Why Rice?

by ranelar on Sep 8, 2006 2:51 PM PDT

People have been wondering why we're playing rice, and why we're playing them two years in a row. The Daily Bruin answered that today:

Why Rice? Rice has not played in a bowl game since 1961, so it doesn't fit the usual profile of a UCLA opponent.

As it turns out, UCLA was stuck in a bind due to a scheduling conflict.

The Bruins originally had BYU on their schedule for a home-and-away series in 2005 and 2006, but in 2004, BYU had to drop UCLA from their schedule when their conference, the Mountain West Conference, added an additional conference game.

So that left UCLA, which originally only had 5 home games in 2005 and 2006, scrambling to find a Division 1-A opponent that could come to the Rose Bowl two years in a row.

"Rice was extremely accommodating, and they were able to fit into our schedule," UCLA associate athletic director Marc Dellins said. "That was the biggest factor, finding a team that could fill our two home dates."

And the decision worked out on both sides. Rice, which is 1-12-1 all-time in the state of California, gets the exposure of playing a national Pac-10 team, and UCLA essentially gets an easy win while preparing for the brutal end of its Pac-10 schedule which starts in mid-October with a game at Oregon.

It all begins to make sense.

This is a FanPost and does not necessarily reflect the views of BruinsNation's (BN) editors. It does reflect the views of this particular fan though, which is as important as the views of BN's editors.

Tweet Comment 8 comments | 0 recs |

Do you like this story?

Comments

One note

I don't think looking at our schedule at this point we can call the end all that "brutal."

Again let's look at our last 5 games:

10/28 Wash. State 4:00 pm
11/04 @ Cal 5:00 pm
11/11 Oregon State TBA
11/18 @ ASU 7:15 pm
12/02 USC 1:30 pm

Wazzu and OSU at home should be gimmes.

Excuse me if I am not impressed with ASU who had a hard time beating Northern Arizona.

Cal looks like the X-factor.

So we should have 3 wins in the big.

Cal doesn't look like a NC contender.

And SC should be a MUST WIN.

This is not a "brutal end" schedule.

It is more than manageable at this point.

by Nestor on Sep 8, 2006 2:57 PM PDT reply actions

well

the author did say that his "end of schedule" meant starting at Oregon, which should be a tough game, and also includes at ND which (whether OVER-hyped or not) is still a good team. He probably should have said a brutal middle schedule if anything at all. Despite Cal's fall from grace, I still think it will be a challenge to win up North.

by ranelar on Sep 8, 2006 3:07 PM PDT up reply actions

Agree with you

Oregon and ND will be a brutal two game stretch.

And Cal will not be a gimme. I think they will rebound too. I just don't think they look as invincible as they did on paper before the season started.

by Nestor on Sep 8, 2006 3:56 PM PDT up reply actions

Thanks for the article

I was wondering why we played two straight home games against them.

by bruinbabe2000 on Sep 8, 2006 5:00 PM PDT reply actions

Were not going to Rice!

Too small to travel to.

by bruinelder on Sep 8, 2006 5:14 PM PDT up reply actions

I thought I saw that we have a game at Rice in a

few years

by True Blue and Gold on Sep 9, 2006 1:20 PM PDT reply actions

I still don't get why

we had to replace a "home and away" with a "home and home." If having only 5 games at home was such a concern, then why did we only have 5 scheduled at home before BYU backed out?

by bornagainbruin on Sep 10, 2006 7:58 PM PDT reply actions

I would guess

that BYU pulled out kinda "last minute" in terms of UCLA being able to schedule two games with any respectable Div-1 team. I would also guess that the reason we went with Rice over other "lesser" programs was exactly because they offered/accepted two away games when other Div-1 teams that might have had an opening wanted a game at their stadium. Also last year we had 6 home games with Rice, so that was probably the year we would have had BYU at home, and this year we have 7 home games, so we probably would have gone to BYU.

by ranelar on Sep 11, 2006 12:55 AM PDT up reply actions