Sorry, I thought the original post was comparing the firing of some who did not deserve to be fired with the non-firing of someone who should have been fired. And Wayne’s last three years clearly fell short of the mark set by the previous 20 years, so I suppose they were bad by that standard. But when bad is you didn’t make to a super-regional, you have set a pretty high standard.

As far as the comment about JK’s job, a number of people inside the athletic department have told me that McKinsey was asked if there was a viable path to go D3 in football and basketball while maintaining D1 in baseball, because nobody wanted to take on the 900-pound gorilla that baseball had become after winning a national championship. When McKinsey said that there wasn't, Rice was pretty much committed to D1.

No problem. I've heard here before that Graham saved Rice athletics. I think some of that is true, but I don't know if I can believe that it was entirely his doing. There must have been some influencial donors at that time who got in the way. Something bigger than a baseball national title was a determining factor. If Rice wanted to kill off football, or drop to D3, it would very likely take much more than Wayne Graham to stop them.

I think they crunched the numbers, considered all the variables, and decided that D3 would severely decrease visibility and donations. That's my 2 cents anyway.

(01-01-2022 01:42 PM)bigowlsfan Wrote:  

(01-01-2022 10:45 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(01-01-2022 10:39 AM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  

(01-01-2022 10:03 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(12-29-2021 12:03 PM)Ourland Wrote:  The AD fires the baseball coach after three bad seasons

Three bad seasons???
Try one. When two of the three bad seasons included NCAA Regional invitations, and one a conference tournament championship, those are the kinds of "bad" seasons that we would cherish in the other men's major sports. They were "bad" only measured against the standard that coach had set--23 consecutive NCAA post-season tournaments and 20 consecutive conference regular season and/or tournament championships.
Wayne Graham is the reason Joe Karlgaard's job even exists. On that basis alone, Wayne deserved far better than he got from Joe.

Geez-- he was referring to the firing of Bragga; not The OG.

I don't have a problem with firing Bragga. It's firing Wayne that irritates me to no end.

And in Rice message board tradition it only took a while to get from this year’s college bowl games to the firing of Wayne Graham, 3 years ago. Next we devolve into mistakes made at the end of the southwest conference.

...after these messages from Gallery Furniture...savez U MONEY!!!!

Updated as of Jan 2, 2022:

1. MWC 5-1
2. AAC 3-1
2. Sun Belt 3-1
4. Big 12 4-2 (1 to play)
5. B$G 6-4
6. Indie 2-2
7. $EC 5-6 (3 to play)
8. MAC 3-5
8. CUSA 3-5
10.ACC 2-4
11. Pac 12 0-5

by this metric, Rice will be better off in AAC than Pac12!

(01-02-2022 04:08 PM)GoodOwl Wrote:  Updated as of Jan 2, 2022:

1. MWC 5-1
2. AAC 3-1
2. Sun Belt 3-1
4. Big 12 4-2 (1 to play)
5. B$G 6-4
6. Indie 2-2
7. $EC 5-6 (3 to play)
8. MAC 3-5
8. CUSA 3-5
10.ACC 2-4
11. Pac 12 0-5

by this metric, Rice will be better off in AAC than Pac12!

Naw. It just means that we will have to play better teams.

(01-01-2022 07:08 PM)Ourland Wrote:  No problem. I've heard here before that Graham saved Rice athletics. I think some of that is true, but I don't know if I can believe that it was entirely his doing. There must have been some influential donors at that time who got in the way.

I'm not aware of any. All I know is that the persons who were interviewed (and I was not one of them) have described the questioning as pretty heavily pointing in the direction of finding a way to go D3 and keep baseball D1.

Updated as of Jan 5, 2022:

1. MWC 5-1
2. AAC 3-1
2. Sun Belt 3-1
4. Big 12 5-2
5. B$G 6-4
6. Indie 2-2
7. $EC 5-7 (2 to play)
8. MAC 3-5
8. CUSA 3-5
10.ACC 2-4
11. Pac 12 0-5

of course, the $EC will finish 6-8 after next Monday.