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Would have mattered more 60 years ago when Rice football was more important

I got about 30 or 40% through and abandoned it. Too many questions.

(12-21-2020 11:44 PM)loki_the_bubba Wrote:  I got about 30 or 40% through and abandoned it. Too many questions.

It's rare for me to have a longer attention span than - well - anyone.
But I do enjoy skewing survey results.
Without forcing them, my responses are usually outliers.

This is a good thread topic. At Rice, I think UH, Texas, SMU
Louisiana Tech and USM are our biggest rivalries that need to be preserved/cultivated, and in that order. We should be playing UH and Texas every single year. Throw in SMU and Tulane as much as possible in the years you can't get Texas. Schedule local teams. If you can't get Tulane or SMU, schedule ULL. DO IT QUICKLY! If we play an FCS school, be sure that it's Sam Houston State, TSU, or HBU, and in that order. Local schools.

(12-22-2020 12:24 AM)Ourland Wrote:  This is a good thread topic. At Rice, I think UH, Texas, SMU
Louisiana Tech and USM are our biggest rivalries that need to be preserved/cultivated, and in that order. We should be playing UH and Texas every single year. Throw in SMU and Tulane as much as possible in the years you can't get Texas. Schedule local teams. If you can't get Tulane or SMU, schedule ULL. DO IT QUICKLY! If we play an FCS school, be sure that it's Sam Houston State, TSU, or HBU, and in that order. Local schools.

SMU? They weren't even an important rival back in the SWC days. Our big 3 is clearly UT, UT and A&M, at least from our fans, alums, students and players perspective.

Our biggest rival seems to be Rice - they are the ones who are always beating us.

(12-22-2020 08:13 AM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  

(12-22-2020 12:24 AM)Ourland Wrote:  This is a good thread topic. At Rice, I think UH, Texas, SMU
Louisiana Tech and USM are our biggest rivalries that need to be preserved/cultivated, and in that order. We should be playing UH and Texas every single year. Throw in SMU and Tulane as much as possible in the years you can't get Texas. Schedule local teams. If you can't get Tulane or SMU, schedule ULL. DO IT QUICKLY! If we play an FCS school, be sure that it's Sam Houston State, TSU, or HBU, and in that order. Local schools.

SMU? They weren't even an important rival back in the SWC days. Our big 3 is clearly UT, UT and A&M, at least from our fans, alums, students and players perspective.

Let's try to keep this grounded in reality. There isn't anyone who considers Rice to be it's rival, particularly Texas and A&M. None of our players, students, and alums under the age of 50 have even witnessed a Rice-A&M football game. Excuse me, they've witnessed one.

SMU is a former SWC rival and a private school. It surprises me that you'd dismiss them and someone like Tulane so quickly.

We don't have any meaningful SWC rivals anymore. Our rivalries are going to be against other small-conference schools who are willing to share the field of play with Rice. A&M? There's no way. That rivalry has faded away into history.

(12-22-2020 10:55 AM)Ourland Wrote:  

(12-22-2020 08:13 AM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  

(12-22-2020 12:24 AM)Ourland Wrote:  This is a good thread topic. At Rice, I think UH, Texas, SMU
Louisiana Tech and USM are our biggest rivalries that need to be preserved/cultivated, and in that order. We should be playing UH and Texas every single year. Throw in SMU and Tulane as much as possible in the years you can't get Texas. Schedule local teams. If you can't get Tulane or SMU, schedule ULL. DO IT QUICKLY! If we play an FCS school, be sure that it's Sam Houston State, TSU, or HBU, and in that order. Local schools.

SMU? They weren't even an important rival back in the SWC days. Our big 3 is clearly UT, UT and A&M, at least from our fans, alums, students and players perspective.

Let's try to keep this grounded in reality. There isn't anyone who considers Rice to be it's rival, particularly Texas and A&M. None of our players, students, and alums under the age of 50 have even witnessed a Rice-A&M football game. Excuse me, they've witnessed one.

SMU is a former SWC rival and a private school. It surprises me that you'd dismiss them and someone like Tulane so quickly.

We don't have any meaningful SWC rivals anymore. Our rivalries are going to be against other small-conference schools who are willing to share the field of play with Rice. A&M? There's no way. That rivalry has faded away into history.

While it's true that no one, save for perhaps UH, considers us one of their primary rivals, you're nuts if think our fans, students, alums, players and coaches don't consider UH, UT and the Aggies as our fiercest rivals. Say that to those who witnessed our volleyball win over UT last season or who sold out Tudor for the WBB game against the Aggies last year. For a good 10-year period Southern Miss was a worthy rival in baseball that was valued by both fan bases, but not in our other sports. Tulane would be a rival if we played each other annually, but we don't, so they're not. As for SMU, you may be the only person who considers them a rival of ours. I certainly don't, and I really didn't when I attended Rice in the mid-to-late '70s.

