(11-04-2019 11:14 PM)owl40 Wrote:  In the 26 years 1994-2009, we've had 4 coaches:
Hatfield, Graham, Bailiff, Bloomgran.

For a little perspective, in the 26 years before that (1968-1993) we had 8:
Hagan, Peterson, Conover, Rice, Alborn, Brown, Berndt, Goldsmith

Te best won-lost record in that previous 26 years was Goldsmith (.427), followed by Conover (.341), Peterson (.318), and Hagan (.313). All the rest were under .200. We went 28 years (1964-1992) between winning seasons. And what's worse, we weren't worth a damn in much of anything else for the vast majority of that entire time frame.



Owl 69...
But the difference was Rice FB was semi-relevant in a big time conference, with a big time schedule, and big time opportunities. So the comparison above is apples/oranges. Rice FB is not relevant anymore and even at the DB heyday of 2013 was not relevant. Baylor due to politics and shady practices, TCU due to timing and hard work, and now SMU due to perseverance and other factors (including taking Rice recruits) are relevant today. In the late 80's and through the 90's those teams were Rice FB peers. Now Memphis, Tulane, and other 'peer' schools of the WAC/C-USA 2000's era are no longer peers. Heck, La Tech, Marshall, and So Miss are not even peers anymore.

I see no path to relevance without radical change. For the first time as a four-decade long Rice FB supporter, I want/need to see radical change (e.g., SWC/Texas FBS teams schedule as an Independent, pay to get to AAC, etc.) or drop the charade and quit. C-USA is a path to bankruptcy. Either invest the $ and be relevant in other things (academic and athletic) or invest the $ to be relevant in FB w/ radical change.

The "All-In" on Bloom turning it around as the bet is a bad bet. Body of work of 20 games has happened...no longer just a few datapoints. And if there was improvement throughout the season to paint a picture of hope, patience could be explained/rationalized but arguably the best games were played in Aug/Sept, not in Oct/Nov against much less competition. There is not hope with the current players, head coach (vs. Smith), and offensive schemes chosen.

Need unconventional wisdom to be a real strategy as path forward, not a tagline.

Once again 40 is bang on

Maybe D3 is too extreme. What if there was a plan that included rebuilding in FCS? Not as a permanent solution but to right the ship and build momentum? I don’t know if or how it would work but the cost of running a D1 program in the Southland conference has got to be less than what it costs us to compete in CUSA

Going independent just won't work, for a variety of reasons. For one example, here are the rankings of independents (on my system):

16. Notre Dame (6-2)
71. BYU (4-4)
87. Liberty (6-3)
113. Army (3-6)
128. New Mexico State (0-8)
129. Massachusetts (1-8)

Notre Dame, BYU and Army have built-in national following. The others - not so much. We'd be like the "others" and most like New Mexico State.

(11-04-2019 11:14 PM)owl40 Wrote:  In the 26 years 1994-2009, we've had 4 coaches:
Hatfield, Graham, Bailiff, Bloomgran.
For a little perspective, in the 26 years before that (1968-1993) we had 8:
Hagan, Peterson, Conover, Rice, Alborn, Brown, Berndt, Goldsmith
Te best won-lost record in that previous 26 years was Goldsmith (.427), followed by Conover (.341), Peterson (.318), and Hagan (.313). All the rest were under .200. We went 28 years (1964-1992) between winning seasons. And what's worse, we weren't worth a damn in much of anything else for the vast majority of that entire time frame.
Owl 69...
But the difference was Rice FB was semi-relevant in a big time conference, with a big time schedule, and big time opportunities. So the comparison above is apples/oranges. Rice FB is not relevant anymore and even at the DB heyday of 2013 was not relevant. Baylor due to politics and shady practices, TCU due to timing and hard work, and now SMU due to perseverance and other factors (including taking Rice recruits) are relevant today. In the late 80's and through the 90's those teams were Rice FB peers. Now Memphis, Tulane, and other 'peer' schools of the WAC/C-USA 2000's era are no longer peers. Heck, La Tech, Marshall, and So Miss are not even peers anymore.
I see no path to relevance without radical change. For the first time as a four-decade long Rice FB supporter, I want/need to see radical change (e.g., SWC/Texas FBS teams schedule as an Independent, pay to get to AAC, etc.) or drop the charade and quit. C-USA is a path to bankruptcy. Either invest the $ and be relevant in other things (academic and athletic) or invest the $ to be relevant in FB w/ radical change.
The "All-In" on Bloom turning it around as the bet is a bad bet. Body of work of 20 games has happened...no longer just a few datapoints. And if there was improvement throughout the season to paint a picture of hope, patience could be explained/rationalized but arguably the best games were played in Aug/Sept, not in Oct/Nov against much less competition. There is not hope with the current players, head coach (vs. Smith), and offensive schemes chosen.
Need unconventional wisdom to be a real strategy as path forward, not a tagline.

