At the risk of running this thread on-topic, here are my thoughts from the Alamodome stands:

Wasn't expecting Sosa to be such a sneaky run threat. Really deceptive with his handoffs (to my untrained eyes, anyway).

Those two goal line stands were excellent. I love the fire this defense plays with. Both times, they had just gotten burned for big yardage, but they hunkered down and just would not give an inch. That second touchdown was pretty dubious from my goal line seat...

McHargue was a mixed bag, but definitely looked better than he did at the last game I was at (FAU). He missed pretty badly on some easy slants and screens, and we had some drops. But, on the other hand, we *finally* showed that you can't ignore our vertical passing game and just stack the box. Props for that, especially the second touchdown at the end of the first half. Right on the money. And, most importantly, he took care of the ball. On broken plays, he scrambled or he chucked it to the cheerleaders. Not only no interceptions, but nothing that even came close.

Yes, UTSA was able to claw back to make it respectable, but only by repeatedly pulling off improbable fourth down conversions. Sure, we should have been able to ice the game before then, but for once, we have a defense where that might not be strictly necessary.

Worried about the O-line. We have so much talent at RB that if we just got them a clear path to the secondary every once in a while we could do some serious damage.

The hurry-up offense to open the game was a nice change. Not really any more or less effective than the meercat that I saw, but much more exciting. Wish we'd follow up big plays in the hurry-up with something besides a run between the tackles every once in a while. At the very least, nice to see us trying something else.

(10-14-2013 02:40 PM)Hambone10 Wrote:  

Quote:The point spread is a poor indicator of what should happen since it is essentially a public opinion poll, and we don't have the positive public image that will induce otherwise clueless betters to say "I'll take Rice". Winning will help that, winning convincingly will help it more.

It's more than that. It's big business. Unlike the public opinion poll of say American Idol, there is big money to be made by informed gamblers who will take advantage of those clueless betters.

Not responding to the rest of it, since I think we have 90%+ overlap and are just nitpicking on terminology and details.

On betting:

Although I personally bet football very rarely, I know many, many gamblers and bookies. Two percent of the betters are informed. Ninety-eight percent think they are.

The professional sports bettors, if they touch the Rice game at all, will be familiar with Ross, Mchargue, the defense, their abilities and proclivities, and the same for the other team. The rest of the betting public will go little deeper than maybe a quick perusal of the season's results, looking for a transitive property to give them an inside track. Few casual betters know the difference between Rice 2013 and Rice 1989. But the spread is designed and adjusted to try and get 50% of these uninformed voters, I mean betters, on each side of the choice. It is not an informed judgment of the probable outcome. Yet we all think it has some predictive value. We might as well look at the line for Alien v. Predator.

All the time I see the following scenario: Bettor to bookie: What's the line on the XXX-YYY game. Bookie: YYY by 10. (five seconds pass.) Bettor: Give me XXX for a hundred. No research, just seat of the pass intuition. We should not let their intuition shape our expectations.

(10-14-2013 03:32 PM)Hambone10 Wrote:  

(10-14-2013 03:21 PM)MemOwl Wrote:  

(10-14-2013 02:40 PM)Hambone10 Wrote:  Let me go into the bigger picture... In order to improve our fortunes, we either need to win convincingly or we need for the general talent level of CUSA to improve.

Beating Notre Dame would help a lot, but in recent years we have rarely put together 4 quarters of the type of execution we will be essential so that we might be in a position where Notre Dame mistakes might hand us a huge win.

I don't know if you intend to do this or not... but much like the A&M game this year... we don't need to WIN that game, it merely sets a cap on how good we could argue we are. Assume for a minute that they are a top 30 team... I have no clue.

If we barely beat everyone in CUSA, with nobody ranked above 90, then we are arguably number 89. If we beat the pants off of them then we are clearly much better than 89. How we play against Notre Dame would give us more credibility as a top 30-50 team, even in a loss. Beating the snot out of a few bottom dwellers would also lend credibility to this argument and a few close calls could be more easily explained away. If we BEAT #30 or even #40 Notre Dame, then we can argue we are a top 20 team, because no doubt Norte Dame will play some top 20 teams close.

For this season, If we can put together not just a run, but a dominant one... we can argue that our loss to UH was a fluke to our cross-town rivals... much like OU is arguing about UT right now. Nobody will buy that if we barely squeak by our remaining schedule.

I agree with Hambone...and I would add that we are not coming close to beating Notre Dame next year if we don't get our 2014 QB situation worked out.

