Early discussions have Rice vs either Boise St or UNLV . They like the Texas market

(10-16-2013 04:53 PM)HawaiiOwl Wrote:  Early discussions have Rice vs either Boise St or UNLV . They like the Texas market

Liberty or bust, man.

If we don't end up in the Liberty, would really like a Big 10 matchup in Dallas.

This was on the C-USA thread....current projections. None of the 'experts' sees us in Liberty.

ESPN:
Liberty: Marshall vs. Ole Miss
Liberty: Marshall vs. Missouri
Military: East Carolina vs. Pittsburgh
Military: Rice vs. Duke
Hawaii: East Carolina vs. UNLV
Hawaii: Middle Tennessee vs. Utah State
Heart of Dallas: North Texas vs. Iowa
Heart of Dallas: North Texas vs. Indiana
Beef O'Brady's: Rice vs. Toledo
Beef O'Brady's: Middle Tennessee vs. Buffalo
New Orleans: Tulane vs. Western Kentucky
New Orleans: Tulane vs. Louisiana-Lafayette

SBNation:
Liberty: Marshall vs. Ole Miss
Military: Rice vs. Toledo
Hawaii: East Carolina vs. San Diego State
Poinsettia: Middle Tennessee vs. Boise State
Beef O'Brady's: North Texas vs. Arkansas State
New Orleans: Tulane vs. Louisiana-Lafayette

Scout:
Liberty: Marshall vs. Vanderbilt
Military: East Carolina vs. North Carolina State
Beef O'Brady's: Middle Tennessee vs. Toledo
Heart of Dallas: Rice vs. Iowa
Hawaii: North Texas vs. Colorado State
New Orleans: Tulane vs. Louisiana-Lafayette


CBS Sports:
Liberty: Marshall vs. Tennessee
Heart of Dallas: Rice vs. Louisiana-Monroe
Military: Tulsa vs. North Carolina
Beef O'Brady's: East Carolina vs. Toledo
New Orleans: Tulane vs. Louisiana-Lafayette
Hawaii: Middle Tennessee vs. Wyoming

(10-17-2013 07:07 AM)owl40 Wrote:  This was on the C-USA thread....current projections. None of the 'experts' sees us in Liberty...

Then let us be contrarians and go there!

I suspect I could tolerate Memphis on New Year's Eve.

Whatever bowl we're in, I'll probably unfortunately miss. I'm doing one of my bucket list things and going to Antarctica. Gone 20 Dec through 05 Jan.

(10-17-2013 08:25 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  Whatever bowl we're in, I'll probably unfortunately miss. I'm doing one of my bucket list things and going to Antarctica. Gone 20 Dec through 05 Jan.

What? In the middle of winter? Oh, wait....

(10-17-2013 08:25 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  Whatever bowl we're in, I'll probably unfortunately miss. I'm doing one of my bucket list things and going to Antarctica. Gone 20 Dec through 05 Jan.

At least it will be summer down there

Liberty Bowl is the easiest for me. 5 minute drive down East Parkway.

(10-17-2013 06:33 AM)Orange County Owl Wrote:  If we don't end up in the Liberty, would really like a Big 10 matchup in Dallas.

I'm with you. If we go to, but lose the championship game, I want Dallas against a Big 10 school

Rice vs. Duke in the Military Bowl would have the best national ramifications I think, as the theme would certainly be "The Brains Bowl", or something like that, with a focus on the intelligence of both the student body and the athletes in both schools. All the other projected match-ups look dreadful to me.

(10-17-2013 08:25 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  Whatever bowl we're in, I'll probably unfortunately miss. I'm doing one of my bucket list things and going to Antarctica. Gone 20 Dec through 05 Jan.

Who's projected to be in that bowl?

(10-17-2013 11:53 AM)owlsfan Wrote:  Rice vs. Duke in the Military Bowl would have the best national ramifications I think, as the theme would certainly be "The Brains Bowl", or something like that, with a focus on the intelligence of both the student body and the athletes in both schools. All the other projected match-ups look dreadful to me.

Rice v Iowa and Rice v Boise sound good to me.

