They have a new coach too but that's about all I know about them. Are they going to be decent in the SWAC this year? Are they going to be high scoring but with a rather porous defense like the last time we played them?

https://www.chron.com/sports/college/art...128122.php

Recent story on them. They return seven starters on offense and four on defense from a team that was 6-5 and 3rd in their SWAC division last year (and they're picked 3rd in their division again this year). They have seven guys who were mentioned on preseason all-conference teams, but just two of the seven are on defense (both in the secondary). And their new coach was the OC at Grambling, so my guess is yes, they'll be okay on offense and perhaps a bit suspect on defense.

Which is the right combination for our first game of the season. Our offense is going to need some early confidence so if they struggle to score against Prairie View, that's a bad sign (very bad) for our ability to score against Houston.

I believe I recall a few posters on here in the past remark that the biggest improvement in a college FB team is often between the first and second games. It does seem that Rice's "improvements" in recent seasons came during the later half of the seasons instead. I think it will be interesting to see how similar or different to that pattern Coach Bloomgrem's staff is.

(08-19-2018 05:30 PM)GoodOwl Wrote:  I believe I recall a few posters on here in the past remark that the biggest improvement in a college FB team is often between the first and second games. It does seem that Rice's "improvements" in recent seasons came during the later half of the seasons instead. I think it will be interesting to see how similar or different to that pattern Coach Bloomgrem's staff is.

"Improvements" should definitely be in quote marks as the later half of the season is also when our strength of schedule takes a nose-dive in conference play. We should look better when we're playing Charlotte and UTSA than when we play Baylor and Stanford even if we don't improve over the season. Last year was unusual in that we played our easiest opponent in week 2, and this year we're LSU's pre-Thanksgiving punching bag.

I think we'll learn little to nothing in the transition from PVAM to Houston, but we may see something substantive in Houston to Hawaii and especially Hawaii to Bye to USM.

(I just realized that we play a UH in back-to-back weeks this year. I'm also worried we'll fill LSU's punching bag role again in 2024 as they don't have one scheduled yet. Currently, they have three home OOC, all in September: UCLA, us, and South Alabama.)

(08-19-2018 05:59 PM)franklyconfused Wrote:  I'm also worried we'll fill LSU's punching bag role again in 2024 as they don't have one scheduled yet. Currently, they have three home OOC, all in September: UCLA, us, and South Alabama.)

Right now we should never refuse to play LSU anyt any time, any where under almost any deal they want. That game is so good for our program, and much needed. Even playing Ole Missed, Miss State under the same circumstances helps tremendously, because those states are close enough to help, our recruiting take a step up. I wish we had at least one SEC or ACC school on the schedule each and every season, 2 for 1 or even 3 for 1 as long as we can get the 1 to be at Rice Stadium at least 3 out of four times and not get it bought out.

(08-19-2018 06:10 PM)GoodOwl Wrote:  

(08-19-2018 05:59 PM)franklyconfused Wrote:  I'm also worried we'll fill LSU's punching bag role again in 2024 as they don't have one scheduled yet. Currently, they have three home OOC, all in September: UCLA, us, and South Alabama.)

Right now we should never refuse to play LSU anyt any time, any where under almost any deal they want. That game is so good for our program, and much needed. Even playing Ole Missed, Miss State under the same circumstances helps tremendously, because those states are close enough to help, our recruiting take a step up. I wish we had at least one SEC or ACC school on the schedule each and every season, 2 for 1 or even 3 for 1 as long as we can get the 1 to be at Rice Stadium at least 3 out of four times and not get it bought out.

We're not going to get an SEC school in HRS without significant upgrades. I'm okay with playing them at Reliant, just to get the games. The one advantage we have over the rest of CUSA (except, maybe, maybe USM) is that we have historic relationships with P5 programs (we used to be in a conference with a bunch of them, remember?). We can leverage that to make more money, and to promise recruits an opportunity to play against big-time opponents more than our conference mates can.

As I said before, I think our short to medium term goal should be to establish ourselves as the dominant program in CUSA, and able to be at least somewhat competitive with the big boys. That may be as good as we can ever get, but that's not a bad place to be. It's sure as hell a lot better than where we are now.

Playing LSU late in the year instead of early might be a great strategy though. So far already this fall, they've lost two QB's to transfer, and a WR has been suspended. We play them 2 weeks after Alabama, and a week after their Arkansas road game, and there's a strong possibility they will be playing out the season at that point with no bowl chances.

(08-19-2018 06:10 PM)GoodOwl Wrote:  

(08-19-2018 05:59 PM)franklyconfused Wrote:  I'm also worried we'll fill LSU's punching bag role again in 2024 as they don't have one scheduled yet. Currently, they have three home OOC, all in September: UCLA, us, and South Alabama.)

Right now we should never refuse to play LSU anyt any time, any where under almost any deal they want. That game is so good for our program, and much needed. Even playing Ole Missed, Miss State under the same circumstances helps tremendously, because those states are close enough to help, our recruiting take a step up. I wish we had at least one SEC or ACC school on the schedule each and every season, 2 for 1 or even 3 for 1 as long as we can get the 1 to be at Rice Stadium at least 3 out of four times and not get it bought out.

I like that we're playing LSU, but that specific weekend is insulting. It says that they have so little respect for us that they intend to use us as an unofficial off week to rest their first string to prepare for Thanksgiving weekend. The other P5 OOC games that weekend:

• Citadel @ Alabama
• Tenn - Chattanooga @ South Carolina
• Idaho @ Florida
• Western Carolina @ UNC
• Liberty @ Auburn
• Middle Tenn @ Kentucky
• UAB @ TAMU
• UMass @ Georgia
• Syracuse @ Notre Dame (essentially an ACC game)
  

That's not a slate of games I'm proud to be associated with. The first four are FCS, and the next four are the bottom of the FBS. At least 2020's September game lets us look more like a peer by association than a whipping boy by design, and hopefully we'll improve enough by then that the scoreline will do so as well.

