Rice football took advantage of the off week to rest up and get healthy. The Owls are working toward this week’s game at Louisiana Tech.
There was plenty to observe and talk about as Rice football got back to practice after an unexpected free Saturday following the postponement of the UTSA game. Head coach Mike Bloomgren shared his thoughts on the future of that matchup. I recapped those thoughts, shared a few quotes from Tuesday’s press conference and dug into some observations from the Rice o-line at practice this week.
UTSA postponement
At this point, both UTSA and Rice have made it abundantly clear who they want to be playing on Dec. 5. The Owls were originally free that day before Conference USA slated Marshall into that open weekend only days before the Rice vs UTSA game was postponed.
UTSA head coach Jeff Traylor has gone on record saying he wants to see that game rescheduled. Bloomgren echoed those sentiments on Tuesday, saying “if we had our choice, we’d love to play the team down the road.” Bloomgren reiterated that would ultimately be a conference decision.
Notes and Quotes
“We all love the rhythm of a college football season. We love the routine, but 2020 has been anything but routine, as we all know. And something we’ve asked our players for is flexibility and adaptability … I would love to get into a routine for the next six or seven weeks … but at the same time I think we’re probably going to have more opportunities where we’ve gotta be flexible.” – Mike Bloomgren on the unexpected schedule change
“We’ve been in the system — this is our third year — now it’s just like riding a bike … They’re great young men. They have great balance on and off the field and when we come in here it’s just football.” – Defensive line coach Cedric Calhoun on the improvements this year
I know that we’ve been really efficient on first and second down and then that’s allowed us to be really efficient on third down. I think it’s been a really notable thing from this season. We’ve had a couple third and shorts that we converted on. It’s something we take a lot of pride in. But I also think what you’re seeing is that we’re finding ourselves being pretty dang dynamic, because we’re being so efficient on first and second down… if we do our job up front, this offense is really going to shine.” – Sanders Davis on the overall – on the growth of the offense
Giving some love to the offensive line
