In my opinion, some members of this forum have a twisted perception of the role of a head coach. With some exceptions, such as when the head coach is also a coordinator, the head coach is more of an overseer than anything. There are eight full time assistants, four graduate assistants, and a couple of quality control guys. Obviously, the buck stops with the head coach, but it's more complicated than "Fire Bailiff!!!!". When our assistant coaching salaries are up to par with other schools and the facilities are improved, I think a fairer assessment can be made.

(09-28-2015 11:43 AM)ExcitedOwl18 Wrote:  In my opinion, some members of this forum have a twisted perception of the role of a head coach. With some exceptions, such as when the head coach is also a coordinator, the head coach is more of an overseer than anything. There are eight full time assistants, four graduate assistants, and a couple of quality control guys. Obviously, the buck stops with the head coach, but it's more complicated than "Fire Bailiff!!!!". When our assistant coaching salaries are up to par with other schools and the facilities are improved, I think a fairer assessment can be made.

Fair comment. However to raise salaries and improve facilities will require increased ticket sales, an increased in the number of donors and or an increase in the amount given. My concern is how much does the current staff (and the results of the team) impact both of these factors. The other question is if the salaries for the assistants is increased will Bailiff hire new ones or will the current ones just improve because of their new paycheck?

(09-28-2015 10:38 AM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  Geez, you're making it sound like Bailiff is some great coach. He is anything but. He's a very high character guy and strong recruiter...but he's a lousy football coach. Yes, below average. I have a little more faith in JK that he'll hire a capable and promising replacement should he decide to do so. Given our weak conference, I have a very hard time seeing us returning to 1-11, 2-10 type seasons at any point in the future.

How about 3-9, 4-8, or 5-7? How do any of those help your case for P5?

When you get a new guy, you have to give him 3-5 years, if he fails, give the next guy 3-5 years How many do we need to fail on to cover your 2-5 window?

and he doesn't even have to regress. what if his first three years are 7-5, 8-4, 8-4? what have we gained? Shall we fire him now, with 3 winning seasons and 3 bowls in three seasons? I'm sure that will tell a lot of coaches that maybe the Rice job is a death watch for their careers. Or do we hang on for another season or two? And what if he doesn't get us a sig win?

Probably he won't call plays or game plan or play freshman to everybody's satisfaction. If JK changes coaches, I hope he does as good a job with the new football coach as he seems to have done in basketball. But the jury's still out on that, and even if it pans out as we all hope, it still is just a 1-0 record in hiring coaches.

I think this is like the old Let's Make A Deal shows. Monty Hall gives a guy $1000 and then asks if he wants to trade it for what's behind door #3. Sometimes it's a new car, sometimes a goat pulling a cart.

(09-28-2015 12:43 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(09-28-2015 10:38 AM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  Geez, you're making it sound like Bailiff is some great coach. He is anything but. He's a very high character guy and strong recruiter...but he's a lousy football coach. Yes, below average. I have a little more faith in JK that he'll hire a capable and promising replacement should he decide to do so. Given our weak conference, I have a very hard time seeing us returning to 1-11, 2-10 type seasons at any point in the future.

How about 3-9, 4-8, or 5-7? How do any of those help your case for P5?

When you get a new guy, you have to give him 3-5 years, if he fails, give the next guy 3-5 years How many do we need to fail on to cover your 2-5 window?

and he doesn't even have to regress. what if his first three years are 7-5, 8-4, 8-4? what have we gained? Shall we fire him now, with 3 winning seasons and 3 bowls in three seasons? I'm sure that will tell a lot of coaches that maybe the Rice job is a death watch for their careers. Or do we hang on for another season or two? And what if he doesn't get us a sig win?

Probably he won't call plays or game plan or play freshman to everybody's satisfaction. If JK changes coaches, I hope he does as good a job with the new football coach as he seems to have done in basketball. But the jury's still out on that, and even if it pans out as we all hope, it still is just a 1-0 record in hiring coaches.

