(10-04-2014 03:05 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(10-04-2014 02:59 PM)owl95 Wrote:  I think this is simple in the same sense that baseball is simply game of hitting the ball, catching the ball, and throwing the ball. We just need to win. The rest comes along with it. Believe it or not, I think it may be starting. When I talk to outsiders, ie non-Rice affiliated folks, because we've been to bowls 2 years in a row and won one of them, these folks actually think our program is on the rise. If we keep winning, then Dr. K needs to be ready to capitalize on this success, both with marketing to get our brand out there and to get more people in our stadium, and trying to improve our position in the NCAA landscape. However, I think for now, ie the next 1-3 years, the only thing we can do is keep winning. Would also help if Coach Rhoades can make a turnaround in basketball.

Agree. It will take more than just winning, but winning is the key ingredient.

And 3 of 4 of the last teams we have lost are really good-I think ND may make the playoffs and Miss St is the surprise of this year, which I have been predicting since Jan 1......

(10-03-2014 12:50 PM)texowl2 Wrote:  Temple is the UH equivalent in Philadelphia-large public commuter college

lol what?

(10-03-2014 07:30 PM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  

(10-03-2014 05:30 PM)At Ease Wrote:  

(10-03-2014 04:21 PM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  1. The ESPN contract, which is the remnants of the old Big East contract, expires this season.

The AAC's deal with ESPN was a multiyear deal only signed last year?

And I believe the ESPN 5-year contract expires this year.

The AAC contract with ESPN does not expire until the summer of 2020.

(10-04-2014 03:49 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  All of the talk about this league is terrible, or that league would be better, or debating whether we should go here or there, overlooks one important fact--right now, this is the only league on the planet that wants us.

We are not dominating this league. In our ninth year in this league, we've won exactly one championship in the major revenue sports that drive things (football, men's basketball). That's also the first championship in those sports in any league in 19 years, and the first outright championship in 43 years. That resume does not create options. Change that first, then complain about our conference.

I do not believe we can ever, in essence, win our way out of CUSA. First of all, the odds against any school in general growing to dominate its league in football for years at a time are incredibly long. The odds against Rice in particular doing it are astronomical. And then for the kicker, even if we were to do it, all winning 100 games in 10 years did for Boise is get them a ticket on the same Titanic that we're on.

(10-03-2014 07:39 PM)Ricefootballnet Wrote:  Walt, being in a league with the likes of Florida International, Western Kentucky, Middle Tennessee State, etc., etc. is more than an embarrassment; it drags down the national perception of the school.

...

In similar fashion, did you see the minor bit of research I did on Rice's conference affiliation and USNWR standing? (When in SWC, 8-12; when in old WAC/mid CUSA, 12-17; when in currently constituted C-USA, 19.)

...

Being in this current league .... is suicidal.

Exactly. And I would go further and argue that we don't have another 10 or even 5 more years to waste on some pie-in-the-sky quest of trying to win our way out of this conference and into a P5 invite. It likely is never going to happen, and every year we stay in this toxic academic ghetto actively harms us and in some not insubstantial way jeopardizes our hard-won standing as an elite national university. We do not have the luxury of unlimited time to see how this all plays out.

Rather than try to win our way out of our predicament over many years, maybe we could try just spending our way out of it right now. We have a multi-billion dollar endowment, and I think our whole future being at stake justifies investing a bigger chunk of it into trying to improve our lot.

I would like to see us pursue independence in football ASAP. Let's play the service academies and BYU every year - that's 4 games right there. Pursue scheduling arrangements with peers (or wannabe peers ) like Stanford, Wake Forest, Northwestern, Notre Dame, Vandy, Cal, UCLA, USC, UVa, UT, TAMU, SMU, Tulane, etc. for 4 more games per year. And lesser schools/programs for the other 4 (so much more preferable to be seen with the Western Kentuckys of the world for only 4 games a year instead of 8). And in that vein, I'd see about scheduling an Ivy or other private "I-AA" like VMI, The Citadel, Holy Cross, etc. for one of those 4.

I acknowledge that our other sports (and as a Rice XC/track alum the nonrevenue sports are very important to me) cannot realistically be independent, and need a conference to compete in. Could we buy our way into a partial Big XII affiliation like the ACC has with Notre Dame? Or failing that, with the AAC? In the end, would it be so bad for our other sports to play in the Southland or Sun Belt (reasonably respectable baseball conferences I might add) for a while if they had to? I acknowledge that those conferences don't have any more academic peers of ours than CUSA but IMO if you're not in that type of conference for football it's not as visible and doesn't carry the same negative association.