Assuming we win, of course.

(10-17-2013 12:36 PM)JustAnotherAustinOwl Wrote:  

(10-17-2013 11:53 AM)owlsfan Wrote:  Rice vs. Duke in the Military Bowl would have the best national ramifications I think, as the theme would certainly be "The Brains Bowl", or something like that, with a focus on the intelligence of both the student body and the athletes in both schools. All the other projected match-ups look dreadful to me.

Rice v Iowa and Rice v Boise sound good to me.

Assuming we win, of course.

The W is the important thing.

While it would be better to beat a Big 10 team or ACC team than a MAC or other non-BCS school . . .

Beating anyone handily is better than taking a double digit loss. Holy Toledo.

Heck, any W is better than a non-competitive loss.

If you could see into the future, you would always know the right decisions to make. (a point demonstrated in our baseball threads ad nauseum from time to time)

(10-17-2013 08:25 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  Whatever bowl we're in, I'll probably unfortunately miss. I'm doing one of my bucket list things and going to Antarctica. Gone 20 Dec through 05 Jan.

I've heard of going south for the winter, but isn't that a little extreme?

(10-17-2013 01:01 PM)Rick Gerlach Wrote:  

(10-17-2013 12:36 PM)JustAnotherAustinOwl Wrote:  

(10-17-2013 11:53 AM)owlsfan Wrote:  Rice vs. Duke in the Military Bowl would have the best national ramifications I think, as the theme would certainly be "The Brains Bowl", or something like that, with a focus on the intelligence of both the student body and the athletes in both schools. All the other projected match-ups look dreadful to me.

Rice v Iowa and Rice v Boise sound good to me.

Assuming we win, of course.

The W is the important thing.

While it would be better to beat a Big 10 team or ACC team than a MAC or other non-BCS school . . .

Beating anyone handily is better than taking a double digit loss. Holy Toledo.

Heck, any W is better than a non-competitive loss.

If you could see into the future, you would always know the right decisions to make. (a point demonstrated in our baseball threads ad nauseum from time to time)

I would rather play a challenging game that will generate coverage, that is winnable, and would like to see Rice meet and conquer that challenge. IMHO, Troy, WMU, and AFA are not desirable opponents in a bowl, but Rice had not done enough to demonstrate that we warrant better opposition. This time around, Rice will be in back-to-back bowls and I hope can get a better opponent.

(10-17-2013 01:29 PM)I45owl Wrote:  

(10-17-2013 01:01 PM)Rick Gerlach Wrote:  

(10-17-2013 12:36 PM)JustAnotherAustinOwl Wrote:  

(10-17-2013 11:53 AM)owlsfan Wrote:  Rice vs. Duke in the Military Bowl would have the best national ramifications I think, as the theme would certainly be "The Brains Bowl", or something like that, with a focus on the intelligence of both the student body and the athletes in both schools. All the other projected match-ups look dreadful to me.

Rice v Iowa and Rice v Boise sound good to me.

Assuming we win, of course.

The W is the important thing.

While it would be better to beat a Big 10 team or ACC team than a MAC or other non-BCS school . . .

Beating anyone handily is better than taking a double digit loss. Holy Toledo.

Heck, any W is better than a non-competitive loss.

If you could see into the future, you would always know the right decisions to make. (a point demonstrated in our baseball threads ad nauseum from time to time)

I would rather play a challenging game that will generate coverage, that is winnable, and would like to see Rice meet and conquer that challenge. IMHO, Troy, WMU, and AFA are not desirable opponents in a bowl, but Rice had not done enough to demonstrate that we warrant better opposition. This time around, Rice will be in back-to-back bowls and I hope can get a better opponent.

I don't necessarily disagree, but everything you say about Troy, WMU, etc can be said about us. What if (hypothetically) Toledo were 12-0 for example and drew an 11-2 Rice?

My point was that any opponent could be the 'right' opponent depending on what the alternative is or becomes.

The hard part is not knowing what the final outcome is going to be. That's why teams actually show up and play, instead of focusing on hypothetical 'what ifs' based on ratings or transitive results analysis.

