I don’t think Izzo has ever coached in college and had to recruit. Heck it has been a long time since he was in college whereas Casey has been involved in recruiting for the last few seasons.
(01-06-2019 10:54 PM)RiceLad15 Wrote: If you're evaluating our program solely based on how we relate to another program, you're doing it wrong.
Given that this is a sport with championship games and playoffs and a top 25 ranking, I'm not sure how I'm supposed to not compare ourselves to the rest.
(01-06-2019 10:54 PM)RiceLad15 Wrote: That's the nature of college athletics (and most athletics, to be frank). Very few programs can maintain sustained success at a high level for too long, there's just too many variables at play. Almost every program ebbs and flows. Memphis being better than us right now isn't concerning to me (they've been doing well for a number of years recently). Us being bad is concerning to me.
Simply put, 15 years ago TCU was a doormat, 5 years ago Memphis was a joke and UTSA wasn't even an FBS program. Now we look up at all of them in results. Memphis meanwhile poaches a coach who got Rice into the top 20 nationally in Special Teams efficiency, which likely will further entrench their position in the rungs above us. Next we will be internalizing and rationalizing why UT RGV is an up-and-comer and be staring at their backsides too.
Us being bad is a function of staying static while others move ahead. And once people move ahead, it becomes easier to stay ahead, while the grade of the hill for us to climb becomes ostensibly insurmountable. 20 years ago, having a shot at keeping a game close with a ranked team was there; the last two years, we're looking up at top 120.
Fundamentally, the faces and the names change, but Rice behaves like Rice. D1 in name, D3 in behavior. We either need to keep guys like Lembo from leaving to former doormats in the G5 or pack up and formalize the move to Division 3. The other option is likely another decade of swirling in the ghetto of the G5 while not comparing ourselves to other programs... because academic standards, hurricane Harvey, <insert here> etc.
(This post was last modified: 01-08-2019 04:41 AM by Antarius.)
(01-06-2019 10:54 PM)RiceLad15 Wrote: If you're evaluating our program solely based on how we relate to another program, you're doing it wrong.
Given that this is a sport with championship games and playoffs and a top 25 ranking, I'm not sure how I'm supposed to not compare ourselves to the rest.
(01-06-2019 08:45 PM)Antarius Wrote: Its concerning that as recently as 2012, losing to Memphis was rock bottom. Now they are poaching our coaches.
They're also hiring coaches from Texas Tech, Arizona State and North Carolina, among others. And Marshall's defensive coordinator so we're not the only CUSA team losing a coach to that school.
And the reason that Memphis is hiring these coaches is that other, higher-ranking schools are poaching THEIR coaches:
Memphis Commercial Appeal Wrote:It’s become a winter tradition under Mike Norvell: Coach Memphis in a bowl game and deal with heavy staff turnover.
For the second consecutive year, Norvell lost multiple assistants to other jobs. This year, he's had to replace both his offensive and defensive coordinator.
If you are successful, other schools are going to poach your coaches. Alabama had five new assistant coaches on their staff in 2018.
Would you rather have special teams perform the way they did under Bailiff and not lose a ST coordinator, or have them perform the way they did under Lembo and have him get hired away? Hire somebody better and keep improving.
(This post was last modified: 01-08-2019 09:46 PM by Owl 69/70/75.)
(01-08-2019 08:10 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote: If you are successful, other schools are going to poach your coaches. Alabama had five new assistant coaches on their staff in 2018.
Would you rather have special teams perform the way they did under Bailiff and not lose a ST coordinator, or have them perform the way they did under Lembo and have him get hired away? Hire somebody better and keep improving.
Definitely the latter. But Rice to Memphis is like moving from being the Consular General of Somalia to Bangladesh. Absent our own failure and incompetance, a lateralish bottom tier move. IMO, there it isn't one extreme or the other, where we either hold on like a rebound girlfriend for fear of getting hurt or are totally okay with losing a good coach to anyone who walks through the door; for all intensive purposes, Memphis is just anyone. Its like having your marginally better in shape coworker taking your significant other. Save for Rice Athletics, no one would be okay with that.
I'm not upset that Lembo got poached. I'm upset that we turned the last 5 years into such a **** up, that Memphis looks more like Singapore than Bangladesh compared to us.
(This post was last modified: 01-09-2019 02:57 AM by Antarius.)
(01-09-2019 02:01 AM)Antarius Wrote: I'm not upset that Lembo got poached. I'm upset that we turned the last 5 years into such a **** up, that Memphis looks more like Singapore than Bangladesh compared to us.
That is the real problem. Except it has been a 50-year process, not a 5-year one.