I think this is like the old Let's Make A Deal shows. Monty Hall gives a guy $1000 and then asks if he wants to trade it for what's behind door #3. Sometimes it's a new car, sometimes a goat pulling a cart.

To be fair, UH did a pretty similar thing with Levine and just hired Herman.

I think that once you establish that you can succeed at Rice, which Bailiff has actually started to do, you can replace coaches with winning, but not great records, much easily and with less repercussions. I think that if we had fired Bailiff last year, it would have hurt our ability to attract quality candidates. But if we go back to 7-5 this year, I don't think firing him would do that. We would reasonably be able to tell potential coaches that we expect to maintain a high level of success, and they wouldn't look at us like we had two heads and were asking them to accomplish the impossible.

(09-28-2015 11:16 AM)Antarius Wrote:  

(09-28-2015 11:13 AM)Rick Gerlach Wrote:  

(09-28-2015 11:10 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(09-28-2015 08:52 AM)Rick Gerlach Wrote:  Do you think that if we eliminated the TD-turnover and reduced the punt return yards from 160 plus to 20 or less that we were in the Texas game (given TOP and yardage totals, not to mention 3rd and 4th down conversions rates), yes or no?

But the problem is that we can't eliminate those things, because that's who we are and what we do. We need to change that about ourselves.

I think it varies week to week and opponent to opponent. Didn't DJ have very few turnovers last year? And I thought our punt teams improved the last 2 weeks?

I think Owl69's point is that we cannot and have not shown the ability to play mistake free ball (or as close as possible). Sure some weeks are better than others, but even teams like the Jacksonville Jaguars go weeks without a turnover. Doesn't mean that as a team, they play good, solid mistake free ball.

No team plays entirely good, solid mistake-free ball. Teams with superior talent may be able to more easily overcome mistakes. But it's a game by game situation. And again, last year we seemingly had turnovers at a reduced rate overall. But then again, I'm sure we had games last year where we had more than our season's average in turnovers.

(09-28-2015 11:43 AM)ExcitedOwl18 Wrote:  In my opinion, some members of this forum have a twisted perception of the role of a head coach. With some exceptions, such as when the head coach is also a coordinator, the head coach is more of an overseer than anything. There are eight full time assistants, four graduate assistants, and a couple of quality control guys. Obviously, the buck stops with the head coach, but it's more complicated than "Fire Bailiff!!!!". When our assistant coaching salaries are up to par with other schools and the facilities are improved, I think a fairer assessment can be made.

Agreed. I am not a big Bailiff fan, but the reality of the situation is he is not going anywhere anytime soon. We absolutely should hold him accountable for his choice of OC though. Edmondson's limitations have been clear from day 1. But of course, to hire someone better, we probably have to spend more money on assistants.

(09-28-2015 11:13 AM)Antarius Wrote:  The funny part is, this is exactly the same argument that I got on Parliament when I advocated for kicking Braun to the curb in 2013 and was unhappy about his performance and extension. Now we have Rhoades, and sure it is a gamble, but its got a far higher upside. If we are satisfied with getting by, then sure, the risk isn't worth it. I'm not.

At this point Bailiff is not comparable to Braun in approach or results.

We need to play teams that fans care about for our OOC games. Our Conference USA games do not bring us national recognition or fans in the seats. Baylor is giving us a home and home with them coming here in 2016. We play Stanford there in 2016 and here in 2017. We have home and home with Army through 2017. Our CUSA games will not attract many fans because we do not share much with them other than an athletic schedule since we are a completely different school than the directional states.

We have to figure out how to play P5s because not many people are going to really care about seeing us play G5s. It is hard to recruit against the P5s so that is why Rice talent has fallen off so much since the break-up of the SWC. We might have won the game against Texas this year if we had better special team play and we did not has so many turnovers and given up so many long passes.