40, I don't think we disagree on much, except that Rice wasn't relevant then, either.

Rice was relevant when I got there as a freshman in 1965. That was a big reason for my choice--I wanted top-notch academics and major league sports. We were only 2-8, but one of the two was then #2 Texas in Austin. The following year was 2-8 again, but we beat LSU and had 4th quarter leads against both eventual #5 UCLA and SWC champion SMU. Then Jess Neely retired and we passed on Tommy Prothro (UCLA) and Ray Graves (Florida) to hire Bo Hagan, quite possibly the most inept combination football coach/athletic director we could find. We spend the next 20 years trying our hardest both 1) to become irrelevant on the field, and 2) to drive away any potential fan base with absolutely abysmal customer service. The whole focus was on cutting costs, meaning cutting quality, with no thought at all to revenue enhancement. The "Rice way" was characterized by two maxims--losing is okay as long as you have a good enough excuse and if you don't know where you are going, the path of least resistance will get you there--and led by athletic directors who were told, "The job is yours as long as you don't make any waves." Bobby managed that as well as humanly possible, but it was an approach that was doomed from the start.

We didn't get into this mess by accident, we drove ourselves there on purpose. Rice would not meet my 1965 decision criteria today. And to say that I am annoyed by that is a major understatement.

Do we need radical change? Absolutely. We need nothing less than a total paradigm shift. Joe is a good guy, but I don't think he is strong enough to force the changes needed. George Bernard Shaw wrote, “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” We are at the point where we need an unreasonable man. Todd Graham was, but he was an unethical a-hole. Then again, maybe we need an a-hole. Not a Bret Bielema a-hole, we need somebody competent (and without the BO). Chris Del Conte could be, and he could also be a nice guy, so he was off to greener pastures--first TCU, now Texas.

We need someone who says, "Losing is not okay--ever," and, "We know where we are going and we are not willing to take a path that will not get us there, even if we have to make waves." We need a leader, and Joe is a manager.

(11-04-2019 10:46 PM)temchugh Wrote:  My issue is that your description of recent history (25 years) was wholly inaccurate. Rice rarely hires new head coaches. In the last 25 years, only one coach got hired away - so that is clearly not a big part of our struggles. We kept two coaches for 10+ years each with multiple contract extensions, so the cost of the contract buy-out was clearly not the primary reason why we stuck with those two guys for so long (unless you think that we awarded the extensions primarily because we could not afford the buy-out).

I don't think I said anything about frequently hiring new coaches... so I don't know how I'm inaccurate, other than differing definitions of yo-yo. A big part of my comments over the years has been that we should be replacing coaches far more often..... and that an identity based on consistency 'at the top' (unless that person has strong Rice ties) is actually 'bad' for us.... because we aren't a destination for football coaches.

Let me try and be more clear... using your example

UH has only had a few really poor years in the last 25, so despite numerous coaching changes, they've pretty consistently been competitive. That's not a yo-yo
Rice over that same period has had coaches who started well and then became a dumpster fire before being replaced... most notably, the two who occupied 19 of the 25 years you're referring to. Bailiff was arguably a yo-yo all by himself at times.... coming off of Graham and then righting the ship, only to falter again. That's a yo-yo.

I wasn't making this point, but since you brought it up, during this period we've gone from some pretty big extremes in our identity... run only, wide open, run first... UH has been more consistently wide open with a primary focus on offense during that period. This CAN be part of the identity I was alluding to with the intellectual brutality. As Owlnumbers has spoken about, using some sort of contrarian offense predicated on superior intelligence as opposed to superior athleticism combined with an aggressive defense can be intellectual brutality. As opposed to asking coaches interviewing for us 'what sort of player they can bring to us', we might say 'this is the sort of player we generally attract, how will you utilize those skills to outperform'?

