With an interim coach at the helm, Rice football is preparing to take on Navy for Homecoming. How to watch, key stats, x-factor picks and more.
Now former Rice football head coach Mike Bloomgren was relieved of his duties following a road loss to UConn last Saturday. In his place, interim head coach Pete Alamar will be tasked with leading the team this week against a Navy team also coming off a loss, albeit their first of the year. The Midshipmen fell to No. 12 Notre Dame at MetLife Stadium last weekend. Here’s everything you need to know about the matchup between Rice and Navy.
Kickoff time | 3:00 PM CT
Venue | Rice Stadium – Houston, TX
TV | ESPN2 (Viewing Guide)
Radio | Varsity Radio App (Online)
Audio / Visual Preview
We’ll preview Rice football vs Navy on this week’s episode of the Blue and Gray Preview Show, kicking off live on Wednesday on the Rice Athletics YouTube channel. Look for a recap of the game on the site afterward as well as on The Roost Podcast, which should be released early next week.
Sizing up the contenders
Navy suffered its first setback in a loss to Notre Dame, but the Midshipmen are still very much alive in the race for a spot in the American Conference Championship Game. Navy has its eyes on keeping its unbeaten conference record intact and still has much to play for as the calendar enters November.
Interim coach or note, Rice football just wants the chance to play a meaningful game after this week. A seventh loss would knock Rice out of a postseason berth days removed from Halloween with nothing left to play for beyond pride. That’s not how this season was supposed to go.
Series History
All Time | Tied, 6-6
Last Five | Navy leads, 4-1
Last Meeting | Home 2009, Navy won 63-14
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Rice Football Stat Notables
Passing | Warner – 160/263 (60.8 percent), 1573 yards, 10 TD, 9 INT / Devillier 2038 (52.6 percent), 137 yards, 0 TD, 0 INT
Rushing | Connors – 94 carries, 518 yards (5.5 yards per carry), 6 TD / Atkins – 24 carries, 158 yards (6.6 yards per carry), 2 TD
Receiving | Sykes – 41 receptions, 476 yards (11.6 yds/rec), 3 TD / Campbell – 22 receptions, 261 yards (11.9 yds/rec), 1 TD / Connors – 45 receptions, 295 yards (6.6 yds/rec), 1 TD
Tackles | Morris – 43, Fresch – 40, Taylor – 36
Pass Breakups | Fresch/Ahoi – 6, Taylor -3
Interceptions | Taylor/Flowers/Williams/Mutombo – 1
Navy Stat Notables
Passing | Horvath – 53/85 (63.3 percent), 976 yards, 10 TD, 2 INT
Rushing | Horvath – 93 carries, 750 yards (8.1 yards per carry), 11 TD / Tecza – 61 carries, 339 yards (5.6 yards per carry), 7 TD
Receiving | Heidenreich – 25 receptions, 495 yards (19.8 yds/rec), 5 TD / Chatman- 10 receptions, 198 yards (19.8 yds/rec), 3 TD / Tecza – 6 receptions, 115 yards (19.2 yds/rec), 1 TD
Tackles | Ramos – 83, Jacob – 55, Campbell – 43
Pass Breakups | Peele- 4, Campbell/Lame – 3
Interceptions | Peele – 3, Lane – 2, Five others tied with one
Navy X-Factor | Play clean football
Entering their game against Notre Dame the Midshipmen had yet to turn the ball over against FBS opponents this season. They turned the ball over a staggering six times against the Irish and were summarily handed their first defeat of the season. When this team plays their brand of football and stays on schedule, the option-based scheme is hard to handle. They didn’t march to a 6-0 start on accident.
Navy has a plan. And when they’ve been able to execute that plan this year, it’s been hard to overcome. Even a strong Rice defense will be tested by this scheme. But unless the Owls can get the Middies off their script, it’s going to be a tall task to overcome this system.
Rice X-Factor | Keep up
The Rice defense has come alive in the last several weeks and hasn’t allowed an opponent to surpass 27 points since the Army game six weeks ago after allowing three straight FBS teams to surpass that mark. They then held Tulane and UConn to two offensive touchdowns apiece. But as good as the defense is, points are going to be a requirement against this Navy team, that’s just the reality.
Holding Navy to two offensive touchdowns would be a dream, yet it probably won’t be enough unless the Rice offense can get their act together and return fire. No matter who ends up playing quarterback, Rice has to find a way to keep up. Otherwise this one could get ugly in a hurry.
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One Final Thing
The die has been cast and Rice football is in the market for a new head coach. Unlike in the professional ranks, though, there are no incentives for losing out. There is no high draft pick awaiting the Owls at the end of this rainbow and thus, every win they can steal from this point onward is a credit to the players and the coaching staff remaining in the building.
We covered a lot of ground in our emergency Roost Pod following Bloomgren’s firing. I hope you’ll give it a listen here. If you’re on the hunt for coaching search nuggets, I’d encourage you to subscribe on Patreon as that begins to develop in the weeks ahead.
As far as the game at hand is concerned, while an interim head coach typically signals a season gone askew, that doesn’t mean this team has quit on the season. Effort was never the problem under Bloomgren. And Rice knows firsthand the dangers of overlooking a team with an interim-tagged leader. The Owls lost to Charlotte days removed from the firing of Will Heally two years back.
A loss on Saturday would be forgotten. A win, however, would be remarkable. Ranked or not, this would be one heck of a victory given all this team has gone through to this point in the year. The odds are stacked against them. They’re without their head coach. But that didn’t stop that Charlotte team and one would hope the effort inside the walls of the Brian Patterson Center won’t be crushed by another round of bad news, no matter how significant.
