Maybe it’s time for a Josh Larzabal start, he does have 0 career ERA at rice

(02-23-2020 07:07 PM)WRC1975 Wrote:  

(02-23-2020 07:00 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(02-23-2020 05:52 PM)WRCisforgotten79 Wrote:  This is not on Graham. Perhaps the talent level had decreased under his watch, but this is on another level. It's all about recruiting, and hiring someone without Texas connections made no sense.

Graham was handicapped by the fact that a partial scholarship to Rice left parents with $20,000 more to pay than at Baylor or TCU. The Rice Endowment should end that, but it was a real factor for about a decade. And our talent fell a long way from where it was in the fist decade of this century. With the Rice Endowment, Bragga has a shot at getting back there. He needs to do so.

But like you, I still question hiring someone with no Texas connections.

Make that three in a row.

Well, we hired an AD with no Texas connections. In fact, two in a row.

I don't think the powers that be at Rice understand the way the THSCA operates. I think Bloomgren does, and has tried to mend fences as best he could, but he's still an outsider. Berndt was, and Fred bent over backwards to cultivate a relationship with them. Ken already had one, as did Todd and David. You have to look and feel and smell Texas to recruit Texas effectively. That's just the way things work.

Now I am the first to agree that we need national recruiting in all sports. But we have to do well in Texas as a base.

(02-23-2020 07:08 PM)Adams Song Wrote:  Maybe it’s time for a Josh Larzabal start, he does have 0 career ERA at rice

I agree with Adams Song that we need to mix things up. Obviously Larzabal has been effective thus far while the go-to guys such as Bordwine have not. Larzabal should get the chance to start

(02-23-2020 07:14 PM)TheTalonsOfTruth Wrote:  

(02-23-2020 07:08 PM)Adams Song Wrote:  Maybe it’s time for a Josh Larzabal start, he does have 0 career ERA at rice

I agree with Adams Song that we need to mix things up. Obviously Larzabal has been effective thus far while the go-to guys such as Bordwine have not. Larzabal should get the chance to start

Let’s not forget he also came in as a two way, with the way we are hitting, I say we should give him a chance to swing it!

(02-23-2020 07:19 PM)Adams Song Wrote:  

(02-23-2020 07:14 PM)TheTalonsOfTruth Wrote:  

(02-23-2020 07:08 PM)Adams Song Wrote:  Maybe it’s time for a Josh Larzabal start, he does have 0 career ERA at rice

I agree with Adams Song that we need to mix things up. Obviously Larzabal has been effective thus far while the go-to guys such as Bordwine have not. Larzabal should get the chance to start

Let’s not forget he also came in as a two way, with the way we are hitting, I say we should give him a chance to swing it!

Again, I agree. If I were Bragga, id be willing to try anything to get the bats going. I never thought id say this, but maybe give the student managers a chance to hit? I talked to manager Adam Gurin and he was saying he used to play.

(02-23-2020 07:28 PM)TheTalonsOfTruth Wrote:  

(02-23-2020 07:19 PM)Adams Song Wrote:  

(02-23-2020 07:14 PM)TheTalonsOfTruth Wrote:  

(02-23-2020 07:08 PM)Adams Song Wrote:  Maybe it’s time for a Josh Larzabal start, he does have 0 career ERA at rice

I agree with Adams Song that we need to mix things up. Obviously Larzabal has been effective thus far while the go-to guys such as Bordwine have not. Larzabal should get the chance to start

Let’s not forget he also came in as a two way, with the way we are hitting, I say we should give him a chance to swing it!

Again, I agree. If I were Bragga, id be willing to try anything to get the bats going. I never thought id say this, but maybe give the student managers a chance to hit? I talked to manager Adam Gurin and he was saying he used to play.

Josh, you and Adam(s) are cracking me up.

Go Owls!

(02-23-2020 07:09 PM)WRC1975 Wrote:  

(02-23-2020 07:07 PM)WRC1975 Wrote:  

(02-23-2020 07:00 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(02-23-2020 05:52 PM)WRCisforgotten79 Wrote:  This is not on Graham. Perhaps the talent level had decreased under his watch, but this is on another level. It's all about recruiting, and hiring someone without Texas connections made no sense.

Graham was handicapped by the fact that a partial scholarship to Rice left parents with $20,000 more to pay than at Baylor or TCU. The Rice Endowment should end that, but it was a real factor for about a decade. And our talent fell a long way from where it was in the fist decade of this century. With the Rice Endowment, Bragga has a shot at getting back there. He needs to do so.

But like you, I still question hiring someone with no Texas connections.

Make that three in a row.