I also acknowledge that our bowl access and TV exposure would nominally be lessened by going independent. They aren't that great now anyway, but in any event, perhaps these are also issues that we could somehow spend our way out of if need be.

If I could be convinced that going independent in football would inevitably lead to the death of our Division I athletics program no matter how much money we threw at this problem, then I probably would reconsider. I'm not an advocate (yet) for dropping down to I-AA or Division III, as I think we would lose a very important part of what makes Rice Rice, which is striving to compete at the highest level possible no matter the challenges. However, I'm not so sure it isn't dying right now anyway and there's something to be said for at least dying with your boots on if that's the way things are headed.

(10-06-2014 05:24 PM)illiniowl Wrote:  

(10-03-2014 07:30 PM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  

(10-03-2014 05:30 PM)At Ease Wrote:  

(10-03-2014 04:21 PM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  1. The ESPN contract, which is the remnants of the old Big East contract, expires this season.

The AAC's deal with ESPN was a multiyear deal only signed last year?

And I believe the ESPN 5-year contract expires this year.

The AAC contract with ESPN does not expire until the summer of 2020.

(10-04-2014 03:49 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  All of the talk about this league is terrible, or that league would be better, or debating whether we should go here or there, overlooks one important fact--right now, this is the only league on the planet that wants us.

We are not dominating this league. In our ninth year in this league, we've won exactly one championship in the major revenue sports that drive things (football, men's basketball). That's also the first championship in those sports in any league in 19 years, and the first outright championship in 43 years. That resume does not create options. Change that first, then complain about our conference.

I do not believe we can ever, in essence, win our way out of CUSA. First of all, the odds against any school in general growing to dominate its league in football for years at a time are incredibly long. The odds against Rice in particular doing it are astronomical. And then for the kicker, even if we were to do it, all winning 100 games in 10 years did for Boise is get them a ticket on the same Titanic that we're on.

(10-03-2014 07:39 PM)Ricefootballnet Wrote:  Walt, being in a league with the likes of Florida International, Western Kentucky, Middle Tennessee State, etc., etc. is more than an embarrassment; it drags down the national perception of the school.

...

In similar fashion, did you see the minor bit of research I did on Rice's conference affiliation and USNWR standing? (When in SWC, 8-12; when in old WAC/mid CUSA, 12-17; when in currently constituted C-USA, 19.)

...

Being in this current league .... is suicidal.

Exactly. And I would go further and argue that we don't have another 10 or even 5 more years to waste on some pie-in-the-sky quest of trying to win our way out of this conference and into a P5 invite. It likely is never going to happen, and every year we stay in this toxic academic ghetto actively harms us and in some not insubstantial way jeopardizes our hard-won standing as an elite national university. We do not have the luxury of unlimited time to see how this all plays out.

Rather than try to win our way out of our predicament over many years, maybe we could try just spending our way out of it right now. We have a multi-billion dollar endowment, and I think our whole future being at stake justifies investing a bigger chunk of it into trying to improve our lot.

I would like to see us pursue independence in football ASAP. Let's play the service academies and BYU every year - that's 4 games right there. Pursue scheduling arrangements with peers (or wannabe peers ) like Stanford, Wake Forest, Northwestern, Notre Dame, Vandy, Cal, UCLA, USC, UVa, UT, TAMU, SMU, Tulane, etc. for 4 more games per year. And lesser schools/programs for the other 4 (so much more preferable to be seen with the Western Kentuckys of the world for only 4 games a year instead of 8). And in that vein, I'd see about scheduling an Ivy or other private "I-AA" like VMI, The Citadel, Holy Cross, etc. for one of those 4.

I acknowledge that our other sports (and as a Rice XC/track alum the nonrevenue sports are very important to me) cannot realistically be independent, and need a conference to compete in. Could we buy our way into a partial Big XII affiliation like the ACC has with Notre Dame? Or failing that, with the AAC? In the end, would it be so bad for our other sports to play in the Southland or Sun Belt (reasonably respectable baseball conferences I might add) for a while if they had to? I acknowledge that those conferences don't have any more academic peers of ours than CUSA but IMO if you're not in that type of conference for football it's not as visible and doesn't carry the same negative association.

