(02-07-2019 03:55 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(02-07-2019 03:46 PM)loki_the_bubba Wrote:  

(02-07-2019 01:48 PM)panama Wrote:  

(02-06-2019 06:28 PM)loki_the_bubba Wrote:  

(02-06-2019 06:09 PM)panama Wrote:  If Rice were seriously investing in their stadium and ops facilities like the guys accross town they would be gone. They check every other box.

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That perception is based only on the football stadium.

In the last ten years:

- New football facility for team and locker room. Renovated the old site into the band hall. Sure, the core of the stadium is old, but plans are in the works. The practice field was updated by the NFL for the Super Bowl practices two years ago.
- Great baseball stadium with enhanced 'Roost' and new scoreboard
- Entirely new tennis facility
- New track grandstand, enclosed press box and team facilities for soccer, track and field, and cross country
- New pool

Admittedly, the basketball arena large renovation a little over ten years ago might be a little long in the tooth.

How do your facilities compare with Houston. That is the bkttom line. Is it stop gap or is it on par with Power Conferences where recruits are dropping their jaws?

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I was more addressing the perception that seems prevalent that Rice is not investing in their athletics facilities. But head to head with Cougar High...

Football: They win big. New on-campus stadium about three years old.
Basketball: They win again. Expensive rebuild of Hofheinz just opened. Our rebuild was almost fifteen years ago.
Baseball: Rice wins. They can't even afford dirt for the infield.
Others: Don't know enough about their facilities to comment.

Rice doesn't have the same outlook that most AAC schools have. Really, any of them save for Tulane. Schools like Houston and Memphis and UCF are looking to become big athletic powers as a means to driving alumni donations and corporate sponsors and building a bigger overall brand image on a national level.

Rice, as a basically Ivy-league level school, already *has* all of that. Rice is an elite university with 100% brand value and recognition on a national basis, and doesn't need athletics to drive applications or alumni donations. It sits on a $6 Billion endowment for crissakes.

So no matter what statements Rice leaders make about the import of athletics, athletics is still a play-thing to Rice, far removed from its mission, whereas for UCF/Memphis/Houston type schools it is a core component of its national aspirations and mission.

Essentially, Rice doesn't compete with Houston or Memphis or UCF or other AAC schools save for Tulane in any meaningful way. Rice is on a whole other level in the pecking order of educational institutions.

Now, I'm not saying that truly elite athletics and truly elite academics are incompatible - Notre Dame and Stanford are glaring examples that they are. But Rice hasn't yet shown any interest in moving in that direction.

It seems to me like North Texas is trying to follow the Houston model. Since hiring our current AD, he has focused on increasing competitiveness, attendance, visibility, and donations, as well as building new facilities. So far it is working. I believe UNT will be signing Littrell to another extension, which will probably raise his salary from $1.425 million to around $2 million. Not the $4 million U of H is paying, but a salary that would be among the best in all of the G5. And, this year North Texas signed a Top 10 G5 recruiting class. North Texas will be hosting Houston in an OOC game this season too. It should be a fun game and tell us if UNT is beginning to close the gap on the field too.

With the size of these two universities, and alumni bases, and with the size and value of their markets, it will be interesting to follow how successful they are in continuing to grow their programs and funding over the next decade.