Our New "Rival" - Satire from the Rice Thresher

Submitted by mjw on January 10th, 2024 at 11:47 AM

Happen to still be in Houston and on Rice's campus today.  Grabbed a copy of the student-run newspaper, the Rice Thresher.  Apparently their backpage is dedicated to satire, and today's backpage declares that "Rice and Michigan Are Now Rivals" since our coming to town raised their ticket prices back to campus. (LOL) There are a few funny bits but you can decide for yourself if the joke lands or not!

 

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truferblue22

January 10th, 2024 at 1:28 PM ^

They got the Bama record wrong. 

 

Also, am I the only one shocked to learn Rice has a higher US News and World Report ranking than us?! I thought this was like a MAC school in Texas.

Joined: 06/30/2008

MGoPoints: 13365

kehnonymous

January 10th, 2024 at 1:35 PM ^

Confession time:  Rice was actually my first pick in applying to colleges, because it had a highly rated architecture school, and I didn't get in**, whereas Michigan was my 'safety school' - to be clear, I'm certainly not super smart at all (which y'all probably already figured out), but my GPA was good enough, I lived in Ann Arbor with a parent who worked there, and it was a time when Michigan wasn't nearly selective as it probably is now.

Anyways, this is just preamble to say that we have to schedule a home-and-home with the Owls so I can get vicarious revenge on them 35 years later.

** even worse, my brother applied there with no intention of going just to troll me, and did get in!

Joined: 11/25/2011

MGoPoints: 33261

JLC21

January 10th, 2024 at 1:41 PM ^

Long and sappy minddump incoming... I'm one of those non-alum lifelong Michigan fans - my parents moved to Ann Arbor from Mexico right after they got married for my Dad's Masters, and they raised us (me and my 2 younger brothers) as rabid M fans.

I was a freshman at Rice in 97, and covered the football team for the Thresher all 4 years I was on campus. I remember watching the Colorado opener in my dorm's common area and vividly remember it dawning on me that we had a shot to win it all. 

I went to A2 to cover both of Rice's visits from the press box. My parents had taken us to multiple games at the Big House growing up, but for this aspiring sportswriter there was a sense of arrival for me that I was "working" from my favorite team's press box. 

My Rice friends couldn't understand why I was rooting for M in both those games. I remember telling them it'd be briefly fun for Rice but that M had national title aspirations. Some of those same friends rooted for M on Monday, because of me and my family. 

For that 2000 Rice game, my roommate and I conspired to make him a sports columnist (I was Thresher Managing Editor by then) so that he could come up to A2 with me and cover the game on a press pass. He ended up doing his MBA at Ross about a decade later. On Tuesday morning, I ordered his kid (my godson, and a nascent M diehard) a national championship t-shirt for a belated Xmas present. 

Anyway. I love the Thresher but (don't tell anyone at Rice) I always thought the Backpage was lame. 

Joined: 02/26/2009

MGoPoints: 53