(10-14-2013 06:58 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(10-14-2013 02:40 PM)Hambone10 Wrote:  

Quote:The point spread is a poor indicator of what should happen since it is essentially a public opinion poll, and we don't have the positive public image that will induce otherwise clueless betters to say "I'll take Rice". Winning will help that, winning convincingly will help it more.

It's more than that. It's big business. Unlike the public opinion poll of say American Idol, there is big money to be made by informed gamblers who will take advantage of those clueless betters.

Not responding to the rest of it, since I think we have 90%+ overlap and are just nitpicking on terminology and details.

On betting:

Although I personally bet football very rarely, I know many, many gamblers and bookies. Two percent of the betters are informed. Ninety-eight percent think they are.

The professional sports bettors, if they touch the Rice game at all, will be familiar with Ross, Mchargue, the defense, their abilities and proclivities, and the same for the other team. The rest of the betting public will go little deeper than maybe a quick perusal of the season's results, looking for a transitive property to give them an inside track. Few casual betters know the difference between Rice 2013 and Rice 1989. But the spread is designed and adjusted to try and get 50% of these uninformed voters, I mean betters, on each side of the choice. It is not an informed judgment of the probable outcome. Yet we all think it has some predictive value. We might as well look at the line for Alien v. Predator.

All the time I see the following scenario: Bettor to bookie: What's the line on the XXX-YYY game. Bookie: YYY by 10. (five seconds pass.) Bettor: Give me XXX for a hundred. No research, just seat of the pass intuition. We should not let their intuition shape our expectations.

Fair enough.

But the expectation by members of this Board that we should, or rather, we need to, beat CUSA Team X by 15, 20 or 25 points is being formed, by and large by members who are not at all informed about Team X's capabilities*, and whose basis for the expectation/belief is probably 98% based on emotion, 1% based on the aforementioned spurious transitive property analysis and 1% based on a computerized ranking system with internal workings that most of the Board is pretty much unfamiliar with.

So if the betting line isn't closely enough aligned with actual relative team strength and ability, neither is our expectation of blowout wins.

*frankly our board's evaluation of our own capabilities is probably overly influenced by either liking our players and/or coaches, or in the case of some disliking our coaches.

Which puts me back at my original point. The 50-year football history at Rice, does not support the expectation of an 11 or 12 win season, with multiple blowouts. I'm certainly not rooting against either the high win total or convincing wins, and I won't be shocked if either or both occur. I want that as much as anyone here.

But I don't think it's overly reasonable to be frustrated in our performance thus far, at least when the frustration is based on an expectation, particularly since we're winning. Note that I said 'reasonable', not 'human'. We all get frustrated at some point in time after all.

But to present an alternative view, we are doing well enough to enjoy what's happening, at least in the midst of things, while hoping for more wins and less nail-biting in the process.

(10-14-2013 08:22 PM)Pan95 Wrote:  

(10-14-2013 03:32 PM)Hambone10 Wrote:  

(10-14-2013 03:21 PM)MemOwl Wrote:  

(10-14-2013 02:40 PM)Hambone10 Wrote:  Let me go into the bigger picture... In order to improve our fortunes, we either need to win convincingly or we need for the general talent level of CUSA to improve.

Beating Notre Dame would help a lot, but in recent years we have rarely put together 4 quarters of the type of execution we will be essential so that we might be in a position where Notre Dame mistakes might hand us a huge win.

I don't know if you intend to do this or not... but much like the A&M game this year... we don't need to WIN that game, it merely sets a cap on how good we could argue we are. Assume for a minute that they are a top 30 team... I have no clue.

If we barely beat everyone in CUSA, with nobody ranked above 90, then we are arguably number 89. If we beat the pants off of them then we are clearly much better than 89. How we play against Notre Dame would give us more credibility as a top 30-50 team, even in a loss. Beating the snot out of a few bottom dwellers would also lend credibility to this argument and a few close calls could be more easily explained away. If we BEAT #30 or even #40 Notre Dame, then we can argue we are a top 20 team, because no doubt Norte Dame will play some top 20 teams close.

For this season, If we can put together not just a run, but a dominant one... we can argue that our loss to UH was a fluke to our cross-town rivals... much like OU is arguing about UT right now. Nobody will buy that if we barely squeak by our remaining schedule.

I agree with Hambone...and I would add that we are not coming close to beating Notre Dame next year if we don't get our 2014 QB situation worked out.

