The BIG10 isn't going to expand into Texas unless it's for UT. They aren't going to target Rice. And if so, I really don't think Rice leaders would join a conference located in the midwest-northeast. They wouldn't do that to the student athletes. There's no way. Forget about it. That leaves the BIG12 and SEC as the only possibilities. The chances of joining either one of those is very slim to none. It's a messed up situation. This is one of the reasons I pull so hard for CUSA's success. It's the only conference home for us unless some merger between CUSA and the AAC ever materializes.

(07-03-2015 10:07 AM)Afflicted Wrote:  The BIG10 isn't going to expand into Texas unless it's for UT. They aren't going to target Rice. And if so, I really don't think Rice leaders would join a conference located in the midwest-northeast. They wouldn't do that to the student athletes. There's no way. Forget about it. That leaves the BIG12 and SEC as the only possibilities. The chances of joining either one of those is very slim to none. It's a messed up situation. This is one of the reasons I pull so hard for CUSA's success. It's the only conference home for us unless some merger between CUSA and the AAC ever materializes.

It won't be SEC. That ship sailed when Arkansas left and we did not go with them. If SEC adds, it will either be the Florida schools or Oklahoma and Okie State (since OK legislature won't allow OU to go without OSU). I could see UT to PAC-12 if a suitable partner can be found. Obvious choice would be BYU if PAC-12 could get over its aversion to church schools. There really is no other that adds anything. Not sure if adding two schools with their own networks makes sense. XII without Texas, OU, and OSU will be looking for members, but would Baylor plus TCU plus K-State (plus probably Cincinnati and maybe Memphis) keep them P5? I could see our best outcome from here as a league with Baylor, TCU, TT, UH, SMU, Tulsa, KU, K-State, Iowa St, Memphis, Cincy, West Virginia, Tulane, and Rice. I think our goal right now should be to get football, basketball, women's sports, and marketing to join baseball in creating a program that would appeal to such a league.

(07-03-2015 10:07 AM)Afflicted Wrote:  The BIG10 isn't going to expand into Texas unless it's for UT. They aren't going to target Rice. And if so, I really don't think Rice leaders would join a conference located in the midwest-northeast. They wouldn't do that to the student athletes. There's no way. Forget about it. That leaves the BIG12 and SEC as the only possibilities. The chances of joining either one of those is very slim to none. It's a messed up situation. This is one of the reasons I pull so hard for CUSA's success. It's the only conference home for us unless some merger between CUSA and the AAC ever materializes.

Agree that the Big Ten is not going to target Rice.

But if, by miracle of miracles they did, Rice would not decline such an offer. The added travel is nothing when weighed against the boon of P5 membership, and the 10's of millions of dollars in increased revenue and other less calculable benefits (exposure, environment, donations) that come with it.

Same reasoning for why none of the private schools listed in a previous post are going to just drop out of the P5 because the player payments keep going up with increased revenues.

(07-03-2015 11:46 AM)At Ease Wrote:  

(07-03-2015 10:07 AM)Afflicted Wrote:  The BIG10 isn't going to expand into Texas unless it's for UT. They aren't going to target Rice. And if so, I really don't think Rice leaders would join a conference located in the midwest-northeast. They wouldn't do that to the student athletes. There's no way. Forget about it. That leaves the BIG12 and SEC as the only possibilities. The chances of joining either one of those is very slim to none. It's a messed up situation. This is one of the reasons I pull so hard for CUSA's success. It's the only conference home for us unless some merger between CUSA and the AAC ever materializes.

Agree that the Big Ten is not going to target Rice.

But if, by miracle of miracles they did, Rice would not decline such an offer. The added travel is nothing when weighed against the boon of P5 membership, and the 10's of millions of dollars in increased revenue and other less calculable benefits (exposure, environment, donations) that come with it.

Same reasoning for why none of the private schools listed in a previous post are going to just drop out of the P5 because the player payments keep going up with increased revenues.

Like you suggested, it's not going to happen. And Rice isn't desperate. Academics is such a priority that they wouldn't join any P5 that would require them to have student-athletes flying home from Minnesota in the middle of the night.