(09-28-2015 01:47 PM)Gravy Owl Wrote:  

(09-28-2015 11:13 AM)Antarius Wrote:  The funny part is, this is exactly the same argument that I got on Parliament when I advocated for kicking Braun to the curb in 2013 and was unhappy about his performance and extension. Now we have Rhoades, and sure it is a gamble, but its got a far higher upside. If we are satisfied with getting by, then sure, the risk isn't worth it. I'm not.

At this point Bailiff is not comparable to Braun in approach or results.

I was reading a few of the Basketball preview magazines that just came out (Sporting News' and Lindy's) and their descriptions of some of our newer players Rhoades has recruited was amazingly promising for a Rice team. Letcher-Ellis is projected by one to go pro, maybe even early. All down the line, the feeling I get is that when these guys gel a bit, we are going to have one dangerously good basketball team that people will not want to see in elimination tournaments.

Even Braun as a commentator on a few of our games last year said that Rhoades was doing a better job developing Braun's recruits than he did. One publication warned about the loss of Seth Gearhart. Well, Rhoades CREATED Seth Gearhart into what he became his senior season. It's called Coaching Up your Players. Something we could use in Football.

Yes, Bailiff will win 7 or 8 games most every year from here on out, and go to a low-level bowl. He will probably continue to have 1 or 2 NFL players drafted as well.* BUT he does not know how to coach his players up to beat name teams while they are here. Coaching X's and O's with what he has recruited is is huge weakness. Unfortunately, that is kinda important to the game of football.

RUOWLS for Coordinator--pay him what he asks. He just might be worth it.

edit: *And if we were already in a P5 conference, I'd be more than satisfied with that at this point. Problem is, we're not. We're stuck in a G5 with schools most nobody cares much about, and we need to make a heck of a lot more noise than Bailiff has made here in almost a decade if we're going to get noticed. Marshall at least makes a guest appearance in the Top25 once in a while (not the "others receiving votes section, but the actual rankings). Not us. And it won't happen this year once again. Yes, we can still win CUSA (I'd love to, but not holding my breath after what we've seen so far.) But even these schools will start to pass Bailiff by in a while.

(09-28-2015 09:04 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  If I believed all we needed was NotBailiff at the helm, I would be leading the parade. But whether we hire Stoops, Briles, Patterson, or Rockne, I don't expect immediate improvement or even eventual Top10 or NCs. It's not like you can change just the spark plugs and suddenly have a Lamborghini.

Just out of curiosity, who is the miraclemaker you have in mind, or will we just get a generic miracle man?

I am willing to gamble on a lot of things, but I don't see much upside to an AnybodyButBailiff policy. I think when you go all in you need to have the odds on your side. Show me a better bet than DB, and I will move my chips to that side. It seems to me that all the possible replacements are either unknowns or very unlikely.

Nine years ago, I was very disappointed in the choice of Bailiff. I wanted Coker. A proven name. Today, would we exchange staffs with UTSA? I would not.
...

If JK wants to keep him, I'll support JK in that decision. If JK wants to fire him, I'll support JK in that decision. The king is dead, long live the king.

And if we fire or lose JK...same thing.

JMHO

Important to remember that Bailiff was not JK's own choice. Perhaps JK is really actually terrible at picking coaches, maybe even worse than Greenspan. But if you want odds, to me the odds say JK is a pretty saavy AD who can pick good coaches. I've said for the past few years I'd be interested to see who JK would replace Bailiff & Co with.

So whoever JK would pick (it's his job to know who potential candidates would be, and I'm sure he has some ideas at this point--my guess is that JK is the kind of AD who actually does his job, unlike Greenspan who was a space occupier AD) is my answer to your question. After almost a decade perhaps the fans deserve to know.

PS. I kicked the tires on Coker, but was not all rah-rah for him back then.

