I cant believe Rice or Rice alums even care about what the football program does. Aren't they on par with UTSA?
Rice --> renovated stadium and facilities, scandal-free, and has been competitive as recently as 3 years ago with a non-conference schedule that is high visability
Rice has produced solid NFL players in recent players but Chris Boswell covered a lot of the deficiencies that allowed us to win in the most recent glory days. Covington has been a contributor to the Texans. Sendejo is starting for the Vikings. Luke Willson and Vance MacDonald are still playing as well... ...and we also had more draftees than University of Texas a few years back. Rice is attractive destination for players. Assuming they can meet the standards.
I think it just goes to show how out-of-touch some of these administrators are with their alumni and fanbases outside of the high-profile, high-dollar alumni that build them football palaces and weight rooms. Maybe there isn't enough evidence there in the Sandusky case to where Schiano should be precluded from being a head coach again, but that doesn't mean that Currie shouldn't have seen the anger and questions coming from a mile away.
It's also different in that Tennessee in the midst of it's own Title IX scandal/problems right now. Another school somewhere else could probably take on the baggage of a Schiano, but TN needs to clean up their image.
Crazy money just being tossed around. Mullen will get paid $6M/year with a $12M buyout and the reported number for Jimbo is $7.5M/year. That's not including any coordinators which schools are easily paying $1M+ for now.
Meant to mention this earlier, but one of my big takeaways from the Tennessee situation yesterday was the speed at which everything happened, thanks to social media. If this had been even ten years ago, this would have taken days to play out. It was Sunday, so the dissension wouldn't really have been vocalized until the heavy hitters in sports talk radio (particularly those in Tennessee) got back on the air on Monday and the newspaper columns came out in the days immediately afterward. Then it would have taken a few days for fans, alumni, and the state politicians who might not have been paying that much attention to get up to speed on the situation and figure out the consensus. Instead, thanks to Twitter, the blowback was immediate, and within hours, you knew that Tennessee was going to have to choose between moving forward with an incredibly unpopular coach or find a way to back out.
Personal preference/money/situational factors no one here is yet privy to. Other than being friends with the AD and the possible appeal of the SEC, pretty much a lateral move at best.
Word on Fisher is that he is a whiner so this might be a grass is greener situation. Don't blame him for using past offers to better his situation at FSU and maybe that's exactly what's going on here but signing a 9 year extension only to bail after 1 is pretty weak. Plus a $2M raise.
The raise makes sense. It just doesn't seem like there's a much better situation than being in Florida and having annual top-10 type teams at a place you've already won a national championship and have really solid job security. But to each their own, I guess. Would be a huge coup for A&M to get him.
Tennessee getting Gundy or Brohm would be an example of falling bass ackwards into a good hire. For that matter, given Sunday's three-ring circus, Dave Doeren doesn't look so bad either.