I also acknowledge that our bowl access and TV exposure would nominally be lessened by going independent. They aren't that great now anyway, but in any event, perhaps these are also issues that we could somehow spend our way out of if need be.

If I could be convinced that going independent in football would inevitably lead to the death of our Division I athletics program no matter how much money we threw at this problem, then I probably would reconsider. I'm not an advocate (yet) for dropping down to I-AA or Division III, as I think we would lose a very important part of what makes Rice Rice, which is striving to compete at the highest level possible no matter the challenges. However, I'm not so sure it isn't dying right now anyway and there's something to be said for at least dying with your boots on if that's the way things are headed.

I know you are about to get bombarded with posts saying this is a terrible idea, but I sort of agree with you. The specifics of the additional spending would be much trickier, and there is real risk that not many of our games get televised (this is why I 'sort of' agree). But I do believe we need a big bold move- and this would certainly qualify as that

Two possibilities for the ESPN contract if the AAC adds members:
1) It stays the same, but divided amongst more schools, or
2) It gets renegotiated, based on reality at that time.

I think Illiniowl really lays it out there very logically, that which none of us want to see or hear just about as well as I have seen. You just gotta look at Boise St and UConn, both having very envious programs and results in the past 15 years or so, and I doubt that either, well maybe UConn, will be able to make it out of their current wilderness. Makes me think, particularly true for Boise and their conference, on the old question of whether a tree makes noise when it falls in the forest. What a sad state of affairs over the past 25, but I guess it goes back 45 years. Just thinkig about the whole Greenspan/Ben Braun messes makes me even madder. Sure hope Dr. K has something in the works or Leebron/BOT decide to do something more than what has been done in the past, which is barely more than nothing.......

Clearly, playing consistently excellent football can get you into the P5, as TCU has demonstrated. Boise doesn't particularly argue against this, as their issues relate more to their location, and to a lesser extent academics (neither of which are issues for Rice).. and of course, they were invited into the Big East.

But it is certainly a pie-in-the-sky type of quest given our current approach, that eats more and more $ every year it seems.

Would "football independent and everything else Sun Belt" be a feasible strategy for trying to bootstrap into SEC or Big 12?

I guess the evidence from BYU is not encouraging, or is it too early to say that?

I do worry that CUSA locks us into a structurally unattractive home football schedule forever. But it does offer bowl games.

Looking around at the P5, many schools have non conference games middle to late in the season. for example, Vandy's next game is Charleston Southern, Tennessee's is Chattanooga, Kentucky's is Louisiana-Monroe, and South Carolina's is Furman.

so you could play the service academies every year,play one of Baylor/UT/TAMU, LSU, and then a mix of Kentucky/Vandy/Duke/Wake Forest


I worry about that less in MBB because an exciting style of play and some wins can go a lot further faster. no reason not to get 1000 students to each game if we have roster and coaching of median Division 1 quality.

(10-06-2014 06:09 PM)At Ease Wrote:  Clearly, playing consistently excellent football can get you into the P5, as TCU has demonstrated. Boise doesn't particularly argue against this, as their issues relate more to their location, and to a lesser extent academics (neither of which are issues for Rice).. and of course, they were invited into the Big East.

But it is certainly a pie-in-the-sky type of quest given our current approach, that eats more and more $ every year it seems.

+1

Rice and Boise State have absolutely nothing in common other than the fact that they both play FBS football. Just because they didn't make it doesn't mean that we can't. Obviously, we need to try. And maybe sandwich-boards are the key to success.

MemOwl - I cant imagine a Bowl inviting an independent Rice. I personally cant see us making that work.

(10-05-2014 01:25 AM)JHG722 Wrote:  

(10-03-2014 12:50 PM)texowl2 Wrote:  Temple is the UH equivalent in Philadelphia-large public commuter college

lol what?

Well, this is a surprise to me...

About | Temple University

http://www.temple.edu/about Wrote:27th-largest university in the U.S

I had thought ... going back to Jerry Berndt's move from Penn to Rice to Temple ... that Temple was more like Rice than UH.

(10-06-2014 06:19 PM)Antarius Wrote:  

(10-06-2014 06:09 PM)At Ease Wrote:  Clearly, playing consistently excellent football can get you into the P5, as TCU has demonstrated. Boise doesn't particularly argue against this, as their issues relate more to their location, and to a lesser extent academics (neither of which are issues for Rice).. and of course, they were invited into the Big East.