(07-02-2015 02:22 PM)temchugh Wrote:  

(07-02-2015 01:03 PM)Otts Wrote:  I had the occasion to spend some time with the President of another G5 institution who is convinced that when the time comes that schools are paying players more than cost of attendance – and he does believe that time is coming more sooner than later – that the only private schools that are going to be able to stay in the P5 are Notre Dame, the University of Southern California and Stanford. They are the only ones who can afford to play in a world where players are making more than cost of attendance. That doesn’t mean that they will want to but they could make it work.

Great analysis. Stanford said publicly (through a long article in their alumni magazine) last year that they would not pay more than the cost of attendance. I agree that they could afford to pay (due to their large athletic endowment), but odds are that they would choose to drop out of the P5 instead.

Here's a link to that Stanford alumni magazine article: https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/magazine/article/?article_id=72888

(07-01-2015 01:46 PM)Wiessman Wrote:  MWC for me, even if the Big XII were to become an option. End of story. I know that this puts me in the minority.

In my opinion, Rice would NEVER go MWC. It's simply a lateral move to join another G5 conference, and Boise State gets the bulk of the pie.

It's just not a favorable situation for Rice. Don't forget, Rice went out West once before and it was a disaster.

The current CUSA presents Rice with its best opportunity ever to bring home trophies. That, my friend, is the name of the game. Boise is just a big roadblock, and forget the Big 12 - unless Rice can somehow get a new stadium. There is a reason Rice has to play UT in Reliant.

That being said, I think your President is quite satisfied with the uptick of success the Owls are having in the renovated CUSA. Not to mention there are three other Texas schools in CUSA for Rice to align with. UNT, UTSA, and UTEP, make CUSA special for Rice. Not so much with New Mexico, Wyoming, et al.

And, let's be honest, that CUSA bling looks mighty good in the Owl trophy cases. It's the best looking trophy in collegiate sports. Proud to have the letters UAB embossed next to all of our other member schools, MTSU, FIU, UNT, UTSA, UNCC, ODU, FAU, UAB, USM, UTEP, WKU, etc.

I saw this article in the NY Times and wanted to add it to my earlier post. If Notre Dame is actually verbalizing to the NY Times that they might walk then this is a real story.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/11/sports...p=cur&_r=0

As I said, Rice needs to position itself so if there is ever a conference with Notre Dame, Stanford, Duke, Nortwestern and other like minded schools then they are ready in every way to be invited to be a founding member of that conference.

(07-02-2015 01:03 PM)Otts Wrote:  I have come by my Rice fandom honestly as the parent of a Rice student. I have really come to enjoy Rice athletics and have been to three football games and a basketball game with my child. (You know I really enjoy Rice sports because I will readily admit I have watched a Rice football game on the American Sports Network in Standard Definition.) I do not live in the Texas or any of the contiguous states but I am fully intrigued by all the talk of realignment and the politics of college sports. I am a true fan because I enjoy college sports even though there is so much non-sense and politics. That is all that really qualifies me to comment but I am going to do so anyway as someone who periodically reads through this board. I am far enough away from the situation that I hope I have some objectivity and can lend a different perspective.

As many have pointed out the reality is that television is really all that matters. Unless you can bring subscribers to the B1G Network or the SEC Network the academics matter little. The fact that Rice is such a small school means that it will never be able to command the attention of the media distributors in the CURRENT landscape of college athletics. If Rice entered the B1G not one television distributor would add the B1G Netwrok or pay an increased fee because of Rice’s presence. The same with the SEC Network or any of the other P5 conferences. I know this creates unending frustration by people with a long Rice history. Times have simply changed. People talk proudly about Rice's past but the Rice golden age was a time before the Rockets, Astros, Oilers, Texans even existed. There were one or two games (and later five or six) games on television per week. People now consume sports differently. I think that it makes it incredibly unlikely that Rice will ever be able to achieve the level of prominence it once did. The schools that are similar that are still in major conferences are only there by the fact that they were grandfathered in and Rice had the misfortune of its legacy conference being the Southwest which came apart at the seams. When you look at the facts Northwestern’s attendance isn’t significantly better than Rice’s when you factor in the opposition. Neither is Dukes or Vanderbilts. They just benefit from their legacy positions with their conferences.

