FIU, the unquestioned worst team in FBS, already has 13 in the portal (from a 1-11 team).

Rice needs Kendel Briles.

A great offensive coach that played in Houston and has shown he can recruit.

(12-03-2021 11:17 PM)The WEST is the BEST Wrote:  Rice needs Kendel Briles.
A great offensive coach that played in Houston and has shown he can recruit.

And has also shown a blatant disregard for integrity. No thanks.

(12-03-2021 11:17 PM)The WEST is the BEST Wrote:  Rice needs Kendel Briles.

A great offensive coach that played in Houston and has shown he can recruit.

A quick google search says his salary as Offensive Coordinator at Arkansas is $1M. Is he already out of our price range?

(12-04-2021 10:28 AM)ESE84 Wrote:  

(12-03-2021 11:17 PM)The WEST is the BEST Wrote:  Rice needs Kendel Briles.

A great offensive coach that played in Houston and has shown he can recruit.

A quick google search says his salary as Offensive Coordinator at Arkansas is $1M. Is he already out of our price range?

No. Bloom's getting considerably more than that.

(12-04-2021 10:32 AM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  

(12-04-2021 10:28 AM)ESE84 Wrote:  

(12-03-2021 11:17 PM)The WEST is the BEST Wrote:  Rice needs Kendel Briles.

A great offensive coach that played in Houston and has shown he can recruit.

A quick google search says his salary as Offensive Coordinator at Arkansas is $1M. Is he already out of our price range?

No. Bloom's getting considerably more than that.

We don’t need to pay seven figures for a coach who will get us on probation as he jumps to another job.

You folks, knock it off trying to put come up with some great offensive genius to coach Rice.

Since Jess was forced out, the four best coaches (in terms of wins and losses) have been three defensive guys (Graham, Goldsmith, and Bailiff) and a guy whose offense you all hated (Hatfield).

The offensive geniuses (Homer Rice, Watson Brown, Jerry Berndt) have averaged 2 wins per year. We're not going to find greater offensive minds than those, and none of them worked. Maybe Brown would have worked if he had stayed longer, but he didn't, so he didn't.

Rice is always going to be at a recruiting disadvantage because academic standards (which I support) limit the number of fish in the pond that Rice can go after. So the approach has to be to recruit as well as humanly possible to narrow the talent gap to a manageable size, and then make up the difference with scheme and execution. That means doing stuff contrary to the norm. The worst thing for Rice to do is to line up and run the same offense and defense as everybody else, because then the talent will win out the vast majority of the time. Do something different, make yourselves as hard to prepare for in a short week as possible, and then execute it flawlessly.

Probably the biggest improvement made by any Rice coach (discounting Todd as an outlier) was Fred Goldsmith. His approach was play sound defense, win the kicking game, and have a good quarterback. Playing defense alone would make Rice a considerable outlier in CUSA, where last night's championship game ended 49-41, and would promise to have the a similar effect with the move to AAC. Winning the kicking game should be doable by simply being willing to give scholarships to kickers and punters whereas the P5s make them walk on--so we could at least in theory have a Boz and a Martens at all times--and by devoting enough practice time and attention to perfecting the necessary skills--snaps, holds, protection, coverage, returns. Offensively, doing something different--be it Hat's flexbone option, or Dinger's spread, or Ruowls's West Coast passing game, or the Air Raid, or the Run-and-Shoot, or the Hawaii Bone-and-Shoot, or whatever--and creating preparation problems, if executed properly, has the potential to provide plenty of offense to win with players that we can recruit after the P5s get through picking the cream off the top. My personal favorite would be the Hawaii Bone-and-Shoot, incorporating Ruowls's receiver techniques and spacing and stretching principles, because I like the combination of an effective running game with a unique passing attack. (As an aside, every time I watch a Mike Leach team play, I can't help but think that with the defenses they are seeing, if they just had a basic option running game, they could run for 5 yards a pop all night, and that would make them impossible to stop.) But any of them could work with the right emphasis on execution, which I see as the real strength of Ruowls's approach (just as it was of his playing approach).

Combine that approach with the strongest possible recruiting, considering the academic limitations, and Rice could field a team that could win or contend in CUSA or AAC virtually every year. That means first, focus on Texas, and that means relationships with Texas HS coaches (the Matt Rhule and Fred Goldsmith approach). Then fill in the gaps with out-of-state recruiting where the staff has contacts (Fred recruited Florida, Ken recruited Arkansas and Louisiana and the HS in Atlanta that ran the wishbone/flexbone). Get to the level of dominating CUSA (or it will probably be AAC by the time Rice could get there) and then the "signature wins" will come.

It's not very hard to look at what has and has not worked, for Rice and others, and come up with a "best practices" approach.

Sound defense goes only so far until your team falls behind 21-3 due to offensive ineptitude or turnovers. Then, you'd better have an offense that can score, and an offensive minded coach who's installed a 21st century scheme.

(12-04-2021 01:53 PM)WRCisforgotten79 Wrote:  Sound defense goes only so far until your team falls behind 21-3 due to offensive ineptitude or turnovers. Then, you'd better have an offense that can score, and an offensive minded coach who's installed a 21st century scheme.

First off, when you are down 21-3, there is no offense that really gives you a great chance to win. And if you are going to design your offense around coming from three touchdowns down, you are probably engaging in stupidity from the start.

Also, you better have a defense that can get some stops. If you score 40 but give up 24 from there, you lose 45-43.

You can't really come from behind without defensive stops, just as the way to protect a lead is to keep scoring. One of my huge frustrations with Rice basketball over the years, if you will excuse changing sports, was a tendency to get a lead early and then try to sit on it. When you get a lead, keep scoring, and they can't catch you.

