(01-12-2015 11:48 PM)Rick Gerlach Wrote: As to improvements, Todd got a scoreboard. Ken got us a nice weight room facility. Small potatoes compared to other schools, and the description of our current locker rooms on this board, and the lack of any stadium improvements in 60 years makes the current end zone facilities seem like the first real start to football facilities' improvements since 1950. And that's not on Todd, Ken or our other coaches, at least not for the most part.
Interesting. You chose to reduce all the football facility improvements I listed to: "got a scoreboard."
Now who's being disingenuous? For years people complained about the splinters from the wooden bleachers. I guess some take it for granted, but fact is that in the summer before he coached one game at Rice, TG got rid of the old wooden ones and had them replaced with what we have now. Didn't even take him a full year. Plus, the old worn-out Astroturf was replaced with a modern surface. Etc... Etc... To be fair, "the lack of any stadium improvements in 60 years" ended with TG. The fact that they then stalled for 8 years under DBD is curiously omitted in your statement above.
You are correct the locker rooms have been a mess the entire time DBD has been here. He might have at least tried to do what TG did and raised some money himself instead of waiting 8 years for someone else to do it, but he didn't. That is a fact. From my post above:
Under TG Rice: replaced Astroturf/crowned field with FieldTurf/flat field; replaced decades-old wooden seats with aluminum; pressure washed and painting of concrete surfaces (I am one who misses the more festive and Rice-oriented Sine waves around the drab tub of the gray wall surrounding the field. I understand everyone was pissed at TG for the slimy way he left, but painting over the sine-waves was spiteful); built/installed the much-needed Jess Neely Scoreboard and Video screen in North End Zone; Rice FB 18-wheeler (granted, could have done w/o the TG ad on the side))? Would that not be the real start of FB facility improvements, and now finally getting built upon after the RG mess?
(01-12-2015 11:48 PM)Rick Gerlach Wrote: Based on 2012-2014, changing coaches today would be a risk, and one that only a very few would be willing to take. That's a dynamic condition of course. In two years, if we're no longer winning, (or if we were to return to 1 or 2 wins next year) I'm sure that your voice will be leading a chorus.
I agree that DBD has earned a reprieve at this time. I agree with Owl 69 to put him on a rolling 3 years contract with a very small buyout either way. But to avoid another long term contract that shackles us to him like RG gave him. I'd rather pay him bonuses for accomplishments instead.
Though I do not find the style of play he chooses to coach entertaining, it is a fact that he will be here next year, and probably beyond. I am not advocating sacking him today. But I still do not have any idea what to expect from him year to year and game to game. I don't think he's moved the needle much, but he has gotten it to shake back and forth, which is good, and may be all he can really do for us--we still don't know.
I don't remember anyone before the La Tech game predicting anything close to the historic blowout that made national headlines for Rice for all the wrong reasons. And based on that, I had no idea what would happen in the Hawaii Bowl against the only team with a losing record to make a bowl game, and what turned out to be a mediocre opponent more similar to those we beat this past season than those we lost to. I reserved comment until after I could actually watch that game. I am glad we won, and the kids seemed to have a good time on the trip, which is good.
(01-12-2015 11:48 PM)Rick Gerlach Wrote: It's hard to read your posts without getting the impression you want the current coaching staff to fail, just so we can roll the dice. That may not be fair or accurate, but it's honestly how I read your posts.
You carry that myopic bias well.
Funny, I get taken to task by the DBD advocates on the board for even SUGGESTING that next season I believe it is plausible for DBD and staff to have a shot to go 11-1 or 12-0, where others have said it is more reasonable for us to repeat something like this season, and yet you say I am the one who wants the current coaching staff to fail? No other way to describe it but the DBD advocate's position appears to be the completely a**-backwards logic.
You have every right to your opinion that this is good enough; that DBD is perhaps some guru of a coach, or however you wish to describe it. I certainly have few ideas what you see that's so extraordinary--he's average. He's a nice guy, and he's in a comfortable position that suits his level. Good for him personally, but not so good for Rice in the task it faces getting back to P5 level. In my opinion, if he's not pushed strongly to improve, I don't think he's shown us he will change on his own.
I support him in that he is the current coach and he has raised us back from the 2-10 level once again. Of course, I am aware he took us down there again himself, which some conveniently choose to forget. He is clearly capable of doing it again, and that concerns me and others. Will he? Who knows?
You can re-read others' posts/threads on the quality of the competition he beat in his victories, which, while they are Ws, are on the whole not very impressive. He just has enough of them now to get to the G5-G5 bowl games a conference like CUSA has. He still has a losing record at Rice going into year 9.
For that one accomplishment: still being a Div I Head Coach after that 8-year record, I agree that is amazing. Rare in Div I. But to me that's not something I wish him to be known for. I'd rather he be known as the guy who put Rice on the map and served notice to the nation that Rice football will compete with AND CAN AND DOES BEAT anyone, anytime, anywhere, so watch out. Like TCU, like Boise, etc...
Yes there are other things to fix. Looks like JK is taking away some of the endless excuses piece by piece, with EZF phase 1 and finances, etc... In the meantime, I'd like DBD to do what Wayne Graham did BEFORE he got the facilities, etc... I realize some here find that unrealistic, as has been the case for 30 or 40 or whatever number of years you wish here at Rice. But MANY do not. It's time to change our perspective and dare to be
great, not just okay.
We've been waiting 8 years for DBD to succeed at this. It is still, after 8 years, really difficult to define exactly what he has accomplished in REAL terms here during his long tenure. (Rehashed in innumerable threads.)
That's just the way it is at the moment. I do agree with those who feel that next season can help us really see finally what he is capable of, and I want to pressure him to SUCCEED and EXCEED the level we are at, whatever that really is. I am uncertain if he can or will do that for us, which still troubles me and others who consider him suspect going into year 9.
Many advocates appear to not want to push to the transformative level. They appear happy with a plateau or slight nuances of improvement that further muddle the picture. Whether they will be satisfied with further regression remains to be seen. The only ones whose opinions really matter are JK, Leebron and the BOT. We're just fans on a message board blowing off steam, which is the purpose of message boards, after all.
Maybe if he was more willing to take the advice of ruowls, Ham and Owl 69, etc... and played a more exciting style of football, I wouldn't be as hard on him, but his games overall are excruciating far too often, even when he wins against the bottom-dwelling opponents. It's my school, so I follow its athletics. Had Rice not had Div I athletics, including football, I would not have matriculated here.
I read posts like yours as being the ones satisfied with mediocrity. I am certainly not.