Well, we hired an AD with no Texas connections. In fact, two in a row.

Goes back to hiring a President with no Texas connections.

(02-23-2020 07:14 PM)TheTalonsOfTruth Wrote:  

(02-23-2020 07:08 PM)Adams Song Wrote:  Maybe it’s time for a Josh Larzabal start, he does have 0 career ERA at rice

I agree with Adams Song that we need to mix things up. Obviously Larzabal has been effective thus far while the go-to guys such as Bordwine have not. Larzabal should get the chance to start

Cienfuego, Santos, Lazabal and Kane have all been effective, albeit in relatively short outings. Greenwood has shown significant improvement over last year. I still don't understand why he was yanked when he was today, with a pitch count of only 71 or 72. Deskin has shown that he can throw strikes this year, and be a serviceable reliever for us. And, obviously, Brogdon has pitched VERY well in his two starts.

(02-23-2020 05:35 PM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  

(02-23-2020 05:34 PM)uconnbaseball Wrote:  Welp. This season is about growth and development of the younger guys unless we turn this ship around quickly.

The problem is we are a VERY upperclass-laden team.

Yea, but if things don't turn around by midseason I would give any and all available freshman and sophomores a chance to play. I understand the veterans earned their spot with their play in the preseason (presumably) but let's find out what some of these freshman have if the vets continue to struggle. Redshirts are not as important in college baseball as they are in other sports IMO.

(02-23-2020 08:14 PM)uconnbaseball Wrote:  

(02-23-2020 05:35 PM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  

(02-23-2020 05:34 PM)uconnbaseball Wrote:  Welp. This season is about growth and development of the younger guys unless we turn this ship around quickly.

The problem is we are a VERY upperclass-laden team.

Yea, but if things don't turn around by midseason I would give any and all available freshman and sophomores a chance to play. I understand the veterans earned their spot with their play in the preseason (presumably) but let's find out what some of these freshman have if the vets continue to struggle. Redshirts are not as important in college baseball as they are in other sports IMO.

??? Hardly anyone redshirts in baseball unless they missed significant time to injury. Football is the only sport where it is common for true Freshmen to redshirt as part of their development.

(02-23-2020 07:55 PM)Tomball Owl Wrote:  

(02-23-2020 07:09 PM)WRC1975 Wrote:  

(02-23-2020 07:07 PM)WRC1975 Wrote:  

(02-23-2020 07:00 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(02-23-2020 05:52 PM)WRCisforgotten79 Wrote:  This is not on Graham. Perhaps the talent level had decreased under his watch, but this is on another level. It's all about recruiting, and hiring someone without Texas connections made no sense.

Graham was handicapped by the fact that a partial scholarship to Rice left parents with $20,000 more to pay than at Baylor or TCU. The Rice Endowment should end that, but it was a real factor for about a decade. And our talent fell a long way from where it was in the fist decade of this century. With the Rice Endowment, Bragga has a shot at getting back there. He needs to do so.

But like you, I still question hiring someone with no Texas connections.

Make that three in a row.

Well, we hired an AD with no Texas connections. In fact, two in a row.

Goes back to hiring a President with no Texas connections.

winner winner chicken dinner

Hiring a guy with no Texas connections, who immediately pulled scholarship offers to multiple kids, leads to a terrible first impression with Texas high school coaches. I said this back when it happened and it’s gonna hold true. I guarantee you. I know FOR A FACT that many coaches have and will continue to use it against Bragga.

THSCA and THSBCA are very powerful groups that communicate with each other. Especially in the Houston area.

(02-23-2020 11:18 PM)Owl1998 Wrote:  Hiring a guy with no Texas connections, who immediately pulled scholarship offers to multiple kids, leads to a terrible first impression with Texas high school coaches. I said this back when it happened and it’s gonna hold true. I guarantee you. I know FOR A FACT that many coaches have and will continue to use it against Bragga.
THSCA and THSBCA are very powerful groups that communicate with each other. Especially in the Houston area.

John Bridgers was a successful football coach at Baylor in the 1960s, and one of the first to run a NFL passing offense in the NCAA. He had learned it from the then-Baltimore Colts while coaching at Johns Hopkins. He took the Bears to 3 bowls in his first five years (when bowls were hard to make) and was SWC runner-up to national champions Texas in 1963 before three straight 5-5 seasons in 1964-66. He recruited John Westbrook, the first African-American to play SWC football (he beat Jerry LeVias by a week).