(09-28-2015 10:46 AM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  Walt, maybe when you and I were disagreeing earlier about the quality of Bailiff as a coach, we were disagreeing because of what each of us defined as a coach. When I hear coach, I think of it very holistically, like he is the CEO of the team. He is responsible for player personnel, coaching personnel, team moral, team outreach, player retention/graduation, in-game decisions, preparation, etc. So when I look at Bailiff holistically, as in, when I look at his as a coach, I think he is average at worst.

It seems like your view of the word coach is much narrower and only entails the in-game decisions/preparation. If so, I don't know if I call him lousy, but I wouldn't argue that he is below average. I feel like there are plenty of other coaches who could get more out of his players than Bailiff does. But this one knock doesn't make me think he is a below average coach because he has such significant strengths in other areas.

Coaching entails the full package, but in the end, a coach is evaluated on record and in-game performance; that's his primary reason for being here.

(09-28-2015 11:29 AM)mrbig Wrote:  

(09-28-2015 08:46 AM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  Did I suggest one way or the other? If you can point out where I did, I'll give you a prize and tell you which other accounts I use on The Parliament! Hehe.

RiceLad15, you and I are sharing a brain lately and this post made me laugh because I was literally about to compliment one of your posts and joke that people were about to start accusing us of being the same person.

(09-28-2015 08:34 AM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  Once again, since I hate hollow talking points and very vague statements, I took a look at the box score. Turns out, a lot of these questions we raise can be answered if we just dig a little bit.

Lamar competed in the first half better because of 3 Baylor TOs in the first half (2 INTs and 1 fumble) and none for Lamar. But Baylor still scored 35 pts to Lamar's 21.

Following the first half, Baylor threw one more INT, but Lamar turned it over twice and the game ended 66-31.

And SMU did well in the first half because they were able to move the ball and grind down the clock while scoring. SMU had two drives that totaled about 12 minutes and both esulted in TDs. Their other drives were 8 secs (TD), 2:46 (punt), 3:40 (Int) and 2:38 (end of half). There were INTs by both teams in the first half.

After the first half, while SMU still held onto the ball, they failed to score and had 5 punts in a row followed by an INT.

It seems like in the SMU game, Baylor was able to adjust to SMU's strategy and demolish them in the second half.

Now, this has nothing to do with our performance, but it helps shed a little light into how SMU and Lamar were able to keep things close in the first half.

Yes to this. Baylor played their best game of the season (so far). Their coaching staff is much better and their players are much more athletic. That doesn't excuse Rice's performance, but its silly to pretend like Baylor performed the exact same in all three of their games and the only variable that changed was their opponent.

(09-28-2015 10:38 AM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  Geez, you're making it sound like Bailiff is some great coach. He is anything but. He's a very high character guy and strong recruiter...but he's a lousy football coach. Yes, below average. I have a little more faith in JK that he'll hire a capable and promising replacement should he decide to do so. Given our weak conference, I have a very hard time seeing us returning to 1-11, 2-10 type seasons at any point in the future.

(09-28-2015 10:46 AM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  Walt, maybe when you and I were disagreeing earlier about the quality of Bailiff as a coach, we were disagreeing because of what each of us defined as a coach. When I hear coach, I think of it very holistically, like he is the CEO of the team. He is responsible for player personnel, coaching personnel, team moral, team outreach, player retention/graduation, in-game decisions, preparation, etc. So when I look at Bailiff holistically, as in, when I look at his as a coach, I think he is average at worst.

It seems like your view of the word coach is much narrower and only entails the in-game decisions/preparation. If so, I don't know if I call him lousy, but I wouldn't argue that he is below average. I feel like there are plenty of other coaches who could get more out of his players than Bailiff does. But this one knock doesn't make me think he is a below average coach because he has such significant strengths in other areas.

Walt, I repeat a question I asked in the Baylor post-game thread:

(09-27-2015 03:55 PM)mrbig Wrote:  For the people calling for Bailiff's head, what percentile do you rank him in terms of FBS coaches? What percentile do you rank the resources he has at his disposal (including academics limiting recruiting)? Honest questions.

