This was back in the early 1990s, before the SWC started to unravel. At the time, who knew Arkansas was about to bolt and set the wheels in motion?

(09-17-2014 05:03 PM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  

(09-17-2014 04:39 PM)texowl2 Wrote:  if we really did turn down an invite to the SEC, whoever made that decision should be hunted down, tarred, feathered, drawn, hung and quartered.

This was back in the early 1990s, before the SWC started to unravel. At the time, who knew Arkansas was about to bolt and set the wheels in motion?

I guess hindsight is 20/20, but at that time, most of the SWC was facing probation and there was a lot of bitching from TAMU and UT about revenue sharing in the SWC and the idea that Rice-SMU-TCU-Baylor were not putting enough resources into athletics. Perhaps others could comment more, but it seems like those on the inside should not have been blindsided by any of these developments.

If we got into the SEC, it's possible we could score a big whale donation for athletics, since we would be the only team in town in a big time(the biggest right now) conference. There are so many SEC fans in town, especially LSU. Would really liven up the college athletic atmosphere in town I think, to have 4(?) SEC games at HRS every year.

(09-17-2014 05:03 PM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  

(09-17-2014 04:39 PM)texowl2 Wrote:  if we really did turn down an invite to the SEC, whoever made that decision should be hunted down, tarred, feathered, drawn, hung and quartered.

This was back in the early 1990s, before the SWC started to unravel. At the time, who knew Arkansas was about to bolt and set the wheels in motion?

It was actually contemporaneous with Arkansas's bolting. We were to be the 12th team. When we said no, they eventually settled on South Carolina.

That's what my SEC sources have told me. I've never actually gotten confirmation from the Rice side. But I've gotten so many details, and so consistently, from so many different places, that I tend strongly to believe it.

(09-17-2014 04:39 PM)texowl2 Wrote:  if we really did turn down an invite to the SEC, whoever made that decision should be hunted down, tarred, feathered, drawn, hung and quartered.

This is done and dusted.

Now the question is, what do we do going forward?

(09-18-2014 11:05 AM)Antarius Wrote:  

(09-17-2014 04:39 PM)texowl2 Wrote:  if we really did turn down an invite to the SEC, whoever made that decision should be hunted down, tarred, feathered, drawn, hung and quartered.

This is done and dusted.

Now the question is, what do we do going forward?

Amen. We need to stop dwelling on past decisions whether they happened or not.

Our focus should be on how to make Rice the best place it can be for all of our sports regardless of conference affiliation. Because to me, P5 is beyond a pipe dream and not even something I consider remotely possible. I would think getting back together with UH and SMU would be the best conference move we could possibly make and even that doesn't look likely. We just need to focus on improving ourselves so that we can meet Dr. K's top 25 goal.

I hope that my point has been clear all along and that is that there is nothing I would be doing to meet Dr K's goals that wouldn't be consistent with making us a candidate to move up. Pipe dream or not is a matter of opinion... It's amazing how opportunities come along when you least expect them... but that doesn't mean you can't still be in a position to take advantage of them if and when they come.

Example... If we tear down our stadium and build a nice shiny new 35k seat one, with or without a track, we have eliminated ONE of the positive points for inclusion in a p5. Even the Raiders had tarps in their upper deck vs the Texans.

(09-18-2014 01:44 PM)Hambone10 Wrote:  I hope that my point has been clear all along and that is that there is nothing I would be doing to meet Dr K's goals that wouldn't be consistent with making us a candidate to move up. Pipe dream or not is a matter of opinion... It's amazing how opportunities come along when you least expect them... but that doesn't mean you can't still be in a position to take advantage of them if and when they come.

Example... If we tear down our stadium and build a nice shiny new 35k seat one, with or without a track, we have eliminated ONE of the positive points for inclusion in a p5. Even the Raiders had tarps in their upper deck vs the Texans.

And it wasn't just part of the upper deck, like Jacksonville, it was one entire upper deck-11k seats.