He also recruited a drop-back QB out of Houston named Rusty Clark, who was also an outstanding HS baseball pitcher, with a promise that he could play both sports. Clark played baseball in the spring of 1966 and missed football spring training. When he came in to start fall practice, he had been moved to backup linebacker. He transferred to UH. He lost out at QB when Yeoman switched to the veer, and his transfer sit-out year caused him to miss the UH baseball team that made it to the national championship game in Omaha in 1967 (they lost to Arizona State). But he played both sports at UH with some success, and was ultimately drafted by the NFL San Francisco 49ers.

Clark was not only an outstanding HS athlete, but a genuinely nice and well-liked guy (I knew him, but not well). Bridgers's treatment of him pissed off both the THSCA and THSBCA. Houston area coaches told recruits not to go to Baylor after Clark transferred. Bridgers went 1-8-1 in 1967 and 3-8 in 1968, and was fired. He was replaced by Bill Beall, who had been on Neely's staff at one time. I think the feeling was that Beall's Houston connections from his Rice could re-establish recruiting in Houston but before he could capitalize on that he went 3-28 in 1969-71 and was replaced by Grant Teaff. Teaff had a rocky first couple of years, but we know how that ended up.

If we keep losing like we are, I would suggest maybe in the next year or two reaching out to Patrick Hallmark and giving him a go as the head of our program! Since he left, the two programs (UIW and UTSA) he took over seem to be on the come up because of his coaching style. He also has Scott Sheppard as his assistant and they both coached under Graham and were great coaches when they were here (at Rice). They have big Texas ties and know how to recruit.

(02-23-2020 11:18 PM)Owl1998 Wrote:  Hiring a guy with no Texas connections, who immediately pulled scholarship offers to multiple kids, leads to a terrible first impression with Texas high school coaches. I said this back when it happened and it’s gonna hold true. I guarantee you. I know FOR A FACT that many coaches have and will continue to use it against Bragga.

THSCA and THSBCA are very powerful groups that communicate with each other. Especially in the Houston area.

What about Ruais and some of the other guys in the pipeline? Just reading the recruiting thread, sounds like there's a bit of optimism on that front.

(02-24-2020 10:24 AM)HootyHoot05 Wrote:  If we keep losing like we are, I would suggest maybe in the next year or two reaching out to Patrick Hallmark and giving him a go as the head of our program! Since he left, the two programs (UIW and UTSA) he took over seem to be on the come up because of his coaching style. He also has Scott Sheppard as his assistant and they both coached under Graham and were great coaches when they were here (at Rice). They have big Texas ties and know how to recruit.

I feel pretty safe in predicting no mutual interest between Hallmark and Rice unless/until there is a new AD.

(02-23-2020 07:55 PM)Tomball Owl Wrote:  

(02-23-2020 07:09 PM)WRC1975 Wrote:  

(02-23-2020 07:07 PM)WRC1975 Wrote:  

(02-23-2020 07:00 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(02-23-2020 05:52 PM)WRCisforgotten79 Wrote:  This is not on Graham. Perhaps the talent level had decreased under his watch, but this is on another level. It's all about recruiting, and hiring someone without Texas connections made no sense.

Graham was handicapped by the fact that a partial scholarship to Rice left parents with $20,000 more to pay than at Baylor or TCU. The Rice Endowment should end that, but it was a real factor for about a decade. And our talent fell a long way from where it was in the fist decade of this century. With the Rice Endowment, Bragga has a shot at getting back there. He needs to do so.

But like you, I still question hiring someone with no Texas connections.

Make that three in a row.

Well, we hired an AD with no Texas connections. In fact, two in a row.

Goes back to hiring a President with no Texas connections.

Absolutely! Hillary lived in a state that connected to Texas at Texarkana!

:-)

Who was the last Rice president with Texas connections? Norman Hackerman (1970-1985 president).

Silly post.

(02-24-2020 07:50 PM)Fort Bend Owl Wrote:  Who was the last Rice president with Texas connections? Norman Hackerman (1970-1985 president).

Silly post.

FYI, here are the pre-Rice "connections" of all of Rice's Presidents.

Yes, Hackerman is the only one who has previously worked in Texas.

Edgar Odell Lovett (Ohio, Kentucky, UVa, Johns Hopkins, Chicago ... Princeton)
William V. Houston (Ohio, Chicago ... CalTech)
Kenneth Pitzer (California ... UC Berkeley)
Norman Hackerman (Maryland, Johns Hopkins, VaTech ... UT Austin)
George Rupp (New Jersey, Yale, California, Wisconsin ... Harvard)
Malcolm Gillis (Alabama, Florida, Illinois ... Duke)
David Leebron (Pennsylvania, Harvard, UCLA, NYU ... Columbia)