(10-14-2013 08:43 PM)Rick Gerlach Wrote:  But to present an alternative view, we are doing well enough to enjoy what's happening, at least in the midst of things, while hoping for more wins and less nail-biting in the process.

I'll buy that.

About 10-14 more points a game would enhance my enjoyment a lot.


In this case, I am a proponent of the Army recruiting slogan "Be all you can be". I don't think we are yet being all we can be.

(10-14-2013 06:58 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(10-14-2013 02:40 PM)Hambone10 Wrote:  

Quote:The point spread is a poor indicator of what should happen since it is essentially a public opinion poll, and we don't have the positive public image that will induce otherwise clueless betters to say "I'll take Rice". Winning will help that, winning convincingly will help it more.

It's more than that. It's big business. Unlike the public opinion poll of say American Idol, there is big money to be made by informed gamblers who will take advantage of those clueless betters.

Not responding to the rest of it, since I think we have 90%+ overlap and are just nitpicking on terminology and details.

On betting:

Although I personally bet football very rarely, I know many, many gamblers and bookies. Two percent of the betters are informed. Ninety-eight percent think they are.

The professional sports bettors, if they touch the Rice game at all, will be familiar with Ross, Mchargue, the defense, their abilities and proclivities, and the same for the other team. The rest of the betting public will go little deeper than maybe a quick perusal of the season's results, looking for a transitive property to give them an inside track. Few casual betters know the difference between Rice 2013 and Rice 1989. But the spread is designed and adjusted to try and get 50% of these uninformed voters, I mean betters, on each side of the choice. It is not an informed judgment of the probable outcome. Yet we all think it has some predictive value. We might as well look at the line for Alien v. Predator.

All the time I see the following scenario: Bettor to bookie: What's the line on the XXX-YYY game. Bookie: YYY by 10. (five seconds pass.) Bettor: Give me XXX for a hundred. No research, just seat of the pass intuition. We should not let their intuition shape our expectations.

A timely debate. The Schillerian OO believes that the irrational masses can drive a market price far from its fundamentals, while the Faman Hambone believes there is an overclass of supertraders with overwhelming resources who will drive the price back to its true value. Might be a Nobel prize in this for you two.

(10-14-2013 11:01 PM)WestGrayStreetOwl Wrote:  A timely debate. The Schillerian OO believes that the irrational masses can drive a market price far from its fundamentals, while the Faman Hambone believes there is an overclass of supertraders with overwhelming resources who will drive the price back to its true value. Might be a Nobel prize in this for you two.

WGSO FTW!


Rick, we're just going to have to disagree. Never in the last 50 years of Rice history have we played such a weak schedule... and thus far, we've lost to the only two teams we've played in the top 60. If I'm wrong in that statement, I'm not wrong by much.

You seem to act as if we are flipping coins... and that 12 "heads" is unlikely. Every year in the past 50, almost without exception... there should have been a schedule that would have resulted in us winning every game but one... but we didn't play that schedule. This year, we pretty well have.

In the easiest example I can think of... Our 2008 team won 10. Replace 2008 Tulsa with 2013 Tulsa and I bet we win 11. Replace Vandy witk KU and we win 12.

Maybe this is what I mean by expecting/accepting mediocrity. We've never won this many before, so no matter the circumstances... no matter whom we play... we have no business expecting to win this many. I just don't feel that way

(10-14-2013 11:26 PM)Hambone10 Wrote:  

(10-14-2013 11:01 PM)WestGrayStreetOwl Wrote:  A timely debate. The Schillerian OO believes that the irrational masses can drive a market price far from its fundamentals, while the Faman Hambone believes there is an overclass of supertraders with overwhelming resources who will drive the price back to its true value. Might be a Nobel prize in this for you two.

WGSO FTW!


Rick, we're just going to have to disagree. Never in the last 50 years of Rice history have we played such a weak schedule... and thus far, we've lost to the only two teams we've played in the top 60. If I'm wrong in that statement, I'm not wrong by much.

You seem to act as if we are flipping coins... and that 12 "heads" is unlikely. Every year in the past 50, almost without exception... there should have been a schedule that would have resulted in us winning every game but one... but we didn't play that schedule. This year, we pretty well have.

In the easiest example I can think of... Our 2008 team won 10. Replace 2008 Tulsa with 2013 Tulsa and I bet we win 11. Replace Vandy witk KU and we win 12.

It's not flipping coins. But out of our conference games, at least several times you expect the opponent to play an 'above average' game. Some of those you'll be on the road. And you could play one of your own games that's below average.