E:

(08-19-2018 06:32 PM)Fort Bend Owl Wrote:  Playing LSU late in the year instead of early might be a great strategy though. So far already this fall, they've lost two QB's to transfer, and a WR has been suspended. We play them 2 weeks after Alabama, and a week after their Arkansas road game, and there's a strong possibility they will be playing out the season at that point with no bowl chances.

Regardless of their personnel issues this offseason, I don't see a series of developments that takes us from 1-11 last year to competing with LSU's first-string run offense + third-string QB/WRs this year. Our new coaching staff aren't miracle workers. We'd need for there to be an ongoing investigation right now leading to the NCAA dropping a mid-season SMU death penalty level punishment to have a prayer in November. Given that I haven't heard of such an investigation and the fact that UNC seems to have gotten off Scot free from their scandal, I'm not hopeful.

(08-19-2018 06:32 PM)Fort Bend Owl Wrote:  Playing LSU late in the year instead of early might be a great strategy though. So far already this fall, they've lost two QB's to transfer, and a WR has been suspended. We play them 2 weeks after Alabama, and a week after their Arkansas road game, and there's a strong possibility they will be playing out the season at that point with no bowl chances.

The SEC teams all play traditional rivals the last week of the season (Thanksgiving weekend)--Alabama/Auburn, Ole Miss/Miss St, Tennessee/Vanderbilt, Georgia/Georgia Tech, South Carolina/Clemson, and so forth. They like to play a cupcake the week before. They were playing FCS schools, but the recent initiative to upgrade schedules has them looking elsewhere, principally at G5's. We could make ourselves available to LSU and other SEC teams for big paydays. Also, coming near the end of the season, it would not have the same dampening effect on the whole season as playing so-called "bodybag" games and getting beaten up early. And catch one of them on a down year and we could get that elusive "signature" win.

I remember one of the Bama national championship teams played Georgia Southern in the penultimate week slot. With the flexbone, Georgia Southern gave them about as much trouble as anybody else they played late that year, so it is not out of the question that we could do so sometime.

Didn’t their starting QB from last year transfer out?

(08-19-2018 06:37 PM)franklyconfused Wrote:  I like that we're playing LSU, but that specific weekend is insulting. It says that they have so little respect for us that they intend to use us as an unofficial off week to rest their first string to prepare for Thanksgiving weekend. The other P5 OOC games that weekend:

• Citadel @ Alabama
• Tenn - Chattanooga @ South Carolina
• Idaho @ Florida
• Western Carolina @ UNC
• Liberty @ Auburn
• Middle Tenn @ Kentucky
• UAB @ TAMU
• UMass @ Georgia
• Syracuse @ Notre Dame (essentially an ACC game)
  

That's not a slate of games I'm proud to be associated with. The first four are FCS, and the next four are the bottom of the FBS. At least 2020's September game lets us look more like a peer by association than a whipping boy by design, and hopefully we'll improve enough by then that the scoreline will do so as well.

I understand how you feel, but I can't be insulted:

1. previously, LSU flat out refused to play us at all
2. the list of schools above is more or less Rices' current peer group, whether we like it or not
3. we did this to ourselves by our institutional indifference to the changing state of athletics
4. playing a "name' school late in the season can help us if we do well, or even win, and give us some momentum into the following year
5. Playing a name school almost any time can help us out if we don't mail it in and look competitive/steal a game once in a while or more
6. No matter how well we do against Prairie View or Wagner or Nicholls, almost no one's perception (except for some Parliament posters) will be reasonably changed
7. If we don't do well against Prairie View or Wagner or Nicholls it hurts the program immensely in multiple ways we've discussed over the years.

Bottom line: Kick the $#!+ out of the Prairie Views, Wagners and Nicholls' every time and then try to improve, steal a few against the Big Boys and keep trying to schedule them whenever until we can change the status of our program.

Just win, and if we do, they won't play us at all anymore.

(08-19-2018 06:32 PM)Fort Bend Owl Wrote:  Playing LSU late in the year instead of early might be a great strategy though. So far already this fall, they've lost two QB's to transfer, and a WR has been suspended. We play them 2 weeks after Alabama, and a week after their Arkansas road game, and there's a strong possibility they will be playing out the season at that point with no bowl chances.

Since metrics are the hot thing in coaching right now, Rice should focus on "hooker, blow, and suspension" metrics for scheduling P5 opponents. What do the metrics say about how many players are suspended after the rivalry game versus Auburn? How about the week before? Schedule the bodybag games, but be smart about how you do it. Do it the Rice way.

Word on Prairie View? We damn well better win, and win big. Period.

The Roost had a good analysis
http://attheroost.com/2018/07/23/2018-pr...n-preview/

I'm hoping for a sizable crowd on Saturday. We're the only game in town. For anybody looking to get an early fix of football, Saturday night is a great opportunity.

(08-20-2018 02:00 AM)Ourland Wrote:  I'm hoping for a sizable crowd on Saturday. We're the only game in town. For anybody looking to get an early fix of football, Saturday night is a great opportunity.

Well, if nothing else, at least the student body usually makes it out in force to the first one or two home games. That will add 1 - 2 thousand to the usual attendance.

Prairie View will bring some people too. Our first three crowds will be good and then our last 3 games combined may not get as much as any one of the first three.

The starter for the last half of last year Neiko Hollins (mentioned prominently in The Roost article) did transfer to a JC.

https://www.hbcusports.com/forums/thread...pv.134909/

You guys want to turn this into a prediction thread? Somebody get it started...