(09-18-2014 01:44 PM)Hambone10 Wrote:  Example... If we tear down our stadium and build a nice shiny new 35k seat one, with or without a track, we have eliminated ONE of the positive points for inclusion in a p5.

If we tear down Rice Stadium and build a nice shiny new 35K seat one, we are kissing P5 goodbye. That may or may not be the right move. Obviously Tulane has pretty much decided that it's the right move for them, at least for now, and their situation is not that dissimilar to ours. But that move should be made with an open an honest understanding of what the consequences are.

Bottom line: What to do about the stadium should be discussed in the context of what is our objective. Certain stadium decisions fit with certain objectives, and not with others.

(09-18-2014 11:10 AM)d1owls4life Wrote:  ...P5 is beyond a pipe dream and not even something I consider remotely possible.

You may need to consider replacements for your current handle. The P5 create more separation every year. We've heard plenty of speculation that 64 teams will separate in some fashion from the rest of us. If that happens, football revenue drops even more for the also-rans. We're going to need a new model for paying for athletics and I'm not sure it can include D1 membership.

If Dr K doesn't have his sights set on P5 membership (in some "reasonable" time frame - I have no idea what reasonable means), I'll be surprised, and very disappointed.

(09-18-2014 03:07 PM)Brookes Owl Wrote:  If Dr K doesn't have his sights set on P5 membership (in some "reasonable" time frame - I have no idea what reasonable means), I'll be surprised, and very disappointed.

Post #18 concerns me on that front. Why even bring that up, when the benefits seem to so clearly outweigh the added "costs" of re-investing in your programs.

(09-18-2014 03:07 PM)Brookes Owl Wrote:  

(09-18-2014 11:10 AM)d1owls4life Wrote:  ...P5 is beyond a pipe dream and not even something I consider remotely possible.

You may need to consider replacements for your current handle. The P5 create more separation every year. We've heard plenty of speculation that 64 teams will separate in some fashion from the rest of us. If that happens, football revenue drops even more for the also-rans. We're going to need a new model for paying for athletics and I'm not sure it can include D1 membership.

If Dr K doesn't have his sights set on P5 membership (in some "reasonable" time frame - I have no idea what reasonable means), I'll be surprised, and very disappointed.

I'm sure he does to an extent. But, getting there is going to be next to impossible and there are plenty of other things we need to fix to give our programs the best chance to succeed. The fact still remains: we aren't worth $20 million a year in TV revenue. That is the driving factor in all of this. If we were, our C-USA deal would be a lot better than it is....or we would be in the P5 already.

(09-18-2014 03:27 PM)At Ease Wrote:  

(09-18-2014 03:07 PM)Brookes Owl Wrote:  If Dr K doesn't have his sights set on P5 membership (in some "reasonable" time frame - I have no idea what reasonable means), I'll be surprised, and very disappointed.

Post #18 concerns me on that front. Why even bring that up, when the benefits seem to so clearly outweigh the added "costs" of re-investing in your programs.

because you need the University to 'buy in' and front some of the costs based on the benefits. I am confident we would do that, and Dr K is not putting the cart before the horse. (jmho)

(09-18-2014 03:34 PM)d1owls4life Wrote:  I'm sure he does to an extent. But, getting there is going to be next to impossible and there are plenty of other things we need to fix to give our programs the best chance to succeed. The fact still remains: we aren't worth $20 million a year in TV revenue. That is the driving factor in all of this. If we were, our C-USA deal would be a lot better than it is....or we would be in the P5 already.

Of course we aren't... but how much is each slot in the championship playoff worth? I think the SEC especially is seeing that having 6 teams in the top 10 has its disadvantages when SO MUCH money is focused on 3 games and 4 teams. Wait until there's an upset of #6 over #4 and it costs one of those conferences a slot.

Now, even then they wouldn't want us as we stand.. so you are 100% correct that we have work to do... but I can see where we would be a better fit than some. My biggest concern is that UTSA gets there before us.