"Losing is okay as long as you have a good enough excuse." I don't think that ANYONE is suggesting that Rice lower its academic standards for athletes to Boise's or TCU's level, and I think it's quite frankly disingenuous to assert or imply for argumentative purposes that anyone is suggesting that. Rice had the same academic standards when Rice was going to Cotton Bowls, so that's an excuse, not a reason. That doesn't mean that there aren't plenty of OTHER things that were done by Boise and/or TCU that Rice would not do well to emulate. They did things with support, with facilities, with marketing, with administration, with processes--all of which we can emulate without changing academic standards so much as an iota. Best practices analysis says that you take the things that you CAN do and do them. I think that is what Good Owl is clearly suggesting, and for the most part that is what everyone else is suggesting, and I think that those of you who are putting words into people's mouths that they did not say owe apologies to those people.

"If you don't know where you are going, then the path of least resistance will get you there." Yes, we can point out how Rice's position as an academically elite university trying to play D1 sports in a non-P5 conference is unique. We can use that to rationalize drifting along with the tides as we did for nearly 50 years, or we can start figuring out how best to proceed in that unique situation. Drifting with the tides has taken us from the SWC to CUSA in its current configuration. Is that what we want? Do we keep drifting until we are in 17-AAAAA? We need to take some responsibility for, and some control over, our own destiny. And a big part of figuring out where to go involves looking at what others have done and finding the good parts that we can emulate. No we can't do everything that Boise and TCU did. But we can--and should--do SOME things that they did.