Everyone assumed that every team we played but A&M was crap this year. Clearly that's not the case with U of H, and there will be a couple of other teams that will develop more than we thought.

As far as 2008 goes, you could also drop 2013 A&M or 2013 Houston onto their schedule as well.

The biggest issue I've got with expectations is that everyone treats our opponents like they are some kind of synthesized rating, a number on a piece of paper. They're not, they're groups of individuals, some of whom are improving, some not so much, and when groups of them improve and play up to their potential, they can put together efforts that may not have been deemed possible at the start of the year.

Imagine a team that's 1-5 and pretty much a lock for the bottom 10. Horrible Sagarin rating. We'd roll over them, right?

What if they then rolled off a 10-3 run, with 2 of their losses to undefeated teams? Maybe not so easy a game?

Well that's what we did.

Does this board think we're the only ones who can turn things around? What if UTSA wins out from this point forward?

I don't think every team we're playing is improving like that. But assuming that none of them are seems like a bad bet as well.

This is not about whether we can run the table. I think we could.

It's about whether somehow it's some kind of entitlement or birth right. Assuming that 'only Rice can beat Rice' smacks of that to me.

And it's about whether we give some credit to at least the teams in our league that will show improvement over the year. If we can turn things around, it's certainly possible that 1 or 2 other teams in the league can do so as well. After all, the only 'ratings' that matter will be the ones teams get at the END of the year.

Again, don't get me wrong. I think this is a good Rice team, and I think we're doing well. I think we just need to play them one game at a time, and I don't see why it's wrong to be happy we're 4-2 so far.

I've been using my basic rating system for 30 years and the ONLY teams that "turn things around" in mid-season are those who play a schedule that turns very soft at a given point. The win-loss record in my system is tempered greatly by the strength of the schedule. Northern Illinois is outside of the top 30, in spite of being undefeated, almost entirely due to the weakness of their opposition.

(10-14-2013 11:01 PM)WestGrayStreetOwl Wrote:  A timely debate. The Schillerian OO believes that the irrational masses can drive a market price far from its fundamentals, while the Faman Hambone believes there is an overclass of supertraders with overwhelming resources who will drive the price back to its true value. Might be a Nobel prize in this for you two.

Thank you, thank you very much. I would like to give credit to all the little people who made this possible, in particular the masses who had a feeling that UTSA would win at home, because, well, it was at home and Rice was...well, it was Rice. Without them flooding the market, Rice is a 10-14 point favorite, and doesn't cover.

I would like to take my share of the prize and put it all on Texas. They are Texas, and so must begin to play like Texas soon. I have a feeling about that game. Who are they playing, anyway? Where?

(10-15-2013 01:10 AM)WRCisforgotten79 Wrote:  I've been using my basic rating system for 30 years and the ONLY teams that "turn things around" in mid-season are those who play a schedule that turns very soft at a given point. The win-loss record in my system is tempered greatly by the strength of the schedule. Northern Illinois is outside of the top 30, in spite of being undefeated, almost entirely due to the weakness of their opposition.

In the other thread, you suggested we could crack the Top 40 by winning out, and I'll buy that.

But don't other teams have similar potential upsides if they win out, e.g., Tulane or North Texas? Maybe not Top 40, but in the 40's or 50's? What if they don't win out but have a 5-1 or 4-2 run. They're not locked into their current position?

Wouldn't that mean the claim that we're only beating teams ranked over 90 or 100 seem at least potentially premature? I'm not saying that we're beating Top 20 teams.

All I'm saying is that it seems unlikely that every team we're playing is as bad as they're generally made out to be. I mean U. of Houston appears to be better than most people gave them credit for at the start of the season.

(10-15-2013 05:40 AM)Rick Gerlach Wrote:  All I'm saying is that it seems unlikely that every team we're playing is as bad as they're generally made out to be.

If we keep stringing together single digit wins, at some point you either need to argue

1. Rice isn't very good, despite its historically unprecedented W/L record; or

2. CUSA is vastly underrated as a conference. This Sagarin guy has all of CUSA West rated 75 or below--with most below 100--but none of our wins come easy. They play a tough brand of football, and if the powers that be who schedule bowl games would give them a fair shot against top 4 teams from the SEC, B12 or B10, those big boys would get punched in the nose.