(11-05-2019 01:51 AM)WRCisforgotten79 Wrote:  Going independent just won't work, for a variety of reasons. For one example, here are the rankings of independents (on my system):

16. Notre Dame (6-2)
71. BYU (4-4)
87. Liberty (6-3)
113. Army (3-6)
128. New Mexico State (0-8)
129. Massachusetts (1-8)

Notre Dame, BYU and Army have built-in national following. The others - not so much. We'd be like the "others" and most like New Mexico State.

There are lots of reasons not to go independent.... but New Mexico State has literally nothing going for it.

It's not in a highly populated city nor state without much of a football following (the state) or recruiting territory. It's not easy to get to and has few nearby opponents. I'd say we are LEAST like them.

One of the reasons I've always talked about having an identity of playing SMART football is that while we would never attract the military nor Mormons nor Catholics nor Evangelicals, nobody else is really targeting statisticians nor engineers nor doctors who also happen to be highly interested in athletics (like you).

(11-05-2019 07:26 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(11-04-2019 11:14 PM)owl40 Wrote:  In the 26 years 1994-2009, we've had 4 coaches:
Hatfield, Graham, Bailiff, Bloomgran.
For a little perspective, in the 26 years before that (1968-1993) we had 8:
Hagan, Peterson, Conover, Rice, Alborn, Brown, Berndt, Goldsmith
Te best won-lost record in that previous 26 years was Goldsmith (.427), followed by Conover (.341), Peterson (.318), and Hagan (.313). All the rest were under .200. We went 28 years (1964-1992) between winning seasons. And what's worse, we weren't worth a damn in much of anything else for the vast majority of that entire time frame.
Owl 69...
But the difference was Rice FB was semi-relevant in a big time conference, with a big time schedule, and big time opportunities. So the comparison above is apples/oranges. Rice FB is not relevant anymore and even at the DB heyday of 2013 was not relevant. Baylor due to politics and shady practices, TCU due to timing and hard work, and now SMU due to perseverance and other factors (including taking Rice recruits) are relevant today. In the late 80's and through the 90's those teams were Rice FB peers. Now Memphis, Tulane, and other 'peer' schools of the WAC/C-USA 2000's era are no longer peers. Heck, La Tech, Marshall, and So Miss are not even peers anymore.
I see no path to relevance without radical change. For the first time as a four-decade long Rice FB supporter, I want/need to see radical change (e.g., SWC/Texas FBS teams schedule as an Independent, pay to get to AAC, etc.) or drop the charade and quit. C-USA is a path to bankruptcy. Either invest the $ and be relevant in other things (academic and athletic) or invest the $ to be relevant in FB w/ radical change.
The "All-In" on Bloom turning it around as the bet is a bad bet. Body of work of 20 games has happened...no longer just a few datapoints. And if there was improvement throughout the season to paint a picture of hope, patience could be explained/rationalized but arguably the best games were played in Aug/Sept, not in Oct/Nov against much less competition. There is not hope with the current players, head coach (vs. Smith), and offensive schemes chosen.
Need unconventional wisdom to be a real strategy as path forward, not a tagline.

40, I don't think we disagree on much, except that Rice wasn't relevant then, either.

Rice was relevant when I got there as a freshman in 1965. That was a big reason for my choice--I wanted top-notch academics and major league sports. We were only 2-8, but one of the two was then #2 Texas in Austin. The following year was 2-8 again, but we beat LSU and had 4th quarter leads against both eventual #5 UCLA and SWC champion SMU. Then Jess Neely retired and we passed on Tommy Prothro (UCLA) and Ray Graves (Florida) to hire Bo Hagan, quite possibly the most inept combination football coach/athletic director we could find. We spend the next 20 years trying our hardest both 1) to become irrelevant on the field, and 2) to drive away any potential fan base with absolutely abysmal customer service. The whole focus was on cutting costs, meaning cutting quality, with no thought at all to revenue enhancement. The "Rice way" was characterized by two maxims--losing is okay as long as you have a good enough excuse and if you don't know where you are going, the path of least resistance will get you there--and led by athletic directors who were told, "The job is yours as long as you don't make any waves." Bobby managed that as well as humanly possible, but it was an approach that was doomed from the start.

We didn't get into this mess by accident, we drove ourselves there on purpose. Rice would not meet my 1965 decision criteria today. And to say that I am annoyed by that is a major understatement.