I am honestly curious. Do you believe Bailiff has below-average resources by FBS standards? Do you believe he is getting average results? If yes to both of those, then how is Coach Bailiff a "lousy football coach"? I think the answer to both of those is yes, and I do not understand how someone as smart as you can believe a lousy coach who turns below-average resources into average results is "lousy." I don't think he's a great football coach. But lousy? He looked lousy in 2007, 2009, and 2010. Maybe even up through the 2012 Memphis game. But the results since then have been pretty average, relative to all of FBS.

Another way to get to the same point. How many G5 football teams would trade their results the last 4 years for Rice's results? I would bet more than half.

And how many of those same G5 football teams were once (and for most of it's history) in a P5 conference, and has serious aspirations to return? A good coach can get his players and team to overachieve relative to talent and resources. Look what The Toad did in 2006? And Bailiff has far more resources now-- and dramatically superior talent-- than Graham had back then. And we played a much tougher schedule.

(09-28-2015 11:43 AM)ExcitedOwl18 Wrote:  In my opinion, some members of this forum have a twisted perception of the role of a head coach. With some exceptions, such as when the head coach is also a coordinator, the head coach is more of an overseer than anything. There are eight full time assistants, four graduate assistants, and a couple of quality control guys. Obviously, the buck stops with the head coach, but it's more complicated than "Fire Bailiff!!!!". When our assistant coaching salaries are up to par with other schools and the facilities are improved, I think a fairer assessment can be made.

Have you ever heard the expression "the fish stinks from the head down"? It pertains to those in corporate management and it pertains to coaching a sports team. The head coach is accountable for EVERYTHING. Period. He not only hires his assistants, but he implants the philosophy and the coaching style he prefers. The fact that DB appears to be a hands-off on-field coach who delegates xs and os responsibility does not in any way make him less accountable for the results on the field.

(09-28-2015 03:36 PM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  

(09-28-2015 11:29 AM)mrbig Wrote:  

(09-28-2015 08:46 AM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  Did I suggest one way or the other? If you can point out where I did, I'll give you a prize and tell you which other accounts I use on The Parliament! Hehe.

RiceLad15, you and I are sharing a brain lately and this post made me laugh because I was literally about to compliment one of your posts and joke that people were about to start accusing us of being the same person.

(09-28-2015 08:34 AM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  Once again, since I hate hollow talking points and very vague statements, I took a look at the box score. Turns out, a lot of these questions we raise can be answered if we just dig a little bit.

Lamar competed in the first half better because of 3 Baylor TOs in the first half (2 INTs and 1 fumble) and none for Lamar. But Baylor still scored 35 pts to Lamar's 21.

Following the first half, Baylor threw one more INT, but Lamar turned it over twice and the game ended 66-31.

And SMU did well in the first half because they were able to move the ball and grind down the clock while scoring. SMU had two drives that totaled about 12 minutes and both esulted in TDs. Their other drives were 8 secs (TD), 2:46 (punt), 3:40 (Int) and 2:38 (end of half). There were INTs by both teams in the first half.

After the first half, while SMU still held onto the ball, they failed to score and had 5 punts in a row followed by an INT.

It seems like in the SMU game, Baylor was able to adjust to SMU's strategy and demolish them in the second half.

Now, this has nothing to do with our performance, but it helps shed a little light into how SMU and Lamar were able to keep things close in the first half.

Yes to this. Baylor played their best game of the season (so far). Their coaching staff is much better and their players are much more athletic. That doesn't excuse Rice's performance, but its silly to pretend like Baylor performed the exact same in all three of their games and the only variable that changed was their opponent.

(09-28-2015 10:38 AM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  Geez, you're making it sound like Bailiff is some great coach. He is anything but. He's a very high character guy and strong recruiter...but he's a lousy football coach. Yes, below average. I have a little more faith in JK that he'll hire a capable and promising replacement should he decide to do so. Given our weak conference, I have a very hard time seeing us returning to 1-11, 2-10 type seasons at any point in the future.

