Rice Football head coach Mike Bloomgren made closing comments on the Southern Miss game and set the stage for the Owls’ Week 10 game against Marshall.
More: Rice Football game preview for Week 10 vs Marshall
Offensive lineman Shea Baker and defensive end Kenneth Orji joined Rice football head coach Mike Bloomgren at the podium on Tuesday. The trio made closing comments on the Southern Miss game and looked ahead to their Week 10 game against Marshall.
From Mike Bloomgren
On the changes the team is making on offense…
“We’ve made a few changes in terms of how we’re going to prepare. I don’t feel like we’re getting the message delivered to the players in the right way by some of our assistant coaches on offense. So we’re going to take away the game of telephone. Coach [Jerry] Mack is going to talk to the entire unit when he talks and they watch film together. He’s going to treat it very much like an NFL operation in that regard. We’re going to make sure that we are all singing out of the same hymnal because they are hearing one person deliver the message and that’s going to be Coach Mack.”
On changes to the offensive scheme…
“We’re going to simplify this system so it won’t matter if somebody is experienced in the system. If they have the ability to help our football team now, we want to make sure we can give them that opportunity to be on the field. I look back at some of the quarterbacks we had at other places. They were Year Three in the system, and all this stuff was easy for them, and they would use their athletic ability as well. Right now, I’m afraid that we can paralyze some guys and their athletic ability could get stunted by having them think too much at the line of scrimmage… We’ll see how this goes this week. We’ve got a great plan in place. I talked to Coach Mack for a while last night and I really like where this plan is going.”
On Tom Stewart’s status against Marshall…
“Last week, Tom (Stewart) was taking all the reps with the ones. He ended up having a back issue during our walk-through and wasn’t able to play. Right now, he’s still working through it. If you’ve ever had one of those muscular things where your back locks up, I don’t know if anybody knows the exact timetable, but it’s getting better. He’s improving and we’re optimistic that we’ll have him for this weekend.”
On the plan at quarterback beyond Stewart…
“We’ve got some things that we’re going to kick around this week and give some people some opportunities. We’re going to do some things this week to simplify the offense so we can play a little bit faster and not let anything be limited by age or experience in the system right now. I believe in the West Coast offense. I believe that pounding the rock is the way we’ll win championships here. Right now, I’m not sure if that’s exactly our best way; just to go with someone that can get us to the right play because we’re not executing at a high enough level. So right now, we’re going to kick everything around.”
On homecoming…
“It’s awesome. One of our big donors has actually become a friend of mine, it’s his 30th Homecoming. I know that there are going to be some great people [who] come back and come to watch us play. Hopefully, we can put on a great show for them and find a way to get a W for them to really help their celebration on Saturday.”
From OL Shea Baker
On the potential for the offensive line’s production going forward…
“I guess a good way to describe it is really frustrating because I know that we can do better. I know our potential to do better. And to have the inconsistency in drives, or to be performing really well one quarter and in one quarter, not performing well, it’s just it’s really frustrating because I believe so much in our system and our coaches and the brothers beside me that I know we can do better than what we’ve been doing.”
From DE Kenneth Orji
On his growth and confidence…
“Jumping into the starting lineup, the only difference for me was that my playing time doubled. It doubled my playing time so I had to be able to prepare for being on the field a whole lot longer and, pretty much, learning the system is something I’ve been used to doing.”