Do we need radical change? Absolutely. We need nothing less than a total paradigm shift. Joe is a good guy, but I don't think he is strong enough to force the changes needed. George Bernard Shaw wrote, “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” We are at the point where we need an unreasonable man. Todd Graham was, but he was an unethical a-hole. Then again, maybe we need an a-hole. Not a Bret Bielema a-hole, we need somebody competent (and without the BO). Chris Del Conte could be, and he could also be a nice guy, so he was off to greener pastures--first TCU, now Texas.

We need someone who says, "Losing is not okay--ever," and, "We know where we are going and we are not willing to take a path that will not get us there, even if we have to make waves." We need a leader, and Joe is a manager.

Sadly, Bobby made moves to make us relevant-mbskb, fb (i remember telling a pal we would do ok vs Ohio St in 92 or so and at least it wasn't an embarassment-can u imagine it now?), and bb were no longer just off weeks in a real conference by the time the SWC was blown up by DeLoss. The lack of doing (and not just lip service, really doing) what the other 3 refugees of the SWC have done since that time has just made an already sick patient multiple times worse. Death by neglect is the same as death by a bowie knife.

Can u imagine what Jess Neely thinks of losing to St Thomas in bskb and Old Dominion in fb? And yet, we have witnessed both in the past 6 years.

(11-05-2019 07:26 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  Rice was relevant when I got there as a freshman in 1965. That was a big reason for my choice--I wanted top-notch academics and major league sports. We were only 2-8, but one of the two was then #2 Texas in Austin. The following year was 2-8 again, but we beat LSU and had 4th quarter leads against both eventual #5 UCLA and SWC champion SMU.

I was at all of those games, including the 20-17 win at Texas. I left the SMU game a little early - we were leading at the time. Wasn't that the one where SMU faked a tying field goal and threw to LeVias?

I am not so sure we were relevant even then - 1960 was our last really good team.

(11-05-2019 05:37 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(11-05-2019 07:26 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  The following year was 2-8 again, but we beat LSU and had 4th quarter leads against both eventual #5 UCLA and SWC champion SMU.

I left the SMU game a little early - we were leading at the time. Wasn't that the one where SMU faked a tying field goal and threw to LeVias?

IIRC, Levias was the holder on the fake field goal (a substitution our defense didn't pick up on) and ran for a first down on that play. Then he caught the winning TD pass. (https://www.newspapers.com/clip/38517519...oct_151966)

In his Rice QB Club talk the following Monday, Coach Neely asked for a review of two important officials' calls that went against the Owls: (https://www.newspapers.com/clip/38517663...ss_to_smu/)

(11-05-2019 01:53 PM)Hambone10 Wrote:  As opposed to asking coaches interviewing for us 'what sort of player they can bring to us', we might say 'this is the sort of player we generally attract, how will you utilize those skills to outperform'?

Bingo.

I wonder if such a question ever gets asked in a coaching candidate interview.

But there's a follow up to that which I also think is instructive. At the end of the day, it still comes down to recruiting on some level. So maybe your first stated question needs to be asked slightly differently. Instead of, "What kind of player can you bring to us?" perhaps it should be, "Here are the recruiting limits under which we must operate. Given that, what are the best players that you believe we can attract, and how do we get them and how do you build them into a winning football team?"

Bum Phillips said, "There are two ways to get better. Get better players, or get the players you have to play better." We need to do a lot of both. And we probably need to do the latter before we can do the former.

(11-05-2019 08:16 PM)Almadenmike Wrote:  

(11-05-2019 05:37 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(11-05-2019 07:26 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  The following year was 2-8 again, but we beat LSU and had 4th quarter leads against both eventual #5 UCLA and SWC champion SMU.

I left the SMU game a little early - we were leading at the time. Wasn't that the one where SMU faked a tying field goal and threw to LeVias?

IIRC, Levias was the holder on the fake field goal (a substitution our defense didn't pick up on) and ran for a first down on that play. Then he caught the winning TD pass. (https://www.newspapers.com/clip/38517519...oct_151966)

IIRC, he knelt on the left foot side for a right-footed kicker, making it even more obvious.

Quote:In his Rice QB Club talk the following Monday, Coach Neely asked for a review of two important officials' calls that went against the Owls: (https://www.newspapers.com/clip/38517663...ss_to_smu/)

I remember reading this and thinking that Jess was trying to cover up for poor preparation.