But it is certainly a pie-in-the-sky type of quest given our current approach, that eats more and more $ every year it seems.

+1

Rice and Boise State have absolutely nothing in common other than the fact that they both play FBS football. Just because they didn't make it doesn't mean that we can't. Obviously, we need to try. And maybe sandwich-boards are the key to success.

MemOwl - I cant imagine a Bowl inviting an independent Rice. I personally cant see us making that work.

Attendance

Demographics - Number of Living Alumni

(10-06-2014 06:19 PM)Antarius Wrote:  

(10-06-2014 06:09 PM)At Ease Wrote:  Clearly, playing consistently excellent football can get you into the P5, as TCU has demonstrated. Boise doesn't particularly argue against this, as their issues relate more to their location, and to a lesser extent academics (neither of which are issues for Rice).. and of course, they were invited into the Big East.

But it is certainly a pie-in-the-sky type of quest given our current approach, that eats more and more $ every year it seems.

+1

Rice and Boise State have absolutely nothing in common other than the fact that they both play FBS football. Just because they didn't make it doesn't mean that we can't. Obviously, we need to try. And maybe sandwich-boards are the key to success.

MemOwl - I cant imagine a Bowl inviting an independent Rice. I personally cant see us making that work.

Boise State's failure to advance to a P5 conference is entirely due to geography (and shows that the driving force of conference re-alignment isn't program success - see also Southern Miss). Rice has two advantges over just about every other non-P5 school: its location and its academic standing. In a sense, Boise State is "cliffed out"; there's no better conference that will take it, and it's not going to go backward. It has neither of the advantages that Rice does and which allows Rice a path forward. All Rice has to do is to have a competitive football program (and to a lesser extent men's basketball), and sooner or later advancement will come (probably later than sooner, but it will come).

As you point out, football independence would be a failure. The biggest source of revenue in college athletics today is television rights, and unless you're Notre Dame, the only way you get to participate in TV money is by being a member of a conference. Being Notre Dame is also the only way to get invited to a bowl game without a conference tie-in. In today's college sports environment, independence just doesn't work (which is why all of those schools that used to be Division I-A independents 25 years ago have mostly joined conferences now - even Notre Dame has a scheduling agreement with the ACC).

(10-07-2014 05:51 PM)Jonathan Sadow Wrote:  

(10-06-2014 06:19 PM)Antarius Wrote:  

(10-06-2014 06:09 PM)At Ease Wrote:  Clearly, playing consistently excellent football can get you into the P5, as TCU has demonstrated. Boise doesn't particularly argue against this, as their issues relate more to their location, and to a lesser extent academics (neither of which are issues for Rice).. and of course, they were invited into the Big East.

But it is certainly a pie-in-the-sky type of quest given our current approach, that eats more and more $ every year it seems.

+1

Rice and Boise State have absolutely nothing in common other than the fact that they both play FBS football. Just because they didn't make it doesn't mean that we can't. Obviously, we need to try. And maybe sandwich-boards are the key to success.

MemOwl - I cant imagine a Bowl inviting an independent Rice. I personally cant see us making that work.

Boise State's failure to advance to a P5 conference is entirely due to geography (and shows that the driving force of conference re-alignment isn't program success - see also Southern Miss). Rice has two advantges over just about every other non-P5 school: its location and its academic standing. In a sense, Boise State is "cliffed out"; there's no better conference that will take it, and it's not going to go backward. It has neither of the advantages that Rice does and which allows Rice a path forward. All Rice has to do is to have a competitive football program (and to a lesser extent men's basketball), and sooner or later advancement will come (probably later than sooner, but it will come).

As you point out, football independence would be a failure. The biggest source of revenue in college athletics today is television rights, and unless you're Notre Dame, the only way you get to participate in TV money is by being a member of a conference. Being Notre Dame is also the only way to get invited to a bowl game without a conference tie-in. In today's college sports environment, independence just doesn't work (which is why all of those schools that used to be Division I-A independents 25 years ago have mostly joined conferences now - even Notre Dame has a scheduling agreement with the ACC).

