(03-09-2021 03:40 PM)illiniowl Wrote:  

(03-09-2021 01:47 PM)mrbig Wrote:  

(03-09-2021 12:56 PM)Frizzy Owl Wrote:  (Just so we’re clear, I’m not advocating settling for mediocrity.)

Rice is a below-average D1 coaching and AD destination. To expect Rice to consistently land and retain above-average coaching and AD talent is illogical, as is expecting Rice to never hire a dud.

Many of you set a minimum expectation that Rice consistently exceed the hiring successes of schools that have a lot more to offer. I get the sentiment, but it isn’t realistic.

Some of you talk about the need to hire coaches who “get Rice”. That doesn’t always work. Bailiff “got Rice” to an exceptional degree. That might be something that will improve chances of success, but it’s not a magic talisman.

And then there’s those of you who say that if we can’t be champions we should just drop the program. That’s what quitters and losers say. That’s the attitude of someone who throws his golf bag into a water hazard and walks away from the game because he’s never broken par for the course.

And that’s all I have to say on the subject.

I'd just like to see Rice's leadership thinking outside the box a little more. We keep trying the same formulas that have worked at other places, but we try them without the resources or history of success (the things that keep Rice a below-average destination). Mix in a little more initiative, creativity, and risk.

Two good posts on the right track IMO. The problem really isn't Karlgaard. It's Rice. I think JK came here thinking we were a Stanford-in-the-making, that there was a will here to throw the full weight of the university into achieving real athletic prominence (which IMO can only be done one of two ways: (a) with football in a P5 conference, or (b) without football).

There is no such will here. There is among Parliament posters and maybe even a few BOT members, but we/they are and always have been vastly outweighed by an apathetic-to-hostile rest of the Rice community. And it is nearly hopeless now that we are in the neighborhood we are. Essentially nobody associated with Rice can muster up any enthusiasm for playing the teams we do (those of you that can, my hat is off to you). Winning does help, and we do see short-term success here in various sports -- as most schools do -- but it quickly proves unsustainable (unless the sport literally has a HOF-level coach like WG, Victor Lopez/Jim Bevan, etc.) because the support isn't there. This place doesn't and isn't going to care about schools we have nothing in common with.

JK probably has modernized the athletic department into a generally functional state. That would have been enough to produce significant improvement at basically any other school in the country, i.e., those that are in conferences with peers, rivalries, a critical mass of engaged students/alumni, etc. -- the ingredients for life, as it were. But that's not the case here. He also has to hire -- and then retain -- miracle workers as coaches. In the big 3 sports, he hasn't. But could anyone?

In the short term, and especially in the big 3, I think if a coach isn't making any significant sparks within 3 years max, cut ties and spin the wheel again. You can't find what you need if you're not out there looking. JK is probably not going to be someone who does that, though. But I'm not sure anybody that comes from a conventional athletic administration background is going to be, either. And Rice seems an unlikely candidate to approve buyout after buyout as the P5 schools do.

In the longer (but not too long!) term, we need MAJOR outside-the-box thinking. I've proposed a ten-year "Manhattan Project/bet the company" level investment that would involve taking football independent, playing at least half our games against P5 schools, and either getting back to the P5 in 10 years or shutting down football. Or, we can shut football down now and put those resources toward our other sports and some new ones, with the goal of being top caliber in all.

However, without truly visionary change agents in the president's and AD's chairs -- and we have neither -- by default we are just going to stay the course.

we have a winner in the clubhouse. The last paragraph is exactly on point, with the needed addition that the course is neglect, providing the plausible deniability to be able to shut it down when it becomes obvious even to the last few diehards without any blood on "their" hands-see King Henry II and Thomas Becket or Captain Renault in Casablanca re gambling.