(12-22-2020 11:21 AM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  

(12-22-2020 10:55 AM)Ourland Wrote:  

(12-22-2020 08:13 AM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  

(12-22-2020 12:24 AM)Ourland Wrote:  This is a good thread topic. At Rice, I think UH, Texas, SMU
Louisiana Tech and USM are our biggest rivalries that need to be preserved/cultivated, and in that order. We should be playing UH and Texas every single year. Throw in SMU and Tulane as much as possible in the years you can't get Texas. Schedule local teams. If you can't get Tulane or SMU, schedule ULL. DO IT QUICKLY! If we play an FCS school, be sure that it's Sam Houston State, TSU, or HBU, and in that order. Local schools.

SMU? They weren't even an important rival back in the SWC days. Our big 3 is clearly UT, UT and A&M, at least from our fans, alums, students and players perspective.

Let's try to keep this grounded in reality. There isn't anyone who considers Rice to be it's rival, particularly Texas and A&M. None of our players, students, and alums under the age of 50 have even witnessed a Rice-A&M football game. Excuse me, they've witnessed one.

SMU is a former SWC rival and a private school. It surprises me that you'd dismiss them and someone like Tulane so quickly.

We don't have any meaningful SWC rivals anymore. Our rivalries are going to be against other small-conference schools who are willing to share the field of play with Rice. A&M? There's no way. That rivalry has faded away into history.

While it's true that no one, save for perhaps UH, considers us one of their primary rivals, you're nuts if think our fans, students, alums, players and coaches don't consider UH, UT and the Aggies as our fiercest rivals. Say that to those who witnessed our volleyball win over UT last season or who sold out Tudor for the WBB game against the Aggies last year. For a good 10-year period Southern Miss was a worthy rival in baseball that was valued by both fan bases, but not in our other sports. Tulane would be a rival if we played each other annually, but we don't, so they're not. As for SMU, you may be the only person who considers them a rival of ours. I certainly don't, and I really didn't when I attended Rice in the mid-to-late '70s.

If the football game has a trophy it’s usually considered some sort of rivalry (like Rice vs SMU). I consider SMU a rival because they were a school in CUSA that some Rice students might have considered attending, they were close, they were private and we’ve played them for a long time. Tulane and Tulsa were also better rivals than anyone in our current conference.

As a rival:

Old Dominion/FAU/FIU < SMU < Texas/A$M/UH

(12-22-2020 11:21 AM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  

(12-22-2020 10:55 AM)Ourland Wrote:  

(12-22-2020 08:13 AM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  

(12-22-2020 12:24 AM)Ourland Wrote:  This is a good thread topic. At Rice, I think UH, Texas, SMU
Louisiana Tech and USM are our biggest rivalries that need to be preserved/cultivated, and in that order. We should be playing UH and Texas every single year. Throw in SMU and Tulane as much as possible in the years you can't get Texas. Schedule local teams. If you can't get Tulane or SMU, schedule ULL. DO IT QUICKLY! If we play an FCS school, be sure that it's Sam Houston State, TSU, or HBU, and in that order. Local schools.

SMU? They weren't even an important rival back in the SWC days. Our big 3 is clearly UT, UT and A&M, at least from our fans, alums, students and players perspective.

Let's try to keep this grounded in reality. There isn't anyone who considers Rice to be it's rival, particularly Texas and A&M. None of our players, students, and alums under the age of 50 have even witnessed a Rice-A&M football game. Excuse me, they've witnessed one.

SMU is a former SWC rival and a private school. It surprises me that you'd dismiss them and someone like Tulane so quickly.

We don't have any meaningful SWC rivals anymore. Our rivalries are going to be against other small-conference schools who are willing to share the field of play with Rice. A&M? There's no way. That rivalry has faded away into history.

While it's true that no one, save for perhaps UH, considers us one of their primary rivals, you're nuts if think our fans, students, alums, players and coaches don't consider UH, UT and the Aggies as our fiercest rivals. Say that to those who witnessed our volleyball win over UT last season or who sold out Tudor for the WBB game against the Aggies last year. For a good 10-year period Southern Miss was a worthy rival in baseball that was valued by both fan bases, but not in our other sports. Tulane would be a rival if we played each other annually, but we don't, so they're not. As for SMU, you may be the only person who considers them a rival of ours. I certainly don't, and I really didn't when I attended Rice in the mid-to-late '70s.