(10-15-2013 05:40 AM)Rick Gerlach Wrote:  In the other thread, you suggested we could crack the Top 40 by winning out, and I'll buy that.
But don't other teams have similar potential upsides if they win out, e.g., Tulane or North Texas? Maybe not Top 40, but in the 40's or 50's? What if they don't win out but have a 5-1 or 4-2 run. They're not locked into their current position?
Wouldn't that mean the claim that we're only beating teams ranked over 90 or 100 seem at least potentially premature? I'm not saying that we're beating Top 20 teams.
All I'm saying is that it seems unlikely that every team we're playing is as bad as they're generally made out to be. I mean U. of Houston appears to be better than most people gave them credit for at the start of the season.

The teams we are playing are pretty bad. UH is getting some notice because they are undefeated, but the teams they are playing are pretty bad too.

But all this is focusing too much on the opponents. Yes, if one of them plays lights out and we fail to show, as has been our tendency all too often, they could beat us. But what I'm looking for from us is sustained performance at the top of our envelope. If we do that, there is nobody left on our regular season schedule who can beat us. Conference championship game, maybe. Bowl game, maybe. Otherwise, no.

I imagine that the aTm game is still our highest rated game per Jonathan's system. What I would want to see is that level every week. The truly elite programs minimize the difference between their best and worst efforts.

(10-15-2013 12:19 AM)Rick Gerlach Wrote:  Everyone assumed that every team we played but A&M was crap this year. Clearly that's not the case with U of H, and there will be a couple of other teams that will develop more than we thought.

With the remarkable exception of UH, Everyone on Rice's schedule ranges from crap to the weak side of mediocre. There was every reason to expect that UH would fall in the middle of that group as well... UH probably jumped 60 spots in Sagarin rankings. In addition, I think many folks looked at what would probably be a big step up by the defense, which has been realized, even despite losing two very strong linemen and a starting LB. If you look at scoring average by year, I'd expect this year's offense is down about two touchdowns down from the norm of the past 10 years, even going back to Hatfield's teams. I don't think many expected that. It was also clear that LaTech was going to fall off a cliff.

Given what we know now about UH, I don't think anyone would predict 11-1. But, looking at the schedule, including expectations for UH, It's hard to look and not see a schedule where Rice is the stronger team in 11 of the matchups. Factoring in home-away and chance, you can figure a couple of losses, but if the offense were performing to pre-season expectations, none of the wins would've been close, and 11-1 might still be on the table.

It seems to me that the issue with our schedule is that we have played the poles of college football based on most rankings. We haven't played anyone around out caliber (sans-UH per Sagarin) so we can't really compare us to our peers. And using a single sample against our current peer group is no way to extrapolate the quality of our team.

It would be nice if we were playing Marshall and ECU to get a better comparison, instead of the lower teams of CUSA.

FWIW, my expectations for the season are still what they were after the A&M game: playing in the conference championship game. I didn't expect us to run the table after the A&M game, but I did (and do still) expect us to win our division. That's the minimum standard for me this year.

Other than Bama and Oregon, I can't think of a college team that plays to their full potential week in and week out. LSU, Texas, Oklahoma, Oklahoma St, Florida, Georgia, S Carolina, Stanford, Ohio St, etc have had some performances this year that do not reflect the level of their talent. I think the same is true of most pro teams (49ers, definitely Texans, Eagles, etc). People have off days, some teams create matchup problems, etc. Winning every week even when you have superior talent is a hard thing to do. Undefeated Oklahoma St. losing to Iowa St costing them a shot at the title, Texas losing to Tech to lose shot at the title, it happens. We do not have the luxury of having a massive talent gap to cover up mistakes. With that said, I agree we can be better and play sharper. Stron QB play would fix a lot. Soften up run defenses and probably create a few more big plays. I think we are playing the best guy we have on the team at that position, but I do not think he is currently the best he can be. Hopefully that changes. In modern football, great QB play usually means a very competitive team, and subpar QB play means big problems.

Which game this year to you think had Rice play to its full potential? What was our best game?

As the sample size grows, our best game becomes empirically our full potential, unless you believe something (coaching? ) is holding us back from reaching that potential?

If you best game is a 21 point defeat in the first game of the season, then
a. we peaked pretty soon
b. its harder to get recognized for your best game being a loss rather than a win

(10-15-2013 12:19 AM)Rick Gerlach Wrote:  It's not flipping coins. But out of our conference games, at least several times you expect the opponent to play an 'above average' game. Some of those you'll be on the road. And you could play one of your own games that's below average.

