(11-05-2023 12:13 PM)Ourland Wrote:  

(11-04-2023 10:29 PM)STL_Wave Wrote:  Gotta be frustrating this year for Rice fans. Nice upset over (a bad) Houston. But then losing to UCONN is inexcusable. Couple wins over bad ECU/Tulsa teams, couple disappointing losses to decent Tulane/SMU teams. How are the Rice fans feeling?

Coming into this season I thought Rice was silly for keeping Bloomgren. Looks like y'all will end up with 5/6 wins again. With a couple lucky breaks it could've been more like 7/8. But it's year 6. Does the fanbase have greater aspirations? I know y'all were invited with the hope of using your massive endowment to improve athletics. Is the money there for a better coach?

Honestly, just curious.

The last AD should have let his contact expire after last season, but instead he extended it a year, so he was run off by the new president who took over a few months later. That's a cautionary tale as to how I think things will play out for Bloomgren. I think he'll be gone.

This is his best team by far, and our best team since 2014, but he can't get us over the hump. He loses close games (USF, SMU, Tulane) and always loses to a bad team that we should beat soundly (UConn this year, Charlotte last year).

Our defense is better, and the offense shows signs of real progress, but it's too little too late for Bloomgren. Unless he closes out this season in a very big way, he'll be gone, and every Rice fan will be relieved. It has been a dismal era.

clt says Rice will be cold at the Charlotte game. cold rice makes you sick

(11-06-2023 12:07 AM)ghostofclt! Wrote:  clt says Rice will be cold at the Charlotte game. cold rice makes you sick

Rice pudding is tasty, though.

(11-05-2023 03:26 PM)Red_Adept Wrote:  

(11-04-2023 11:21 PM)owl at the moon Wrote:  Also, for those who haven’t had the pleasure of enjoying the Rice Marching Owl Band…

One of our homecoming traditions is that the reunion classes present oversized donation checks at halftime for their fundraising.

During the band show, we “presented” an oversized check to SMU for their television $$ for the next 9 years in the ACC, in the amount of zero dollars. Nicely played, the Rice fans chuckled and the SMU fans applauded too. SMU knows they’re still coming out ahead in that deal.

And if you think that bringing up SMU’s NCAA “death penalty” in tonight’s show 30+ years later is “beating a dead horse”, well, you’d be correct in more ways than one….

I have to seriously give it up to the Rice band. You guys had me rollin' when you faced Texas A&M after their mascot died and you played, "where, oh where, has my little dog gone".

Was that in poor taste? Yes.
Sometimes you need to cross that line if you want to be edgy.

Besides , we checked with the Atlantic Coast Tuna Conference presented by Starkist Tuna. They said Starkist don’t want tuna with good taste. Starkist want tuna that taste good.

Now, not to “eat” a dead horse, but…

(11-04-2023 10:29 PM)STL_Wave Wrote:  Gotta be frustrating this year for Rice fans. Nice upset over (a bad) Houston. But then losing to UCONN is inexcusable. Couple wins over bad ECU/Tulsa teams, couple disappointing losses to decent Tulane/SMU teams. How are the Rice fans feeling?

Coming into this season I thought Rice was silly for keeping Bloomgren. Looks like y'all will end up with 5/6 wins again. With a couple lucky breaks it could've been more like 7/8. But it's year 6. Does the fanbase have greater aspirations? I know y'all were invited with the hope of using your massive endowment to improve athletics. Is the money there for a better coach?

Honestly, just curious.

You are correct that Rice was silly for keeping Bloomgren, as 90+% of fans wanted him gone awhile ago. Alas, he's a former Stanford guy (same as our former AD), so he kept getting lifelines even after it has become abundantly clear that his "pound the rock" mentality does not work unless you can recruit NFL-caliber o-linemen and RBs, like he did at Stanford. Instead, our offensive line is arguably our worst unit and our QB development has been awful (something like 13 to 15 starting QBs in six years, many of whom are transfer portal rentals like Daniels).

One of the other Rice posters made a great point the other day..."If we're still trying to figure out possible pathways to 6 wins in Year 6 with a 5th year 5-star quarterback ... perhaps it's time to make some decisions." If we only get a +1 win improvement over last year with a 5-star QB rental in year 6, how little improvement has there been with the rest of the team?

To answer your other question, my expectations are bowl games two out of every three years and a conference championship every five to seven years. With our last coach, we were 4 of 11 and 1 of 11, respectively. Yet here we are in year 6 of this buffoon, with no winning seasons (barring a sweep of our last three games) and one bowl game that we backed into because of APR at 5-7 (maybe a second bowl game if we win two of the three remaining games). Given that nearly 2/3 of schools make a bowl each year, I don't think these are unrealistic expectations. Especially as I watch Tulane's massive success over the last two years, which is a team we had the upper hand on 10 years ago.

Are we better than we were in 2018? Definitely. But the reality is that it took way too long to get to this point and I think we've reached the pinnacle of what this coach can do.

I think it speaks to my low expectations for these year when I note that it's a upside surprise that we haven't been blown out in a conference game so far this season.

(11-06-2023 11:03 AM)loki_the_bubba Wrote:  I think it speaks to my low expectations for these year when I note that it's a upside surprise that we haven't been blown out in a conference game so far this season.

The blowout may come Saturday at UTSA, based on the last two years against the Roadrunners.

Both SMU and Rice starting QBs in concussion protocol. Hope both kids are able to play this weekend. Feisty game on both sides.

(11-06-2023 12:42 PM)AusTxPony Wrote:  Both SMU and Rice starting QBs in concussion protocol. Hope both kids are able to play this weekend. Feisty game on both sides.

Our starting quarterback is day to day due to injuries too. Players are dropping like flies.