(09-28-2015 10:46 AM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  Walt, maybe when you and I were disagreeing earlier about the quality of Bailiff as a coach, we were disagreeing because of what each of us defined as a coach. When I hear coach, I think of it very holistically, like he is the CEO of the team. He is responsible for player personnel, coaching personnel, team moral, team outreach, player retention/graduation, in-game decisions, preparation, etc. So when I look at Bailiff holistically, as in, when I look at his as a coach, I think he is average at worst.

It seems like your view of the word coach is much narrower and only entails the in-game decisions/preparation. If so, I don't know if I call him lousy, but I wouldn't argue that he is below average. I feel like there are plenty of other coaches who could get more out of his players than Bailiff does. But this one knock doesn't make me think he is a below average coach because he has such significant strengths in other areas.

Walt, I repeat a question I asked in the Baylor post-game thread:

(09-27-2015 03:55 PM)mrbig Wrote:  For the people calling for Bailiff's head, what percentile do you rank him in terms of FBS coaches? What percentile do you rank the resources he has at his disposal (including academics limiting recruiting)? Honest questions.

I am honestly curious. Do you believe Bailiff has below-average resources by FBS standards? Do you believe he is getting average results? If yes to both of those, then how is Coach Bailiff a "lousy football coach"? I think the answer to both of those is yes, and I do not understand how someone as smart as you can believe a lousy coach who turns below-average resources into average results is "lousy." I don't think he's a great football coach. But lousy? He looked lousy in 2007, 2009, and 2010. Maybe even up through the 2012 Memphis game. But the results since then have been pretty average, relative to all of FBS.

Another way to get to the same point. How many G5 football teams would trade their results the last 4 years for Rice's results? I would bet more than half.

And how many of those same G5 football teams were once (and for most of it's history) in a P5 conference, and has serious aspirations to return? A good coach can get his players and team to overachieve relative to talent and resources. Look what The Toad did in 2006? And Bailiff has far more resources now-- and dramatically superior talent-- than Graham had back then. And we played a much tougher schedule.

How would you define much tougher? Again, I hate having nothing but empty talking points to discuss, cus it is all just hand waving that may or may not be right.

I already looked at who The Toad played and their end of year rankings (http://csnbbs.com/thread-750732-post-124...12434890).

Looking at average rankings between '06 and '15 (removing the best and worst) The Toad's average was 80 (st. dev of 28). Currently, ours is 117 (st. dev of 45).

So at the moment, I'd say that the Toad's was obviously tougher, but still nothing to write home about. His hardest team was ranked 19, while our current schedule's is 3. Now his worst was 122, while ours is currently 234, and we have 5 teams (UNT, FAU, Army, UTSA, and Charlotte) ranked below the worst team The Toad faced. These rankings will obviously change, so it will be interesting to see where things end up at the end of the season.

(09-28-2015 03:48 PM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  

(09-28-2015 03:36 PM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  

(09-28-2015 11:29 AM)mrbig Wrote:  

(09-28-2015 08:46 AM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  Did I suggest one way or the other? If you can point out where I did, I'll give you a prize and tell you which other accounts I use on The Parliament! Hehe.

RiceLad15, you and I are sharing a brain lately and this post made me laugh because I was literally about to compliment one of your posts and joke that people were about to start accusing us of being the same person.

(09-28-2015 08:34 AM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  Once again, since I hate hollow talking points and very vague statements, I took a look at the box score. Turns out, a lot of these questions we raise can be answered if we just dig a little bit.

Lamar competed in the first half better because of 3 Baylor TOs in the first half (2 INTs and 1 fumble) and none for Lamar. But Baylor still scored 35 pts to Lamar's 21.

Following the first half, Baylor threw one more INT, but Lamar turned it over twice and the game ended 66-31.

