Give me the low-down on Rice and SMU!!! I know Rice has great baseball but give me a breakdown of the schools. :)

This Texan says that those two schools should not have been offered. When the original realignment was happening, I was pushing for La Tech, Tulsa and UNT. But alas that did not happen.

Rice is historically not very good in football, but they have had glimmers of hope every once and a while. For the most part their academic standards take a front seat to athletics and I respect them for that. Their basketbal is becoming decent and you know that kicked butt in baseball last year. I think their women's programs are okay.

I really do not know that much about SMU. I think they are good in soccer and stuff like that. I remember they days when they had the best athletics money could buy. But purchasing players got them the death penalty for football and they still haven't recovered. Hopefully moving up to C-USA will help them with recruiting.

there are those that feel that a school's football team should be the sole criteria to consideration. I'm not sure I agree with that. Having institutions like Rice and SMU in your league has got to be a plus. SMU and TCU are really twin schools in many respects except that SMU probably has more money. There is no reason I can think of why SMU can't do what TCU has done. They are both good solid adds to the league and should help stableize our membership. I also think UNT and La Tech would be good choices. I was not crazy about the marshall add because they are so far away but I expect them to be very copmpetitive.

Good Hire on Penders!!!!

Hopefully he will get Houston back!!