I’m not surprised by this. I remember saying after the UH game this was his last year at Rice. They looked so bad. Kyle Allen carved them up.
When UH and the better half of CUSA went to the AAC, Rice was left trying to recruit against the Texas schools while being in a suddenly much less attractive CUSA (and it wasn’t very attractive to begin with). The players that he had before that were leaving each subsequent year and he couldn’t replace their quality. If CUSA being a substandard conference were not enough, Rice academic requirements are more onerous than those he is going against. He was in a lose-lose situation.
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Meachum was Kansas OC this year I thought…where has he gone ?
Yes, Meacham was at KU this year and the Jayhawks stunk. If KU cared about football, they would fire Beaty.
The article I posted was after Rice’s C-USA title winning 2013 season. That OC only lasted one year.
Rice AD interview was brutal on news, wants a complete 180 approach in the program. Expect them to start slinging it all over the place on the offensive side
Looks like Rice takes one more go at big-time football. They have a $5.324 billion endowment. They can burn money. I live near Rice and come across lots of Rice alums and students. They never talk football. Nobody cares. I wear UHD and Cougars gear and pretty much will talk football with anyone. That is what fans do. Rice doesn’t have more than a handful.
They simply cannot compete against Stanford and Vanderbilt for players just by token of conference affiliation. And that is exactly who they compete against. A couple of 3-stars decided to look elsewhere (maybe Tulane?) when Bailiff got canned.
IDK what is the solution. Maybe there isn’t one. They do have a Sport Management major (which I’ve heard a couple Rice grads grumble about), but they just can’t go out and grab a bunch of great players who can’t cut it academically in an elite school. Tough place for an AD and administration to be if they retain a core of football true-believers who have deep pockets.
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Well Todd Graham is available. He did the miracle turnaround for them in 2006. If they are over the hard feelings and can accept him leaving sooner rather than later he would be a great option for them.
They should hire Art Briles. He’ll turn around the program fast. Their alumni is so small that if half of them quit going to games because of the hire, it’ll be made up by increased attendance and interest in the program when they start winning big. Also it’s my opinion, that fans object for a period of time, but soon give in to success. It would give Briles a chance to redemn himself and at the same time put Rice football back on the map from the depths of obscurity. .
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Briles would never be successful at Rice. Even ignoring the whole…y’know, Briles thing, recruiting at Rice’s academic level was never really his forté.
Mark Mangino was interviewed in studio this morning on the Zierlein and Granato show. They didn’t state it explicitly but they talked about the Rice job and it sounded like he was in town interviewing for the position.
I’d like to see it just because Levine is a good guy but hires like Nesbit and Bush would keep him from being successful anywhere. He’s probably where he belongs.
Mangino would be interesting.
I think so too, pray10. He was very enthusiastic about the job and the possibilities there at Rice. I think it would be a good hire for them.
I know his tenure at Kansas ended badly, but I’d think lower-tier schools would be lining up to hire Mark Mangino. He won an Orange Bowl at Kansas, for pity’s sake.
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They haven’t won more than 3 games in the 8 seasons since left.
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Mangino has been out of football for two years and hasn’t been a HC for 9 years. If Rice hires him, it will truly show they don’t care about football and should just shut down athletics. Rice has billions of dollars. What good is having all that money sitting in investments when you don’t use it? With the right motivation, Rice University athletics could become another Stanford University.
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The billions aren’t just sitting in the bank. The earnings on that money (4-5% per year) is used to fund operating costs, scholarships, etc. Many professors are also “endowed.” I doubt that much of the athletics program is endowed.
I agree that Mangino is a give up. His KU career looked like Bailiff’s and it ended eight years ago. Since then, he’s made news for berating players and did a poor job at Iowa State as OC. Heck, give the reigns to Sterlin Gilbert.
Whoa, whoa, whoa…Lance and John are back together on the radio? How did I miss this?
You missed it because their signal only extends to the beltway. Anything outside the beltway get static…
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I’m in the Tomball/Magnolia/Woodlands area and have picked it up crystal clear every morning.