That sounds like a heck of a show. Out of all the Rock bands there are two I wish I could have seen live. Van Halen and Queen. I saw Black Sabboth, Iron Maiden, Metallica, AC/DC, Ozzy, Scorpions, Crue, and Aerosmith. Never Van Halen. Who else played that show?
Van Halen Scorpions Dokken Metallica Kingdom Come Couldn't remember Dokken so I had to look it up. Great show!
Great history there! Of course the first draft of Kennedy’s speech had this line: “Why does Rice play Texas? To get more than 10,000 butts in the seats of this huge stadium.”
Some folks may point to the Route 66 blowout to UCLA as Mackovic’s worst moment. Seems to me that horrendous rainy night in the swamp vs Rice tops the list. He just didn’t get it. UT doesn’t lose to Rice, unless it’s a chess tournament or something.
Completely agree. I love that classic old Rice stadium, dumpy and all. It oozes with character. I saw many games there as a youth. Rice used to give high school FCAs deeply discounted tickets. Playing Rice at NRG will be like that time we played UCLA at the Dallas Cowboys’ Death Star—a sterile, soulless, high tech venue fit only for pro sports and overpriced pop star concerts. Cons of Rice stadium: the old wooden bleachers they had were falling apart and rotting. Big fellas had to sit down slowly and gingerly... I think they’ve fixed that. Parking and traffic can also be a challenge for the big games. (Sort of like TCU).
Yeah, we got to the 1997 game extra early to beat the traffic snarl and to get a parking space on pavement. Got stuck in traffic for the 1994 game and had to park on grass somewhere, and because of all the rain it turned into a quagmire. Lucky we didn’t get stuck.
Big. Not Memorial Stadium big, but big. It held around 70k, which put it as much bigger than TCU, Baylor, OSU, KU, KSU, ISU, or even Tech's stadiums. Then they put a bunch of tarps with Rice logos over the end zone seats (those could easily be removed to restore most of the lost seating). They also recently built a structure/club/field house/training type building overhanging one end zone. That probably took out another 5-8k seats that could not be easily restored. The atmosphere was very good. You knew it was a college football venue. We'd pack it with a sea of orange. And if you think things were ever contentious between our athletic dep't and faculty, it's nothing compared to Rice. Every so often, Rice's faculty moves to try to eliminate the football program. They largely view it as an anathema to the "Institute." Many Rice faculty members want Rice's football program to go the way of U. of Chicago--a once great (or at least good) program that went away due to faculty pressure...
i'm pro-history and pro-finance. i hope we try to balance both. i'm cotton bowl over jerry world for tx/ou though understand B12 and Cotton Bowl game finances. so I'm good for Rice stadium
I really like the idea of a road game at Rice for our "cupcake" out-of-conference game. It's very good to play a road game in Houston for the exposure (alumni and recruits). If we ever schedule UH in Houston, I'd be good with that too for the same exposure. However, unlike Rice (forgetting 1994 for a moment), UH isn't bad and could jump up and beat us on occasion. Most years, UH wouldn't be the "cupcake" game.
Houston should be on our blacklist for another half-century or so still. We can schedule who we want and can afford to have long memories. Yeah, I'd much rather play at Rice Stadium also (although being in the air conditioning instead of the swampcrack of Houston is nice).
True that. The 1997 game was at 11 am and it was bright and sunny and hot and muggy with absolutely no breeze.
I was at the ‘97 game and particularly enjoyed the plane flying overhead with a Flush the John sign one week after Route 66. Ricky Williams went off but I recall Wane McGarrity and one other player having season ending injuries on that turf that day. I had tickets to the ‘94 debacle but turned back about a third of the way to Houston as the storms were rolling in and I was going to have to drive home after the game for an early Monday meeting and didn’t want to deal with the weather issues in middle of the night. Best decision I made that year.
Unfortunately I was at the Route 66 game and it feel like I remember a Dump DeLoss plane banner flying over the stadium that day. But that was a long time ago so it could have been a different game.
A&M at least had the decency to cancel the entire game ahead of time, rather than cancelling it for only a chunk of Texas fans at the last minute.
Well, if there's one thing UH is famous for, it's CLASS. Fans shouldn't have booed at homecoming game - The Daily Cougar UH says bleachers no-go amid conflicting reports Then again, they do have a catchy fight song, and UH's cheerleaders certainly beat those at aTm (and Rice for that matter)...
Those 2 back-to-back late season games at ISU and at Baylor will likely be tough tests. I think ISU is for real, and strange things can happen at Waco with their high flying offense. We also could see some cold weather at ISU that time of year (it shouldn't matter, but it might amplify ISU's home field advantage, and you can bet they'll be up for that game).
Some Louisiana Tech -- They are 1-10 in their last 11 games against P5 opponents But they are 7-4 ATS, with one outright win (in 2014). They have lost 16 in a row to ranked opponents by an average of 27 PPG. And Skip Holtz is 1-12 vs. P5 teams, with the losses coming by an average of 21 PPG
I’m not seeing a conference game where we can pencil in an easy cakewalk W. The conference looks pretty solid, or at least dangerous, top to bottom. (I’m not even sure who the bottom team is this year—Tech? KU? KSU?)
Tech is worse this year, as is WV. K and KSU are improved. ISU might be down a tad from last year but it’s early. Seems TCU is up. I think Texas will be up this year but it’s early.