You have to play defense to come back, and you have to keep scoring to maintain a lead.

Your defense could still be the kind that makes stops, once the offense no longer gives the opponents a short field. So, let's say that the bleeding stops at 21, because the great defense does its thing. You still need an offense that can score.

(12-04-2021 01:53 PM)WRCisforgotten79 Wrote:  Sound defense goes only so far until your team falls behind 21-3 due to offensive ineptitude or turnovers. Then, you'd better have an offense that can score, and an offensive minded coach who's installed a 21st century scheme.

For owl#s. The key is execution and not just being a defensive coach. Defensive coaches tend to lean toward execution which is what you are saying. This is the best practices for Rice. But they don't really know passing. Heck, "offensive" geniuses sometimes don't really know passing either. It goes beyond just matching the right plays to the defensive calls you are going against. An offense can be ok taking this approach. But to be truly innovative, the offense has to make the passing game work on any given play if needed. This stresses the defensive front that may change to provide the defense more pass defenders. This lets the running game more productive until they bring in more defenders to stop the run. Now, you can control a game offensively and give your defense less stress and an opportunity to be more opportunistic and make stops and generate turnovers because the other offense is trying to keep up with you. So the real key is teaching your offense to execute, especially in the passing game. And that is what takes understanding. Look, a defense has specific requirements on every play. They need gap control, containment, cover eligible receivers, and cover the receivers in either man or zone. Coverages may change to accomplish this but the requirements to do so do not. You can do an odd front, even front, Cover 1, 2, 3, quarters or whatever but the basic elements of the defensive requirements don't change. So, teach your offense this basic premise and you can execute pretty much on any play against any coverage with a multitude of plays.

(12-04-2021 02:11 PM)WRCisforgotten79 Wrote:  Your defense could still be the kind that makes stops, once the offense no longer gives the opponents a short field. So, let's say that the bleeding stops at 21, because the great defense does its thing. You still need an offense that can score.

But 21 is not an insurmountable burden. Letting them get to 42 is probably more than any offense can overcome.

If you are down 21-3, that means you have to get at least 3 more stops than you let the other side get against you, in order to have a chance. If you don't get those stops, it doesn't matter what you score.

I remember Tommy Kramer's senior year, aTm beat Rice 59-34. Some people were saying Rice had a chance all the way because of Kramer. Not if Rice gave up 59, no they didn't.

(12-04-2021 02:15 PM)ruowls Wrote:  So the real key is teaching your offense to execute, especially in the passing game. And that is what takes understanding.

I don't think we disagree in the slightest. Not quite sure why you addressed that point to me.

(12-04-2021 02:18 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(12-04-2021 02:11 PM)WRCisforgotten79 Wrote:  Your defense could still be the kind that makes stops, once the offense no longer gives the opponents a short field. So, let's say that the bleeding stops at 21, because the great defense does its thing. You still need an offense that can score.

But 21 is not an insurmountable burden. Letting them get to 42 is probably more than any offense can overcome.

Even with Zappe, you can't have kick returners fumble the ball deep in your own territory. Without that, I think Western Kentucky would have won, even surrendering 40+ points.

(12-04-2021 02:21 PM)WRCisforgotten79 Wrote:  

(12-04-2021 02:18 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(12-04-2021 02:11 PM)WRCisforgotten79 Wrote:  Your defense could still be the kind that makes stops, once the offense no longer gives the opponents a short field. So, let's say that the bleeding stops at 21, because the great defense does its thing. You still need an offense that can score.

But 21 is not an insurmountable burden. Letting them get to 42 is probably more than any offense can overcome.

Even with Zappe, you can't have kick returners fumble the ball deep in your own territory. Without that, I think Western Kentucky would have won, even surrendering 40+ points.

Play sound defense, win the kicking game, and do something different on offense does not allow for kick returners to fumble balls. WKY scored 41, which is pretty good offensive performance, and still lost because they gave up 49.

Using the XII championship game as an example of the 21-3 situation (since that was the score just before the half), Okie State has gotten back into the game by virtue of 3 straight stops. If Baylor scores on any one of those 3 possessions, it's still a two score game at this point.

WRC, further re: your 21-3 hypothetical, it depends a bit on when in the game it occurs. If that is a halftime, which it almost was in the XII championship (21-6), then getting defensive stops is important. As I noted Okie State has gotten back into the game by virtue of 4 straight stops, while scoring 10 points. If it's mid-4th-quarter or later, then you're going to need offense in a hurry, but you're also probably going to need at least one or two onside kicks and/or at least one or two stops, so it's probably offense plus defense plus kicking game at that point. And realistically, needing 3 scores in less than half a quarter, there isn't really any offense that gives you a great chance. And as I said, if you are going to design your offense with the primary objective of being able to come from three scores down in the 4th quarter, that's a pretty stupid premise.

If Baylor could keep scoring, they win the XII championship easily, but their inability to score has let Okie State back into the game.

(12-04-2021 02:49 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  WRC, further re: your 21-3 hypothetical, it depends a bit on when in the game it occurs. If that is a halftime, which it almost was in the XII championship (21-6), then getting defensive stops is important. As I noted Okie State has gotten back into the game by virtue of 4 straight stops, while scoring 10 points. If it's mid-4th-quarter or later, then you're going to need offense in a hurry, but you're also probably going to need at least one or two onside kicks and/or at least one or two stops, so it's probably offense plus defense plus kicking game at that point. And realistically, needing 3 scores in less than half a quarter, there isn't really any offense that gives you a great chance. And as I said, if you are going to design your offense with the primary objective of being able to come from three scores down in the 4th quarter, that's a pretty stupid premise.

If you design your offense (flexbone) so that you can't score quickly if you're 9 points down in the middle of the 4th quarter, that's a pretty stupid premise.