And SMU did well in the first half because they were able to move the ball and grind down the clock while scoring. SMU had two drives that totaled about 12 minutes and both esulted in TDs. Their other drives were 8 secs (TD), 2:46 (punt), 3:40 (Int) and 2:38 (end of half). There were INTs by both teams in the first half.

After the first half, while SMU still held onto the ball, they failed to score and had 5 punts in a row followed by an INT.

It seems like in the SMU game, Baylor was able to adjust to SMU's strategy and demolish them in the second half.

Now, this has nothing to do with our performance, but it helps shed a little light into how SMU and Lamar were able to keep things close in the first half.

Yes to this. Baylor played their best game of the season (so far). Their coaching staff is much better and their players are much more athletic. That doesn't excuse Rice's performance, but its silly to pretend like Baylor performed the exact same in all three of their games and the only variable that changed was their opponent.

(09-28-2015 10:38 AM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  Geez, you're making it sound like Bailiff is some great coach. He is anything but. He's a very high character guy and strong recruiter...but he's a lousy football coach. Yes, below average. I have a little more faith in JK that he'll hire a capable and promising replacement should he decide to do so. Given our weak conference, I have a very hard time seeing us returning to 1-11, 2-10 type seasons at any point in the future.

(09-28-2015 10:46 AM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  Walt, maybe when you and I were disagreeing earlier about the quality of Bailiff as a coach, we were disagreeing because of what each of us defined as a coach. When I hear coach, I think of it very holistically, like he is the CEO of the team. He is responsible for player personnel, coaching personnel, team moral, team outreach, player retention/graduation, in-game decisions, preparation, etc. So when I look at Bailiff holistically, as in, when I look at his as a coach, I think he is average at worst.

It seems like your view of the word coach is much narrower and only entails the in-game decisions/preparation. If so, I don't know if I call him lousy, but I wouldn't argue that he is below average. I feel like there are plenty of other coaches who could get more out of his players than Bailiff does. But this one knock doesn't make me think he is a below average coach because he has such significant strengths in other areas.

Walt, I repeat a question I asked in the Baylor post-game thread:

(09-27-2015 03:55 PM)mrbig Wrote:  For the people calling for Bailiff's head, what percentile do you rank him in terms of FBS coaches? What percentile do you rank the resources he has at his disposal (including academics limiting recruiting)? Honest questions.

I am honestly curious. Do you believe Bailiff has below-average resources by FBS standards? Do you believe he is getting average results? If yes to both of those, then how is Coach Bailiff a "lousy football coach"? I think the answer to both of those is yes, and I do not understand how someone as smart as you can believe a lousy coach who turns below-average resources into average results is "lousy." I don't think he's a great football coach. But lousy? He looked lousy in 2007, 2009, and 2010. Maybe even up through the 2012 Memphis game. But the results since then have been pretty average, relative to all of FBS.

Another way to get to the same point. How many G5 football teams would trade their results the last 4 years for Rice's results? I would bet more than half.

And how many of those same G5 football teams were once (and for most of it's history) in a P5 conference, and has serious aspirations to return? A good coach can get his players and team to overachieve relative to talent and resources. Look what The Toad did in 2006? And Bailiff has far more resources now-- and dramatically superior talent-- than Graham had back then. And we played a much tougher schedule.

How would you define much tougher? Again, I hate having nothing but empty talking points to discuss, cus it is all just hand waving that may or may not be right.

I already looked at who The Toad played and their end of year rankings (http://csnbbs.com/thread-750732-post-124...12434890).

Looking at average rankings between '06 and '15 (removing the best and worst) The Toad's average was 80 (st. dev of 28). Currently, ours is 117 (st. dev of 45).

So at the moment, I'd say that the Toad's was obviously tougher, but still nothing to write home about. His hardest team was ranked 19, while our current schedule's is 3. Now his worst was 122, while ours is currently 234, and we have 5 teams (UNT, FAU, Army, UTSA, and Charlotte) ranked below the worst team The Toad faced. These rankings will obviously change, so it will be interesting to see where things end up at the end of the season.