+1000. Jonathan, you hit both points out of the park. I would add that in addition to building consistently successful football and basketball programs, we do need to boost revenues significantly, and this is Dr. K's #1 priority at the moment. Also, even if going independent did work for football (and as you pointed out, it doesn't), doing so would kill our other sports-- both mens and womens. And moving down to D-II or D-III is not a viable option, and will never happen.

Or be BYU or Army both of which have a national following. BYU has its own network which can fill the rest of its schedule with church programming. Their church subsidizes the school and the school promotes the religion. Army quit CUSA many years back because it got embarrassed about not keeping up in football. The main purpose of Army athletics is to develop future officers instead of being big time.

TCU had to work hard and spend many dollars to get its football back in a power conference.

(10-07-2014 05:51 PM)Jonathan Sadow Wrote:  

(10-06-2014 06:19 PM)Antarius Wrote:  

(10-06-2014 06:09 PM)At Ease Wrote:  Clearly, playing consistently excellent football can get you into the P5, as TCU has demonstrated. Boise doesn't particularly argue against this, as their issues relate more to their location, and to a lesser extent academics (neither of which are issues for Rice).. and of course, they were invited into the Big East.

But it is certainly a pie-in-the-sky type of quest given our current approach, that eats more and more $ every year it seems.

+1

Rice and Boise State have absolutely nothing in common other than the fact that they both play FBS football. Just because they didn't make it doesn't mean that we can't. Obviously, we need to try. And maybe sandwich-boards are the key to success.

MemOwl - I cant imagine a Bowl inviting an independent Rice. I personally cant see us making that work.

Boise State's failure to advance to a P5 conference is entirely due to geography (and shows that the driving force of conference re-alignment isn't program success - see also Southern Miss). Rice has two advantges over just about every other non-P5 school: its location and its academic standing. In a sense, Boise State is "cliffed out"; there's no better conference that will take it, and it's not going to go backward. It has neither of the advantages that Rice does and which allows Rice a path forward. All Rice has to do is to have a competitive football program (and to a lesser extent men's basketball), and sooner or later advancement will come (probably later than sooner, but it will come).

As you point out, football independence would be a failure. The biggest source of revenue in college athletics today is television rights, and unless you're Notre Dame, the only way you get to participate in TV money is by being a member of a conference. Being Notre Dame is also the only way to get invited to a bowl game without a conference tie-in. In today's college sports environment, independence just doesn't work (which is why all of those schools that used to be Division I-A independents 25 years ago have mostly joined conferences now - even Notre Dame has a scheduling agreement with the ACC).

(10-07-2014 06:40 AM)Rick Gerlach Wrote:  

(10-06-2014 06:19 PM)Antarius Wrote:  

(10-06-2014 06:09 PM)At Ease Wrote:  Clearly, playing consistently excellent football can get you into the P5, as TCU has demonstrated. Boise doesn't particularly argue against this, as their issues relate more to their location, and to a lesser extent academics (neither of which are issues for Rice).. and of course, they were invited into the Big East.

But it is certainly a pie-in-the-sky type of quest given our current approach, that eats more and more $ every year it seems.

+1

Rice and Boise State have absolutely nothing in common other than the fact that they both play FBS football. Just because they didn't make it doesn't mean that we can't. Obviously, we need to try. And maybe sandwich-boards are the key to success.

MemOwl - I cant imagine a Bowl inviting an independent Rice. I personally cant see us making that work.

Attendance

Demographics - Number of Living Alumni

I had added a note, but it didn't make it.

I was actually agreeing with Antarius about Rice not being the same situation as Boise. I was merely pointing out two very important factors that generally get downplayed on this board, at least directly, although indirectly these factors impact much of what does get discussed.

(10-07-2014 10:24 PM)Rick Gerlach Wrote:  

(10-07-2014 06:40 AM)Rick Gerlach Wrote:  Attendance

Demographics - Number of Living Alumni

I had added a note, but it didn't make it.

I was actually agreeing with Antarius about Rice not being the same situation as Boise. I was merely pointing out two very important factors that generally get downplayed on this board, at least directly, although indirectly these factors impact much of what does get discussed.

Size of fan base is probably the single most important factor in realignment. I don't think it gets downplayed; I think it is implicitly assumed in most of the discussion.

Obviously a small alumni base makes it harder to build a fan base, but it doesn't matter other than that. Conferences and TV networks don't care whether a school's fans are alumni or not.

