Thankfully the option was Hatfield's pet offense - it's not like Rice University tells its football team that it has to run the option. The option is as good as gone once old Kenny leaves.
I suppose so but my point was that the transition period is just plain awful. Nebraska is having an absolute mess with the transition from the offense to the west coast system. Rice better get some type of coach who'll implement a spread option system like Urban Meyer did in Utah. It's the easiest system to transition to and one that has worked fairly well overall.
If Rice can get Todd Dodge, that would be awesome. He runs an awesome offense for Carroll, and would definitely be able to bring in some decent talent...A pipeline into Southlake Carrol would not be bad at all for a school like Rice.
We went 1-10 this season. I can't imagine the transition period being any worse than we already are. Hell, 2 wins next year is an improvement! We need new blood and some enthusiasm in the program.
Don't be a traitor, texxx! Just clap louder! This is awesome. Hard on a college basketball coach for incompetence, accusing BBS members of lying, but... Bush is still A-OK. Keep on keepin on y'all. You make me live.
i feel bad for the guy hatfield is a neighbor of my parents. ive met the guy a couple of times and he is super nice but i guess he does need to get the ax as sorry as rice is.
Rice might hire the "right" coach but won't do any of the other things you mention. I know hope springs eternal right now because Hatfield is gone but that happens every time a coaching change is made. Non-alumni would prefer watching paint dry to watching Rice football. For that matter, the alumni I know don't care about Rice football. All of the marketing in the world won't change that with UT, A&M, the Texans and the NFL dominating Houston sports news during the Fall. Rice even falls behind Texas Tech, UH & TSU on the Houston football apathy meter. Rice should give up the pretense of Div.1 football.
BTW, in 12 seasons as coach, Hatfield is 55-78-1. The 12 seasons before Hatfield arrived, Rice was 34-97-1...You can't drive a program into the ground when it was already swimming in molten lava. Rice just needs to just stop trying to pretend it can compete and move the football program to AA. Even third, and fourth tier prospects are going to choose Stephen F. Austin or Sam Houston over Rice
Umm, Hatfield was the football coach, not the basketball coach.... I really wouldn't expect a thespian like yourself to know much about football, though, so I'll let you slide. keep on posting drunk, beejster!
Prospects will normally choose playing for a I-A school over a I-AA like SFA or Sam because the exposure is better. Rice has had some competitive seasons mixed into the time period that you mentioned, and has a fairly rich football history from the 1950s era. That's when they decided to build a 70,000 stadium to accommodate all the fans of a school that had <2,000 students at the time. I'm not ready to ditch football quite yet. The more worrying trend is the "professionalization" of the game which has driven a big wedge between the Generic State U schools and the non-bcs conference small fries like Rice. There is really becoming a polarization of the game. Rice just can't let in dumbazzes like a Jamal Charles, and shockingly the smart kids can't play football like a Jamal Charles, for example...
Baylor is in the Big 12 because Ann Richards, a Baylor alum, was governor of Texas when UT and A&M were getting ready to officially breakup the SWC. Baylor is 2-6 this year in the Big 12 south and 5-6 overall. There not exactly setting the Big 12 on fire. I'll take the Cougars competing in CUSA instead of being the doormats of the Big 12.
Lance and Richard Justice had an interesting conversation on Rice this morning. Talking about how some faculty members are really against Rice athletics because they don't want to tarnish their acedemic reputation.
in Baylor's defense...they were as high as #2 in the nation in 91, just a few years before the Big XII started playing. and they've been very competitive in other sports. super-competitive in baseball. and just won the Big XII's first womens' basketball national championship.
i heard that. very interesting. i didn't realize the facilities at rice had fallen into such a state of disrepair. assuming of course that justice has his facts straight.
This extends to more than some professors. There are a LOT of students who hate the athletes. Rice is probably one of the few schools in America where the athletes are not considered "the cool guys", but instead are considered "the dumb idiots who don't deserve to be sitting next to my in my class". They're almost ostracized instead of looked up to at Rice. The professors, while supremely good at what they do, are a bunch of pencil neck dweebs who have never given two schits about sports in their life. I understand their frustration, but at the same time I support Rice athletics.
I was speaking strictly of the big money sport football. UH would be very competitive in other sports in the Big 12 too.
