Rice Football (1-6) got off to a picture-perfect start and a double-digit lead, but couldn’t hold on, falling to Tulsa at home.
Three straight scoring drives, two on the legs of quarterback Jacurri Brown, had Rice football feeling good in their return to First Community Stadium. Add in a defensive goal-line stand and the ball, and it finally felt as if the Owls were going to get back on track following weeks of mid-adventure. Instead, it was another humbling loss in which the pockets of positive performances couldn’t overcome the four quarters required of winning football. Here are a few immediate reactions from the game:
Electric Offensive Start
It’s no secret the Rice offense has been scuffling of late, which made a home date against the woeful Tulsa rush defense an enticing matchup. The Golden Hurricane entered this game dead last in the American Conference in rush defense in conference games, yielding a combined 613 yards on the ground to North Texas and Navy over their last two games, with both schools averaging north of five yards per carry.
Rice football needed a get-right game in the worst of ways. The Tulsa defense obliged.
Jacurri Brown got the party started with a 50-yard rushing score, his longest carry of the season.
Two offensive plays later… Brown did it again!
For every valid critique of a Rice football offense that couldn’t get into gear against some of the better defenses they’ll face this season, the Owls are due a measure of respect for what they put on the field against Tulsa on Saturday. They faced a bad run defense and made them look worse, at least for as long as Brown was able to take the field. And therein lies the worry.
Brown was banged up on the Owls’ fourth drive and forced to leave the field for two plays. The drive ended in the Owls’ first punt of the day. He would get helped off the field on at least one other occasion and was the clear target of the Tulsa defense, picking up a flag on a personal foul for a late hit against him in the third quarter following a pitch.
“Jacurri’s about as tough as they come, and he did get a little banged and bruised,” Rice football head coach Scott Abell said. “Health-wise, he’ll be fine as we move forward. Did it impact the second half? I’d probably be lying to say that it didn’t.”
Rice wouldn’t have another sustained drive until midway through the third quarter; Brown left the field during that series as well. By that point, any semblance of a rhythm had been shattered and the defense had given up on defending him as the primary running threat. Following three straight scoring drives, Rice went without any points on their final seven possessions; one of those came at the end of the first half without timeouts.
Right now, the offense goes as far as Brown can take it. And if he’s not 100 percent — and it’s clear he wasn’t by the midpoint of this game — there needs to be another viable solution. Right now, the Owls just don’t have one.
Defense Can’t Catch a Break
Tulsa quarterback Baylor Hayes wasn’t content to just sit by and watch. For every big play the Rice offense delivered, Hayes returned a haymaker of his own, and it’s not as if the Owls’ defense played all that poorly. Rice was in the backfield making plays and forcing uncomfortable situations and yet Tulsa kept pace for much of the game because Hayes was simply surgical through the air.
On Tulsa’s first drive, a sack from linebacker Austin Harnetiaux set up a third-and-20. Hayes delivered a laser down the sideline in tight coverage to move the chains. While the Golden Hurricane were able to maintain possession, they did not score, thanks to an impressive stand from the short-yardage unit. Tulsa faced first and goal from the eight, but were stonewalled, with Stone Combs eventually dragging down the ballcarrier in the backfield on fourth down.
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During their next series, Tulsa faced a fourth down near midfield. Hayes delivered a dime to receiver David Wells Jr. to move the chains. The coverage was excellent on both plays. Still, Hayes got the ball to his man.
For the better part of this game, the Rice defense outplayed the box score. They got bit by their aggressiveness with a big catch-and-run on a fourth quarter screen and found themselves on the hook for 30 total points. Seven of those came after a short-field turnover by Brown at the end of the second quarter.
It wasn’t the dominant performance this unit put forth against UTSA. It wasn’t bad either. Truthfully, it was probably a good enough showing to keep this team in the game, but once the offense lost its spark, the defense could only hold the rope for so long.
Unclean Football
There was a moment early in this game in which Rice football had scored on each of their first three possessions and the defense had allowed one score that a blowout in favor of the blue and gray seemed like it might be in the cards. Months of frustration had finally turned into production and Tulsa found itself in the wrong place at the wrong time. Instead, Rice trailed at half, and they largely have themselves to blame.
Instead, Rice, which led Tulsa in yardage, found itself trailing at the break. And while Hayes does deserve credit for his ability to will the Golden Hurricane from the edge of disaster again and again, the Owls were equally responsible for enabling their opponent to rally and retake the lead.
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Rice committed seven penalties for 75 yards. The team was flagged for offsides twice on Tulsa’s initial scoring drive. Not long after, a targeting penalty, which resulted in linebacker Beau Barton’s ejection from the game, kept Tulsa’s third drive alive. Tack on a fumble on an exchange with backup quarterback Gael Ochoa in the game and Jacurri Brown’s disastrous sack fumble at the end of the second quarter and you get just enough extra help to enable the visitors to pull ahead at the break.
“The penalties I want to see us clean up are the things you can control, the offsides. I find it absurd that we continue to struggle in that arena,” Abell said. “I’m frustrated by that. We have to be a program that excels in those things. WE have to excel in winning the turnover [battle], or at least it’s even, we can’t lose it. And we have to win the penalty yardage. We have to do all those things right, to now get over the final phase of winning the football game late.”
Here We Go Again
For the fourth time in as many games, Rice football found itself in a one-score game in the fourth quarter.
For the fourth time in as many games, Rice lost.
With another set of hobbled playmakers, this time quarterback Jacurri Brown and tight end Will Swartz, the offense couldn’t possess the ball and produce points at the rate it needed to do so to play complementary football. Add in a missed field goal, this time from the new kicker, and you get another cacophony of hopeful intentions that fell flat on the field.
“We gotta raise our level. When times call for it. And that’s what I feel like other teams are doing to us. We’re in the ring and we’re going punch for punch, round for round, then all of a sudden something gets away from us. We can go to every game and feel like that. We’re deep in the third quarter and we’re like, okay, we got a shot here. Let’s go win a football game,” Abell said.
“It’s probably one of the more frustrating moments of my entire career, searching for the right answer to help us get over that, because that ultimately is my job to find the answer to help our players to find the tools to help them get over that.”
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