(10-17-2013 02:07 PM)Rick Gerlach Wrote:  I don't necessarily disagree, but everything you say about Troy, WMU, etc can be said about us. What if (hypothetically) Toledo were 12-0 for example and drew an 11-2 Rice?

But a game against "us", even 12-0 "us" isn't what we are or should be after.

Obviously we don't think 11-2 "us" (Troy, WMU etc) would have been 11-2 in the SEC... Would we have been 2-11 or 6-6? I can't answer that and neither can anyone else... however...

12-0 Toledo playing Rice in a bowl probably doesn't have any signature wins... otherwise they wouldn't be playing Rice... and while beating another team with no signature victories is better than losing to them, it isn't as good as beating even a 6-6 team with a few signature victories or very close games against very good (AQ) opponents. IMO, and I admit it is debatable, but beating hypothetical 6-6 Texas Tech or Auburn (a regional or national name team having a bad season) even if all of their victories are against non AQ, sub 50 teams is preferable to beating hypothetical 12-0 Toledo with no games against top 50 teams.

The difference in perception between AQ and non-AQ is so wide that our Champion is pegged against a likely 0.500 AQ team with up to 4 of their victories over non-AQ teams and 6 or so losses to AQ teams.

(10-17-2013 02:07 PM)Rick Gerlach Wrote:  I don't necessarily disagree, but everything you say about Troy, WMU, etc can be said about us. What if (hypothetically) Toledo were 12-0 for example and drew an 11-2 Rice?

My point was that any opponent could be the 'right' opponent depending on what the alternative is or becomes.

The hard part is not knowing what the final outcome is going to be. That's why teams actually show up and play, instead of focusing on hypothetical 'what ifs' based on ratings or transitive results analysis.

It depends on how good they are how good they are perceived to be.

Troy was a bad draw for Rice, but Rice was probably a worse draw for Troy. USC was a good draw for TCU 15 years ago, but TCU was an awful draw for USC. 5 or 10 years later, that would not have been the case (assuming a similar strength of USC team ... IIRC both teams improved greatly in that timeframe).

The risk of drawing someone like Iowa, or Indiana, or West Virginia is that Rice could find themselves on the wrong side of a blowout. But, the upside of winning a game like that is worth the risk of a setback like that. The benefit of blowing out WMU (another name for Toledo in most circles) is just not very substantial, even if they were to have similar Sagarin/BCS rankings of a Big Ten school.

(10-17-2013 03:06 PM)I45owl Wrote:  

(10-17-2013 02:07 PM)Rick Gerlach Wrote:  I don't necessarily disagree, but everything you say about Troy, WMU, etc can be said about us. What if (hypothetically) Toledo were 12-0 for example and drew an 11-2 Rice?

My point was that any opponent could be the 'right' opponent depending on what the alternative is or becomes.

The hard part is not knowing what the final outcome is going to be. That's why teams actually show up and play, instead of focusing on hypothetical 'what ifs' based on ratings or transitive results analysis.

It depends on how good they are how good they are perceived to be.

Troy was a bad draw for Rice, but Rice was probably a worse draw for Troy. USC was a good draw for TCU 15 years ago, but TCU was an awful draw for USC. 5 or 10 years later, that would not have been the case (assuming a similar strength of USC team ... IIRC both teams improved greatly in that timeframe).

The risk of drawing someone like Iowa, or Indiana, or West Virginia is that Rice could find themselves on the wrong side of a blowout. But, the upside of winning a game like that is worth the risk of a setback like that. The benefit of blowing out WMU (another name for Toledo in most circles) is just not very substantial, even if they were to have similar Sagarin/BCS rankings of a Big Ten school.

I agree with that last statement. We risk getting blown out by an Iowa, but winning a bowl against them would be huge.

I slightly disagree about last year though, talking to my fellow co-workers who are casual College FB fans, they thought the Armed Forces Bowl victory against AFA was quite credible due to both the reputation of the bowl and the reputation of AFA(even if they were not that good last year). The remark was made to me that it was certainly better than playing in something like the Beef O Brady bowl or some of the cheesy named bowls.