Sure... but a +/- 50 best team, which I expect us to be, playing below average should STILL beat a +/- 100 ranked team playing above average... which is precisely the point. Our expectations should be to be a top 50 team... and a top 50 team against this schedule only has perhaps 2 games where playing below average should put the game in doubt.

Quote:Everyone assumed that every team we played but A&M was crap this year. Clearly that's not the case with U of H, and there will be a couple of other teams that will develop more than we thought.

Nope, not at all. LOTS of crap, but not ALL crap. But I certainly didn't work under the assumption that we would have very many games where we under-performed either. There SHOULD (by your same logic) be some games where we OUTperform as well, shouldn't there be? If we're consistently playing below average, then what we considered average isn't average, is it? Rather than being a top 50 team, we're more like a top 80 team. While that may put us in the conference championship this year, that is at least as much (and probably more) due to the fact that Tulsa is weak and UH is gone than we have really improved.

And you're right... UNT and La Tech and UTSA are improving... which means that in the future, top 80 Rice is 3rd or worse in the division again playing directional U in a weak bowl.

Quote:As far as 2008 goes, you could also drop 2013 A&M or 2013 Houston onto their schedule as well.

2013 A&M was 2008 UT. I think we lose both games. 2013 KU was 2008 Vandy... I think the 2008 squad ALSO beats 2013 KU rather than loses to Vandy (who played in a bowl game in 2008 iirc) and imo, 2008 Rice would have POUNDED 2013 UH, so what it your point?

Quote:The biggest issue I've got with expectations is that everyone treats our opponents like they are some kind of synthesized rating, a number on a piece of paper. They're not, they're groups of individuals, some of whom are improving, some not so much, and when groups of them improve and play up to their potential, they can put together efforts that may not have been deemed possible at the start of the year.

Aren't we as well? You imply all sorts of upside and improvement and possibilities for them, how about us, Rick?

Quote:Imagine a team that's 1-5 and pretty much a lock for the bottom 10. Horrible Sagarin rating. We'd roll over them, right?

What if they then rolled off a 10-3 run, with 2 of their losses to undefeated teams? Maybe not so easy a game?

Well that's what we did.

Which is why we don't have a terrible Sagarin rating.

Quote:Does this board think we're the only ones who can turn things around? What if UTSA wins out from this point forward?

I don't think every team we're playing is improving like that. But assuming that none of them are seems like a bad bet as well.

This is not about whether we can run the table. I think we could.

It's about whether somehow it's some kind of entitlement or birth right. Assuming that 'only Rice can beat Rice' smacks of that to me.

And it's about whether we give some credit to at least the teams in our league that will show improvement over the year. If we can turn things around, it's certainly possible that 1 or 2 other teams in the league can do so as well. After all, the only 'ratings' that matter will be the ones teams get at the END of the year.

Again, don't get me wrong. I think this is a good Rice team, and I think we're doing well. I think we just need to play them one game at a time, and I don't see why it's wrong to be happy we're 4-2 so far.

This line is exactly my problem Rick. First of all, nobody is saying that being 4-2 isn't better than being 2-4. We;re merely saying that this team isn't dramatically better than our peer group... and our peer group is in decline... and nobody outside of our peer group cares about it and I imagine that ALL of those IN our peer group are trying to get OUT of our peer group... and you're happy to be here.

Yes, you need to raise your sights. It's not about whether we are 4-2 or 5-1 or 2-4.... but about our peer group.

It's not about entitlement. It's about survival.

While I get that the band or cheerleaders or fans from UTSA may not be much different from the band or cheerleaders or fans from Texas Tech, I guarantee you that the players are different. Not necessarily as individuals, but as a team. It's like Rice competing against UTSA and UH in an academic decathalon and being okay that we're barely beating them.... because a win is a win.

(10-15-2013 07:09 AM)MemOwl Wrote:  

(10-15-2013 05:40 AM)Rick Gerlach Wrote:  All I'm saying is that it seems unlikely that every team we're playing is as bad as they're generally made out to be.

If we keep stringing together single digit wins, at some point you either need to argue

1. Rice isn't very good, despite its historically unprecedented W/L record; or

2. CUSA is vastly underrated as a conference. This Sagarin guy has all of CUSA West rated 75 or below--with most below 100--but none of our wins come easy. They play a tough brand of football, and if the powers that be who schedule bowl games would give them a fair shot against top 4 teams from the SEC, B12 or B10, those big boys would get punched in the nose.

Exactly. We have to demonstrate that we are FAR FAR BETTER than our low ranked opponents... and instead we are implying that we are only marginally so.