Rice Recruiting Strategy

[50's PONY]

Rice coaching staff gets wired
First 'extra point' made


(HOUSTON) Feb. 17 – The new coaching kiddie corps in Conference USA football has turned its first corner as spring drills loom in the foreground after a whirlwind, three-week-long mad dash to signing day produced a Rice recruiting class that turned heads.

But before the Boys from the Institute tee it up for their first spring workout March 1, Rice head coach Todd Graham has a big item to check off his ‘do list,’ and that has to do with the organization of a special fundraising group for Rice football, dubbed the "Extra Point Club."

Coach Graham has been hard at it the past couple of weeks, aided by the major efforts of around a dozen key supporters, many of them former players. That core group has been hosting a series of weekly dinners at which Todd Graham delivers, up close and personal, an almost shockingly upbeat message.

This current football staff apparently has not gotten the official party line that ‘It Can’t Happen Here,’ as Graham, Applewhite, Randolph & Associates are fostering the sincere belief the Feathered Flock can right the ship as early as this coming fall season.

"But you must understand that, in order to turn a program around, you have to have a vision," Coach Graham told a baker's dozen supporters at a Wednesday dinner hosted by Rice alum and board member Carl Isgren. "You have to have a vision and a philosophy for where you’re heading and what you’re going to do to get there."

"Our goal is to win Conference USA," the hard-driving Rice coach said, "and I really believe that we’ll have an opportunity to do that, starting next year."

"I really believe that. I don’t want to drive expectations down; I want to drive ‘em up."

"I don’t want to be in a place where it’s acceptable to lose. If I have a job, and it’s OK to lose, and be 6-and-5 or 6-and-6, then I don’t want that job. I want to be in a place where I’m expected to win."

But that place needs to be populated by some key warm bodies with solvent check books, the new head man admonished. "We want energize our base of support, and motivate you. We want to get you excited about what we’re doing. But I’m not talking about just average effort." In what has quickly become a mantra for this Rice coaching staff, Graham reminded the group that two factors are always controllable: first, a person’s attitude, and second, his level of effort.

"And what I’m asking people to do," he added, "is to give your best effort, in your participation and your giving. We need some things to be done."

Rice football enters the 21st Century

But before we go into that extant do-list, it might be encouraging to mention an item that’s already been accomplished, thanks to one certain, very generous Rice football supporter. It has to do with something that ought to be a forefront issue for any Rice department, and that’s the matter of digital technology.

"To give you an idea of it," Todd told the group, "our kids will be taught with the latest in technology. They’ll have digital video; it will have a split-screen game analyses."

Within the past couple weeks, the Rice football office suite has been wired with high-speed internet, Wi-Fi, WAN, Blue-tooth, you name it. Spiffy plasma viewing screens now dot the offices and conference rooms, while state-of-the-art laptops, HD cams and DVD burners have sprouted like mushrooms.

"That means the players will be able to watch a play and be able to see every single thing about that play, about how productive it is, and get a complete analysis," Coach Graham noted. "Then they’ll be given DVDs that are going to be voiced over; where the position coaches actually comment on the plays."

"We’ll have homework assignments. When a player goes home at night after practice, he’ll review the DVD and he’ll hear his coach coaching him through the things he has to do."

"So our kids, I guarantee you, will be well-prepared."

Some on the coaching search committee and elsewhere had commented on the tangibly high degree of organization that appeared consistently to be displayed by the University of Tulsa football team this past fall, each time it took the field. That had to do, it turns out, in being able to accomplish more in the area of number-crunching, during the week.

"We feel we are able to do more schematically," Todd emphasized. "How we know how to do this is, we did the same thing at Tulsa. If you guys were watching the Tulsa-Fresno game on TV, I doubt many of you thought Tulsa was going to win. I KNEW Tulsa was going to win."

