by MustangSTATS » Sun Sep 18, 2011 2:43 pm
Does Rice even want to have a FB team?, this may just be an opportunity for those against it to finally shed the program and tell the alumni look we tried but college fb has just passed us by etc or drop down to FCS or get rid of it entirely. They can still have baseball, heck dropping FB would save them tons in expenses and offsetting scholarships. I'm guessing their FB program is nowhere near profitable, especially when you include offsetting scholarships. And students do not choose rice for sports. Most I know, are surprised they even have a team.
True, Tulane has problem way beyond weather or not they will fund sports. They are still trying to rebuild whole academic departments. Hurricane Katrina is still effecting them and will for a long time.
With the Big East losing Pitt and Syracuse, and now possibly UCONN and Rutgers, who would they be looking to raid? I know people have suggested the Big-12 leftovers, which would further stretch them out into two time zones and have a wide range of schools, but they would still need more schools, what east coast/eastern time zone might they be looking to snag as well? From CUSA: I can think of Memphis (mainly for basketball), UCF and possibly ECU. With potentialy four FB teams gone they will be down to just 5 teams assuming TCU stays with this train wreck and doesn't try to jump ship to a rebuilt Big-12 along with the Big-12 leftovers and a few attractive schools (SMU?).