Many believe there is going to be another shift in the college athletics landscape and I think this is likely true. I had the occasion to spend some time with the President of another G5 institution who is convinced that when the time comes that schools are paying players more than cost of attendance – and he does believe that time is coming more sooner than later – that the only private schools that are going to be able to stay in the P5 are Notre Dame, the University of Southern California and Stanford. They are the only ones who can afford to play in a world where players are making more than cost of attendance. That doesn’t mean that they will want to but they could make it work. This university president I spoke with told me that Northwestern (for example) is bleeding money even with all the riches from the B1G and that is just going to increase in the future. He believes that the next seismic shift is when you have schools who choose to stop being semi-pro. When you have schools that will pay cost of attendance but pay nothing more. The reason I referenced Northwestern, Vanderbilt and Duke earlier is that they are certainly going to be in this group. The fundamental question it would seem to me isn’t if Rice is getting itself to be in a position to be in a conference with the University of Texas, Texas A&M or LSU but whether Rice is in a position to be in whatever successor conference Northwestern, Vanderbilt and Duke may create when realignment 2.0 happens?

So who will be candidates to participate in this new league? In the general region that Rice inhabits you have to think that TCU and Baylor are leading candidates because of brand equity. There is also SMU and Tulane as well as Tulsa. None of these schools offer what Rice does academically but how do their athletic brands compare? You will have schools like Boston College, Syracuse, Wake Forest, Miami, TCU, and Baylor who are almost certain to be included. If you add those to the three I mentioned before you are at nine schools. Who knows where BYU might fit in and what Army, Navy and Air Force may opt to do as a group since they all have a kind of national brand equity. That’s 13. I know I may be forgetting some. Some of those schools may actually opt to stay with the Cincinnati, Memphis and UConn ... who may not be paying athletes at the same rate that the P5 are paying them.

I believe that for Rice to reassert stature in the world of college athletics they need to make sure that they are included in that group. I think all positioning should be with that in mind. Toward that end academics may or may not matter. It seems that in that circumstance of realignment 2.0 Tulane, SMU and Tulsa are more relevant and a greater threat to Rice’s future than are Houston, Cincinnati, Boise or Memphis. This is where the Houston media market may be particularly helpful. That’s where the investment in basketball may be particularly meaningful and critical. A strong and vibrant basketball program may make a huge difference when those decisions are made. Toward that end I think Rice is doing a great job positioning themselves with basketball and other sports.

I just wanted to present a bit of a contrarian outsider view about what may happen next and a different lens to consider Rice’s place in the college football landscape.

A Minnesota to Houston flight would be easier than the bus and then fly we have to do on the CUSA schools east of the Mississippi (other than FAU and FIU). I do not think we would turn down any of the P5 conferences if we were offered.

(07-03-2015 12:31 PM)Afflicted Wrote:  

(07-03-2015 11:46 AM)At Ease Wrote:  

(07-03-2015 10:07 AM)Afflicted Wrote:  The BIG10 isn't going to expand into Texas unless it's for UT. They aren't going to target Rice. And if so, I really don't think Rice leaders would join a conference located in the midwest-northeast. They wouldn't do that to the student athletes. There's no way. Forget about it. That leaves the BIG12 and SEC as the only possibilities. The chances of joining either one of those is very slim to none. It's a messed up situation. This is one of the reasons I pull so hard for CUSA's success. It's the only conference home for us unless some merger between CUSA and the AAC ever materializes.

Agree that the Big Ten is not going to target Rice.

But if, by miracle of miracles they did, Rice would not decline such an offer. The added travel is nothing when weighed against the boon of P5 membership, and the 10's of millions of dollars in increased revenue and other less calculable benefits (exposure, environment, donations) that come with it.

Same reasoning for why none of the private schools listed in a previous post are going to just drop out of the P5 because the player payments keep going up with increased revenues.

Like you suggested, it's not going to happen. And Rice isn't desperate. Academics is such a priority that they wouldn't join any P5 that would require them to have student-athletes flying home from Minnesota in the middle of the night.

Any P5 conference that would take us would be better than CUSA. But that is not likely to happen, so we should just be content to be here and keep improving our program.