This new, high-tech approach just makes obvious sense, given the level of intelligence and motivation of this current Rice squad, the new straw boss noted. "Just being around our Rice players so far, I’m more impressed with these kids than any I’ve ever been around," he said. "When you tell them to do something, they do it."

But before the DVDs, comes a bit of Basic Training. "We’re going through what’s called a ‘tour of duty’ right now," Coach dead-panned. "We’re installing our Discipline Package. It begins at 5:30 in the morning."

"And it’s unbelievable, the reception we’re getting from the players. Our kids are doing handsprings out of bed; they’re fired up to get to the weight room. These guys want to win."

"So we’re taking and overhauling how we’re teaching."

Staff not giving up anything in recruiting wars

That overhaul starts with the recruiting aspect, Coach Graham added. And then came the windup and the pitch -- a high, hard one. "I believe that we can compete with Texas and Texas A&M – with anybody in the state – in our recruiting," he said. "There are some things we’re looking at to be able to change how we’re – there’s things we need help on recruiting, to be able to do that. To be able to get in on kids early and things like that, we’re working on."

"You know, I believe we can beat Texas on kids. We beat Texas at Tulsa – on one recruit. And we probably recruited a hundred. I beat them on one kid. And that kid made the difference for us last year – 6-4, 325, started, was all-conference, and was a difference-maker for us."

"What that involves, is we have to recruit 500 kids, to sign the 25 we need; whereas Texas can recruit 50 kids and sign 25. And that’s OK."

Rice’s new aggressive recruiting stance will be four-square with the university’s high academic bona fides, Coach Graham said emphatically. "Our standards at Rice for students – we’re going to compete with Harvard, Yale, and get the top academic recruits here," he noted, for example. "There’s no reason why we can’t compete with everybody in the country to bring the best of the best here."

"That starts with the staff. I brought half my staff from the Conference USA champion team. Paul Randolph, coaching in the Cotton Bowl this year. Major Applewhite. Why is that? Why would people like that leave, to come to a place that was considered ‘hopeless.’ Well, it’s not hopeless."

"We can win and we can be successful."

But, returning to the do-list, it appears that, besides the Rice Stadium spruce-up job, another area of major concern is the implementation of a viable summer school program for Rice footballers. That’s rendered a bit problematic due to the fact that the Institute, itself, does not hold regular summer school classes for its undergraduates. But it’s a needed aspect, Graham added.

"Over the last couple of years, Allan (Eggert) showed me," Coach pointed out, "we had 15 season- ending joint injuries last year. That’s unbelievable. And the great majority of them happened in August."

"What’s happening with our players, is that they’re going home in May, and coming back in August, while other teams are in place, working out together, meeting informally, learning from each other, and just generally training under a structured environment, while our kids go home, under an unstructured environment."

"So what do you think happens in August, when they start playing? They have injuries. You can’t train 10 months a year now and be successful in Division 1 college football. So in doing this, there’s a cost that we incur, that we have to cover."

"We’re addressing the issue, and Bobby (May) and I are working on how we’re going to be able to do that, but basically, right now, it’s going to cost anywhere from $150,000.00 to $300,000.00 plus, each summer, for our kids to go to summer school."

"So you can say, ‘So it’s going to cost $150,000.00. That’s easy. We can get it done.’ But if it costs $300,000.00 – we’ve still got to get it done. That is a must."

"We’re working on some arrangements with the administration, to hold costs down, but whatever the outcome, we’ve got to get it accomplished, and we’ve got to raise the money to do so. My philosophy is not to tell our AD, ‘Hey, Bobby, these are the things we’d like to do’ – and then just sit by passively and wait for a ‘yes’-‘no’ answer, and then forget it. Rather, it’s to recognize the things that HAVE to be done, and figure out a way to get there. But acknowledging that it can’t happen, is not an option."

