(10-16-2021 09:22 AM)Dr. Isaly von Yinzer Wrote:  

(10-15-2021 11:45 PM)Gakusei Wrote:  

(10-15-2021 10:19 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(10-15-2021 10:07 PM)Dr. Isaly von Yinzer Wrote:  OK, so I think you’re making a better case against UTSA than you are for Rice. Rice definitely has more than enough money to do whatever the hell it wants to do. Again though, that’s been the case for the past 30 years and what has that led to?

The other way to look at it is Rice has proven that it does not really need a thriving athletic department to be a thriving university. It doesn’t need to use athletics as a loss leader like so many of its peers do.

For me, I just can’t get over the tiny undergraduate enrollment and the really sparse home crowds over multiple decades now. i’m trying to imagine a scenario in which a Rice team playing under the banner of the American Athletic Conference suddenly starts to thrive and I just can’t fathom that ever happening.

It would be about them pouring more money into the program and getting better exposure from ESPN/ABC. No reason SMU and Tulsa can be competitive and Rice cant. That said---if we assume the AAC adding a Texas school is a MUST (and we really dont know that it is), does the AAC really care which Texas G5 steps up to the plate and indicates it is willing to expand its athletic budget to meet the 45-50 million it will take to be consistently competitive in the AAC? I mean---if UTSA and N Texas (or N Texas and Rice) decide they can accept a MW invite and not have to meet the AAC higher budget requirements---does that really matter to the AAC?

It may very be that it doesnt matter at all. Its not like any of the available G5's in the Texas have been power football programs---all three look to be a gamble on future potential. So---if the MW wants to take two or three Texas teams that the AAC has vetted and already knows are not willing to spend at the level required to compete in the AAC (or MW--as those two conferences have similar budget ranges)--thats basically the MW adding teams to that are likely to rarely ever climb out of the MW cellar. Meanwhile, if the AAC is taking the one available Texas G5 committed to spending what it takes to compete in the AAC---I dont think the AAC will really care which one of the 4 it is (even if its say--Texas St.---the program thats the least successful in the bunch)---as it would be the one program thats financially committed to competing. I suppose---if they could have thier druthers---it would be nice if the school with the best brand and AAU academics was the school that was willing to spend the money.

That said---if your having to choose from 4 programs that simply cant seem to consistently field decent teams---maybe you should just add 2 teams for now or--if thats not an option---at least widen the search beyond Texas.

Basically agree with everything you both said. Rice, even if they were to start hitting the top 25 regularly, would see a more pronounced version of what you’re seeing with SMU now. Despite being top 25, SMU won’t fill their 30k stadium. They don’t have the same buy-in from Dallas the way TCU does in Fort Worth, and they don’t have the alums to fill the gap. The upside of private schools is the resources, and the downside is that schools like Miami and USC are more the exception than the rule.

For the Texas schools (UNT, UTSA, TSU, and Rice), none of them really offer anything compelling in a vacuum. If they did, they’d already have moved conferences. That said, we’re not in a vacuum. If MWC expands it’ll be for visibility in Texas, and if AAC expands with Texas schools, it’ll be with schools that can expand their budget to be more in line with the rest of the conference.

For the MWC, UNT and UTSA offer the most visibility. For the AAC, UNT, TSU, and Rice are capable of expanding their budgets. The difference is there are far fewer options for the MWC than there are for the AAC. Personally, I feel like it makes more sense for that conference to push eastward than to reinforce SMU, who aspires to leave, and Tulsa, who always seems like their football program is in a precarious position.

Yes, I think we’re mostly in agreement. However, my point is Rice is not going to raise his athletic budget and it’s not going to suddenly commit to athletics. Why should it? It doesn’t need to do that.

Rice has clearly demonstrated that it doesn’t need to to offer a big-time athletics experience to attract high level students. In that way, they really are a lot like the Ivy League schools.

Most schools clearly feel that the profile of their entire university is raised by the profile of their athletic department. That’s not going to happen in the AAC. This isn’t about Rice getting into the Big 12 or the PAC-12, which might change the discussion a bit. This is not giving them moving them from one non-power conference to another non-power conference.

I don’t mean to be so anti-Rice. I have nothing against that school at all. I just also don’t think they make any sense at all in this context. Perhaps UTSA isn’t a good answer but I know Rice is about it. Maybe then you start to look at Liberty or FAU?

I just think that undergraduate enrollment and on campus housing are really good predictors of your ability to sustain long-term success and while Rice has more money than most, it also has a very small undergraduate population and that’s never going to change; which is why I believe nothing about their profile is likely to ever change. 30 years from now, they will still be a very small but very wealthy elite school in Houston that struggles to attract fans. I think that would be true regardless of which league in which they competed.

I would say what skews that for UTSA is their football stadium is almost 20 miles from campus and most likely will be for 10-20 years going by their master plan.