I strongly disagree. We need some new blood. Hatfield's scheme is tired and should have been retired 30 years ago.
Unless you are a fan of that sport. You can't be a fan of say football but not a fan of football at your school. Then you are not a true fan IMO of your school's athletic department.
Several years ago, Rice hired Watson Brown who at the time was a promising young coach. And somehow it went downhill after that. The only thing worse than being bad is complete apathy. That must absolutely kill the 5 Rice graduates who give a damn about college football.
Watson Brown coached at Rice 20 years ago. They sucked long before he got there. Hatfield has had his ups and downs, including a dramatic win over Texas back in 1994 and a co-SWC title (probably his highlight). Right now, however, no one is attending the games, the team is coming off a 1-10 season, and recruiting is horrible. Some of that is self-inflicted, as most Rice students are apathetic towards sports and the academic standards which athletes must meet to play at Rice are much higher than those of the other teams on their schedule. I think Rice's realistic best case scenario is if they could mimic the success of Stanford or Northwestern in football. That is to say, they'll never be in MNC contention, but they'll be respectable without having to trot out the illiterate jailbait that other teams send out there to serve as ambassadors of their academic institutions.
I don't really care about college football, so that's fine by me. I enjoy a good game. I don't have any passionate leanings towards teams, though. I think your generalization is unfair, though. My reasoning here is the same as with professional sports: I think you can be a fan of another school (and thus the sport) based on your background. Example: Your dad was a huge Sooner fan, and thus, you grew up the same way. I won't really judge anyone's fandom, as I think there are LOTS of reasons to choose to follow or not follow a team due to your own personal history. That's why I said earlier that I hope UH does well. I'm a huge fan of Houston's teams in general. That's why I hope UH does well in its sports. I don't care much for the school, but that's because my loyalties lie elsewhere when it comes to alma maters and academics. If you want to ask me who I want to see do poorly in college football, I really don't care. Do well? Rice (my school), Stanford (ditto), UT (siblings), A&M (dad), UH (city pride). Finally, I'll point out that I'm a realist - there's no way Rice's record matters at all anyway. The *only* way it would is if it won the conference or if it was 10-0. Otherwise, no bowl would consider them anyway. That's too bad - bowl-eligibility is meaningless for Rice. I think that's one huge reason why college football is not a big deal for most alumni anyway. The glory other teams shoot for is near impossible (and while the players are awesome people, I think Hatfield's a tool and have never believed in the option attack as it will continue to work only against weak teams). I realize this is a lot of thought for something so silly.
Unfortunately for Rice, when Baylor secured the final Big 12 spot, that killed any possibility of becoming a Stanford or a Northwestern. The only way Rice will ever become respectable is if they hire a young hot shot offensive coordinator - not some has-been coach from another program. They should seriously consider Chris Peterson from Boise State.
I want Rice to do well for UH's sake and I'd hope their fans would want the same thing. The rivalry is one of the only fun things about both schools' programs and it would be nice to jointly help CUSA rise from being such a joke.
Yes, being excluded from the Big 12 definitely hurt, as it placed Rice outside of the BCS ($$$$). I think the Boise State coach would be a nice addition, and another name that would excite me would be Todd Dodge of Southlake Carroll (former UT quarterback). Basically, recruits don't want to enter an offense that doesn't prepare you for the pro's. The wishbone is obviously not a pro-style offense. The talent base in Houston is incredibly deep, so I don't think that getting players will be that hard if they could generate some excitement.
Yes, but the problem is that Houston talent doesn't stay here to play for their hometown college programs, and instead go play for UT and A&M. I have always been pissed off about that, but I guess I can't blame talented players for wanting to play for schools that will get them exposure and where they can have some semblance of success. For that reason, I don't think there will ever again be a Dream or a Drexler-type talents staying put to play for UH or Rice or TSU.
Yeah.. but you forget that a lot of the time college athletes aren't highly touted recruits from giant high schools.. Hakeem, for example, did not come to UH to play basketball.. he basically walked onto the team by accident by being at the right place at the right time for Guy V. Lewis to notice him. The talent level at the coaching positions to realize hidden talent and develop it is more critical, I think, than being able to land super ultra mega hyper 5 star talents.
Good point, and I am aware that Hakeem more or less landed in UH's lap, but my intention was to cite him as a top-level talent that will be difficult for our local schools to retain as they leave to play for UT and A&M and other top programs (Okafor going to UConn for example, or TJ Ford going to UT).
I see your point as well, if Okafor and Ford had stayed and represented their hometown's UH would have probably been to another couple of final fours again.. I think UH now has the proper talent at the coaching positions in both Briles and Penders to start utilizing the talent that we DO get, instead of having them languish their careers away and fade into professional obscurity. High school players notice that kind of thing.. Bowl games and NCAA tourney appearances are going to be coming left and right over the next decade, that will be reason enough for a lot of the hometown talent we've missed out on recently to want to stay.
Penders will be able to get some good talent with his absolutely lovely charm and his knack for skirting the rules now and then. He has a name and UH has some good history in terms of its program. Last year was a great start and apparently he got a really good recruiting class As for Briles, he seems to old school and too high-schoolish to get any major talent. It'll continue to be a small local program that will get good through luck (i.e. getting a recruit that's under-ranked nationally) Briles really doesn't seem like the guy who could out-recruit schools like UT, Oklahoma and A&M
I matriculated outside of the great state of texas, along the eastern seaboard as well a brief sojourn in Paris. I didn't feel that my educational needs would be satisfactorily met within Texas boundaries, oweing to the overabundance of F-150's.
Rice could not even keep Watson Brown. Any up-and-coming coach would only stay at Rice for 2-3 years then move on. Hatfield is the perfect coach for RIce. He runs a clean program, which keeps him from being hired from BCS schools. His wishbone offense is a plus since other teams don't see much of it and don't know how to prep for it well. Rice is the smallest Division 1 school. Its academic circulum does not leave much place for the football players to hide. Its students and most of its alums are apethic about the football program. This attracts neither quality coaches or quality players. Rice is lucky that Hatfield, a quality coach, hangs his hat here. The ha-ha funny thing is that the only reason that Rice currently has a football team is the baseball team. To be a Division 1 school you have to have a football team. Thus, for the baseball team to compete with Division 1 teams (and the College World Series) Rice needs a football program.
I don't think this is true or, at least, it hasn't always been true. In 1996, SWT nearly made it to the CWS. Does Lamar have a D-1 football team?
http://kinesiology.rice.edu/index.cfm I'll admit I poached a few classes from the kinesiology department. Intro to Sports Management and Sociology of Sport were definitely relaxation classes. If an athlete wants to work hard at Rice, they certainly can, but even Rice has an easy path for the athletes.
This kind of thinking had led to a 1-10 season. This is just incorrect. Cal St Fullerton? Long Beach State? Harvard? Sam Houston St? Southwest Tx St? Lamar? Wichita St? St. John's? None of them have D-I football teams, but they have D-I baseball teams (and competitive ones, at that). Now, whether or not C-USA would want us without a D-I football team is debateable, but it's probably still likely that they would take us.