Given that we played Wagner not by choice, but because of a last minute cancellation, I think it's unfair to have that game averaged in. I understand that they're on our schedule, but it's not really anyone at Rice's fault that happened.

Rick - I removed the highest and lowest ranked teams to help cancel out any outliers like Wagner.

Given that we played Wagner not by choice, but because of a last minute cancellation, I think it's unfair to have that game averaged in. I understand that they're on our schedule, but it's not really anyone at Rice's fault that happened.
[/quote]

Which team canceled on Rice? I thought that date had been left open.

(09-28-2015 03:21 PM)GoodOwl Wrote:  

(09-28-2015 09:04 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  If I believed all we needed was NotBailiff at the helm, I would be leading the parade. But whether we hire Stoops, Briles, Patterson, or Rockne, I don't expect immediate improvement or even eventual Top10 or NCs. It's not like you can change just the spark plugs and suddenly have a Lamborghini.

Just out of curiosity, who is the miraclemaker you have in mind, or will we just get a generic miracle man?

I am willing to gamble on a lot of things, but I don't see much upside to an AnybodyButBailiff policy. I think when you go all in you need to have the odds on your side. Show me a better bet than DB, and I will move my chips to that side. It seems to me that all the possible replacements are either unknowns or very unlikely.

Nine years ago, I was very disappointed in the choice of Bailiff. I wanted Coker. A proven name. Today, would we exchange staffs with UTSA? I would not.
...

If JK wants to keep him, I'll support JK in that decision. If JK wants to fire him, I'll support JK in that decision. The king is dead, long live the king.

And if we fire or lose JK...same thing.

JMHO

Important to remember that Bailiff was not JK's own choice. Perhaps JK is really actually terrible at picking coaches, maybe even worse than Greenspan. But if you want odds, to me the odds say JK is a pretty saavy AD who can pick good coaches. I've said for the past few years I'd be interested to see who JK would replace Bailiff & Co with.

So whoever JK would pick (it's his job to know who potential candidates would be, and I'm sure he has some ideas at this point--my guess is that JK is the kind of AD who actually does his job, unlike Greenspan who was a space occupier AD) is my answer to your question. After almost a decade perhaps the fans deserve to know.

PS. I kicked the tires on Coker, but was not all rah-rah for him back then.

Well, so far JK has picked Bailiff.

(09-28-2015 03:41 PM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  

(09-28-2015 11:43 AM)ExcitedOwl18 Wrote:  In my opinion, some members of this forum have a twisted perception of the role of a head coach. With some exceptions, such as when the head coach is also a coordinator, the head coach is more of an overseer than anything. There are eight full time assistants, four graduate assistants, and a couple of quality control guys. Obviously, the buck stops with the head coach, but it's more complicated than "Fire Bailiff!!!!". When our assistant coaching salaries are up to par with other schools and the facilities are improved, I think a fairer assessment can be made.

Have you ever heard the expression "the fish stinks from the head down"? It pertains to those in corporate management and it pertains to coaching a sports team. The head coach is accountable for EVERYTHING. Period. He not only hires his assistants, but he implants the philosophy and the coaching style he prefers. The fact that DB appears to be a hands-off on-field coach who delegates xs and os responsibility does not in any way make him less accountable for the results on the field.

sad but true. See Oilers, Houston and Lions, Detroit as well as Enron and more...

To answer the original question...

It helps Rice to schedule these games because it's better to be given a beat down by a named G5 school than to get biatch-slapped by an FCS opponent.

September 2015 - Baylor 70 Rice 17
MerseyOwl: "Holy crap!"

September 201x - HBU x Rice x-y
MerseyOwl: "HOLY CRAP!"

I personally wouldn't schedule any Southland Conference member while DB is head coach. Not HBU, not Incarnate Word, and for goodness' sake never SHSU.

Bailiff was the safe option after the "Toad", but I believe I was taught somewhere that the ability to accept risk creates opportunity.