But this new fundraising group is not about taking away from Rice Athletics’ umbrella organziation, the Owl Club. "If we can raise big numbers, and the Owl Club falls short, we can use part of our funds to make up the Owl Club shortfall," Coach Graham said. "It’s a case of, winning breeds winning. And we’re about a total athletic program."

"Something that I appreciate about Bobby, is that he’s said, ‘You know what? If we don’t fix football, nothing else is going to matter.’ And so we’re going to fix this."

Come September 2, when the Flock attempts to wrest back its rightful possession of the Bayou Bucket from crosstown rival Houston, what needs to happen, the new head man said, is that casual fans and the Houston media needs to see a visible difference in Rice Stadium.

Serious talks are proceeding apace in regards to putting in a jumbotron, Graham reported. Reports are that agreement is near with an approximately $1.5 million underwriter on scoreboard and related stadium improvements, by a very familiar corporate name. So there’ll be a jumbotron, but it will also come with, get this: a new sound system.

"When Tulsa came in here to play Rice, we knew the sound system was brutal," Todd said with a grin. "And when I told my wife, ‘Hey, Rice called. They want me to come in and talk,’ she said, ‘I hope they fix their bathrooms.’ Those were the two things she remembered about Rice Stadium."

"But what needs to happen when the fans walk into Rice Stadium, they need to see a new jumbotron, a video board, there. They need to look around and say, ‘Man, things are different.’"

T-Graham, Prexy Leebron said to see eye-to-eye

The new Rice coach expressed satisfaction with the relationship he said he’s been able to develop thus far with University president David Leebron.

"The president has been great," he said. "I’ve met with him, and I like what he’s told me. The president has said, ‘Todd, I like your attitude, I like your enthusiasm, I like what I hear you saying. Now you go show me you’ve got support – and then I’ll help you all the more.’"

"And that’s the way it should be. Because if people don’t care enough to support us, then why should it matter?"

How Rice athletics does business from a public relations standpoint, and the perception, in Houston, of college football generally – not necessarily Rice football specifically – needs to change, Coach Graham said. And certainly no one in the group found reason to disagree. To do so, he added, it’s going to be necessary to break new ground. That means starting with the small, but most readily visible, things.

"We just did a deal with Adidas," he revealed. "Our kids are going to have all new uniforms with a brand new look; we’re getting six figures worth of free apparel – and they’re even going to make an additional cash gift. I guess that will make them members of the Extra Point Club, too."

Adidas actually won a bidding war over Nike for the right to become the Owls’ uniform supplier, it turns out.

"So we’re doing business and try constantly to generate sources of revenue, direct and indirect," Coach Graham said." You can’t just sit on your can and do nothing, just because it’s off-season."

Once again, the 41-year-old Mesquite native expressed a degree of awe with the situation he finds himself in. And he hastened to add that he and his staff will respect, and in fact, will attempt to better, Rice’s long history of combining athletic competitiveness with academic excellence. What many in the past have considered a lemon is going to be made into a sweet, fizzy lemonade, it seems.

"I can tell you that we can be successful while supporting the highest academic standards among our student athletes," the Rice mentor said. "I mean this place is impeccable. It’s an unbelievable college environment."

"Do you mean we can beat Texas at Tulsa, and we can’t beat them at Rice? There’s a big difference between a Tulsa education and a Rice education. Even though they have considerably higher standards than usual at Tulsa, it’s nothing like what it is to have a Rice degree."

If that parting shot makes the reader interested in participating in this new Rice Extra Point Club endeavor, well, that’s the whole point, isn’t it?

[RGV Pony]

I swear, some of those quotations come verbatim from PB's first year.

[BennettBacker]

If he ever becomes interested in coaching, adding Dat Nguyen would have as big (or bigger) effect on recruiting as Applewhite. Young, played in Texas, charismatic, a total Bennett guy. I know the staff up there is full, but if there's an opening, he should get a call from Coach Bennett. Even if he doesn't teach the players a thing when he gets there, he'd be a huge boost to the program, based on recruiting alone.