(07-26-2021 10:17 AM)Fort Bend Owl Wrote:  So everyone who is assuming Rice won't survive the latest round of realignment, and perhaps goes to NCAA D3 is assuming the NCAA does survive. Why would they assume that? With NIL and super conferences, why does the SEC need to be part of the NCAA any more? If they go, would the ACC, Big 10 and Pac 12 follow in turn?

Here's my potential solution for Rice's athletic path in the future? Obviously a lot of dominoes would have to fall in a certain order for this to happen, but it's an interesting possible scenario.

The super conferences break away and the NCAA remains for the remaining conferences, albeit with a lot less power and money. But what if the schools that still focus on academics break away on their own as well?

The Ivy Leagues would probably have to lead the way, but schools like Rice, MIT, the University of Chicago, Cal Tech, Johns Hopkins, Wash U, Emory, Carnegie Mellon, etc. could follow along with them. Those are all top 30 ranked schools, but there are many other top 100's who might be interested in a new affiliation. Possibly, even some Canadian universities would join in the fun.

The elite schools form a new athletic affiliation based on one very controversial rule that would absolutely ensure that they would still have viable athletic programs -- every single student-athlete in their various sports is on a full athletic scholarship. It's possible too to combine athletic scholarships and academic scholarships to ensure a full ride, if NCAA rules and regulations no longer apply.

Would Rice want to guarantee full rides for say 250 student-athletes (I'm assuming that many sports would still exist but at much smaller roster numbers - so maybe only 50 to 60 football players instead of 100, 10 to 12 basketball instead of 13 to 15, etc.)? It's a tough sell, but perhaps the schools with the largest endowments would take that plunge. It would certainly help their campus diversity, and true student-athletes tend to be very successful businessmen, doctors, lawyers., etc. and give quite a bit back to their alma maters. Even if they end up being teachers and/or coaches, Rice is investing in its future as these future teachers would be promoting Rice to their top students.

I really don't think you can peg Rice into a specific conference or affiliation in the future, just because it's impossible to know what the college athletic landscape will look like in 20-30 years. Personally, I think this might be the most interesting scenario available for Rice, but obviously it's one that they would need many other similar institutions to follow along with.

Not sure I buy this, but this is.the kind of out of the box thinking that we desperately need. If we are so smart, we should be thinking creatively like this. I hope the people who get paid to run things can and will think like this.