Fair enough, but I can't consider anyone who refuses to play us in our biggest sport a rival. Yes, we do have a friendly rivalry with UH and Texas, even if they aren't as excited about it as we are.

The potential rivalries are within the AAC, CUSA, and Sunbelt western divisions. Who here wouldn't love to play SMU and Tulane again? Probably not many.

I'd say Marshall would deserve a place on that list... as we've knocked them out of national attention twice now....

That said, I'm betting almost none of our students or even alumni chose between Rice and Marshall, or almost any other CUSA school.

UH is a rival because we often played against their players in high school and of course are a local alumni rival, but probably not much of a rival for our students.
UT, A&M and other flagship schools probably have a lot of students who applied to both schools... and of course a ton of local alumni for that office rivalry.

To me our biggest failure is in aligning these kinships and friendly rivalries. It's not just about sporting events, but about alumni interest and interest beyond the intrinsic. Some of the people who speak the best of Rice people and the school are old SWC rivals. I think we could expand it even more to all of the 'ivy' or other academic institutions globally that would like to fit in to Texas or American sports culture through college sports. As an example, someone might say I went to Harvard or Wash U. but I support Rice's similar academic mission... and their upcoming game against UT makes for great office talk with all of the UT/A&M/OU/Michigan guys in my office or my customers or my neighbors or a family event. Now all of a sudden, we're perhaps attracting children of Harvard grads to come to Rice because they grew up with it... or children of Michigan grads who don't want the snow... or want to be able to more easily go home for breaks

From a conference re-alignment perspective, Cougars are our only rival.

I actually responded to the survey. It asked to weigh how much of a rival different schools are - with 100 total points to be distributed, with more on the most intense rival. For example, if it were Oklahoma State, it might be 70 for OU, 25 for Texas and 5 for Tulsa (I'm just using that as an example). I think I had around 60 for Houston, 25 for Texas, 10 for Texas' A&M, and 5 for UTSA.

I was not yet in kindergarten when the SWC broke up. I grew up in the midwest and had no more exposure to Rice football than any other I-A program until I enrolled in 2008. To me, nothing since then has led me in any way to consider A&M a rival.

I went with:
UH - 80
SMU - 10
Texas - 5
UTEP - 3
USM - 1
Marshall -1

If I had answered during my school career (2008-2012 era) it would have probably looked like:

UH - 45
SMU - 20
Tulsa - 15
Tulane - 10
Texas - 5
UTEP - 3
USM -2

C-USA 2.0 was obviously a downgrade from the SWC in every way, but the teams we shared a division with back then still functioned as rivals much more naturally than what we have now.

The big 3 in the old days that could fill Rice Stadium were Texas, LSU, and A&M. UH was added in 1971 and it was a big game the first 2 years but faded in importance.

If competitiveness is a component of any rivalry and given the current state of Rice athletics (and ignoring the Lady Owls relative success)...

UH - they're local and take what little press coverage is left after the media gorge themselves on UT and TAMU. (Yeah, I'm ignoring competitiveness on this one.)

North Texas - weak UH variant located north of Dallas (and Houstonians and Dallasites don't mix)

UTEP - level competition

And outside state borders possibly....

La Tech - a replacement (?) for Tulane that was a replacement (?) for LSU. (At least La Tech is interested in us.)

(12-22-2020 12:24 AM)Ourland Wrote:  Louisiana Tech and USM are our biggest rivalries that need to be preserved/cultivated, and in that order.

We have no current rivalries that need to be preserved/cultivated. The only rivalries that we have that need to be preserved/cultivated would be UH, TexasU, LSU, and aTm. Except none of them are current rivalries, and (except possibly UH) unlikely to become so.

The ship has sailed, and we're not on it. Nor are we likely to get on at any point in the near future.

If I had it to do today, I'd go to Notre Dame.

(12-23-2020 08:01 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(12-22-2020 12:24 AM)Ourland Wrote:  Louisiana Tech and USM are our biggest rivalries that need to be preserved/cultivated, and in that order.

We have no current rivalries that need to be preserved/cultivated. The only rivalries that we have that need to be preserved/cultivated would be UH, TexasU, LSU, and aTm. Except none of them are current rivalries, and (except possibly UH) unlikely to become so.

The ship has sailed, and we're not on it. Nor are we likely to get on at any point in the near future.

If I had it to do today, I'd go to Notre Dame.

Given the ethos of Rice today, I think many would have second thoughts about matriculating if you're able to discern 'ethos' as a high school senior.

I'm not sure when it changed, but Rice was foreign to me almost as soon as I graduated.

Maybe my perception only became more acute with each passing year?