Rice's fan/alumni ratio is actually fairly impressive, but there is still plenty of room for improvement, especially among younger alums IMO. But we certainly need to appeal to the non-alum population. Turning 1% of Houston into Rice fans would be a huge boon. Increasing the fan base needs to be the athletic department's top mid-to-long-term goal -- accomplish that and everything else will fall into place. My concern is that the new makeup of C-USA makes that more difficult than it ever has been before.

(10-08-2014 03:17 AM)Gravy Owl Wrote:  Turning 1% of Houston into Rice fans would be a huge boon. Increasing the fan base needs to be the athletic department's top mid-to-long-term goal -- accomplish that and everything else will fall into place. My concern is that the new makeup of C-USA makes that more difficult than it ever has been before.

Bingo.

The problem has been that the classic Rice mentality from the SWC era was that we didn't need to worry about fan base because Texas or LSU would come to town every year and fill the place up, and we could live off that as long as we were willing to limit ourselves to half-assed efforts in the other sports.

I hoped that the breakup of the SWC would force us out of that mentality, and I thought it would be a very positive thing, but it did not turn out that way. I remember the night that the departures to the XII were announced, I told Bobby May that I thought it could be the best thing that ever happened to Rice athletics, because it would force us to take care of our own business. He looked at me as if I were a ghost.

I hate to say it, but that mentality is still alive today. I see it on here in all the talk about how if we could just get into this conference or that conference, we would solve our problem. We're not going anywhere until we solve our problem first.

(10-08-2014 06:25 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(10-08-2014 03:17 AM)Gravy Owl Wrote:  Turning 1% of Houston into Rice fans would be a huge boon. Increasing the fan base needs to be the athletic department's top mid-to-long-term goal -- accomplish that and everything else will fall into place. My concern is that the new makeup of C-USA makes that more difficult than it ever has been before.

Bingo.

The problem has been that the classic Rice mentality from the SWC era was that we didn't need to worry about fan base because Texas or LSU would come to town every year and fill the place up, and we could live off that as long as we were willing to limit ourselves to half-assed efforts in the other sports.

I hoped that the breakup of the SWC would force us out of that mentality, and I thought it would be a very positive thing, but it did not turn out that way. I remember the night that the departures to the XII were announced, I told Bobby May that I thought it could be the best thing that ever happened to Rice athletics, because it would force us to take care of our own business. He looked at me as if I were a ghost.

I hate to say it, but that mentality is still alive today. I see it on here in all the talk about how if we could just get into this conference or that conference, we would solve our problem. We're not going anywhere until we solve our problem first.

Our attendance in 1997 was a step in the direction you suggest, but it wasn't sustainable.

(10-08-2014 06:25 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(10-08-2014 03:17 AM)Gravy Owl Wrote:  Turning 1% of Houston into Rice fans would be a huge boon. Increasing the fan base needs to be the athletic department's top mid-to-long-term goal -- accomplish that and everything else will fall into place. My concern is that the new makeup of C-USA makes that more difficult than it ever has been before.

Bingo.

The problem has been that the classic Rice mentality from the SWC era was that we didn't need to worry about fan base because Texas or LSU would come to town every year and fill the place up, and we could live off that as long as we were willing to limit ourselves to half-assed efforts in the other sports.

I hoped that the breakup of the SWC would force us out of that mentality, and I thought it would be a very positive thing, but it did not turn out that way. I remember the night that the departures to the XII were announced, I told Bobby May that I thought it could be the best thing that ever happened to Rice athletics, because it would force us to take care of our own business. He looked at me as if I were a ghost.

I hate to say it, but that mentality is still alive today. I see it on here in all the talk about how if we could just get into this conference or that conference, we would solve our problem. We're not going anywhere until we solve our problem first.

I don't see that mentality changing from the inside either.

There is a sense of entitlement prevalent in the Rice fan base, and often expressed on this board. Some of the claims are

Rice's exclusion from P5 ranks is an injustice;
any P5 conference ought to be glad to have a school of Rice's academic caliber;
our television market is an underappreciated asset;
P5 membership would solve all our financial and recruiting shortcomings;
all of the above would be evident to the [ignorant or stupid(?)] P5 if our AD/admin/BOT would do a better job of salesmanship (the "sandwich board" argument).

None of these statements are true.

P5 membership must be earned or bought, and in the present environment the price is very high.