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50 Days: Owls look to flip the script of recent history

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Rice football is 50 days from the kickoff of the 2018 season against Prairie View A&M. The Owls have lost 50 games over the last seven seasons.

Rice football is not where they want to be, at least, not right now. The Owls lost 50 games over the last seven seasons, an average of just more than seven losses per season. In that period the Owls won 34 games, 43.5 percent of their contests. That’s not awful, but it’s a notch below where the administration wants the Owls to be.

A .500 winning percentage should be the floor of any successful program. That necessitates a decent showing in conference play and a few more wins on the way to a postseason appearance. Although they’ve had their years, the erratic nature of the last seven finishes has been concerning, particularly the negative trend since winning 10 games in 2013:

2011: 4-8
2012: 7-6
2013: 10-4
2014: 8-5
2015: 5-7
2016: 3-9
2017: 1-11

The administration had a choice. They could have made the easy, comfortable decision to retain head coach David Bailiff after falling to 1-11 in 2017. They didn’t. Coach Bailiff did a lot of good for the Owls, taking Rice to four bowl games, winning three of them. He produced two of the Owls three 10-win seasons in program history. But it was time for a change.

Under Bailiff, the Owls were a somewhat average Group of 5 program. In the good year’s they’d challenge for a conference title. In the bad year’s the product on the field was hard to watch. The Owls have been a lower-tier program because of that, but things are finally changing for the better.

Athletic Director Joe Karlgaard has pioneered a new vision and a new hope for Rice football. If this works, the Owls aren’t going to be a 7-loss team every season. Rice football is capable of producing bowl-quality teams every year and keeping themselves in the conference championship conversation through October. At a minimum that means reversing the 34-50 record of the last seven seasons to at least 50-34.

That’s why head coach Mike Bloomgren was hired. To flip the script.

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Conference USA West title wide open entering 2018

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Rice football hopes to soon contend for Conference USA titles. Although it might be a tough ask in 2018, the Owls chances are better than most might expect.

Rice football isn’t far removed from contending for championships. The Owls won the Conference USA West Division in 2013, triumphing over the Marshall Thundering Herd by a score of 41-24. The Owls ended that season with a lopsided loss to Mississippi State in the Liberty Bowl, but by and large, the year was considered a tremendous success.

Not many are looking to the Owls to compete for a conference title in the first year of the Mike Bloomgren-era at Rice. Yet, the West Division is more wide open than it might seem.

North Texas won the West Division in 2017. The Mean Green will be in the mix to win it again in 2018, but there hasn’t been a back-to-back winner in the west since Tulsa won the division in 2007 and 2008, the only back-t0-back winner in the history of the West Division.

Per the latest Oddshark release, Louisiana Tech, not North Texas, is the favorite to win the West in 2018. Rice is a long shot (+10,000), but the West Division isn’t nearly as deep as the East. Outside of Lousiana Tech, there isn’t another team in the West with better than +1,000 odds to win the conference. In fact, only one of the top five favorites to win the conference comes out of the West. The top three, FAU, FIU and Marshall all play in the East.

That doesn’t make Rice’s road easy, but it proves oddsmakers believe the Owls have an easier path to the championship game than half the teams in CUSA. With only one clear favorite in the West, the Owls work is a little bit easier. They still have to win the games, but it Rice up more favorably than they could have hoped entering 2018.

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3 Non-conference games the Owls should schedule

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Rice football needs to spice things up in their non-conference schedule. Which teams would you like to see the Owls add in the future?

Scheduling news rises to the surface every offseason. As long as there are no actual games to discuss, the talk of potential future games must tide football fans over until kickoff in the fall. This offseason Rice has scheduled future games with Louisianna-Lafayette, Northwestern and Texas Southern. Some of those game are more exciting than others, but they’re all going to be played — for better or worse. That begs the question, which teams should the Owls be scheduling?

The historicity of college football, and Rice football for that matter, extends well beyond the reaches of Conference USA. The conference is the Owl’s home right now, but Old Dominion and UTEP aren’t exactly marquee matchups. Rice has to abide by their conference schedule, but non-conference opponents are up to the Owls.

Rice can go two ways. They can bus in the Prairie View A&M’s of the world to South Main and use their non-conference scheduling to secure a few easier games to enhance their chances at bowl eligibility. Or, they can trust that coach Mike Bloomgren can find enough wins in conference play and schedule some more challenging, and frankly more interesting games. The latter is more exciting, and hopefully the direction the Owls take later down the road.

Here are three teams that the Owls need to get on the schedule in the near future.

1. Houston

After a brief hiatus, Rice got Houston back on the schedule in 2017. The Owls record against Houston all-time (11-30) isn’t superb, but the proximity of the two schools lends itself to a perfect geographical rivalry. Just because the Cougars have the step up right now doesn’t mean they’ll have the upper hand forever.

Rice needs a rival. It’s not a prerequisite to becoming a premier program, but an intense rivalry can put even the more modest schools on the map. From the Egg Bowl (Ole Miss v Mississippi State) to the Civil War (Oregon v Oregon State) the rivalry game is a critical part of the college football ethos. Houston seems to make the most immediate sense, which makes an annual game with the Cougars an absolute must.

2. Arkansas

Adding a Power 5 team on an annual basis might be a tough sell, but scheduling a home-and-home or even a neutral site game is definitely a viable option. That opportunity might be more palatable for a team that already has ties to Rice — Arkansas.

The Owls and the Razorbacks were members of the Southwest Conference together from 1915 to 1991. During that time the two met 67 times, with Arkansas holding the lead in the series 35-29-3 after winning 10 of the last 11 meetings. Rice might not be up to SEC-caliber just yet, but Arkansas is closer to the bottom of the SEC than the top and the history between the schools could make for a fascinating storyline.

3. Kansas State

Unlike Houston or Arkansas, Kansas State doesn’t have any sort of historical ties to Rice. What they do have is a legacy coach that always finds a way to make more out of less. Kansas State doesn’t dominate in the recruiting realm but they always produce hard-nosed football teams.

Kansas State would serve as an excellent litmus test for the Owls as they continue to aspire to bigger and better things. Coach Bill Snyder isn’t perfect, but his teams typically don’t beat themselves. The Wildcats could be the perfect proving ground for Bloomgren and his team. Win or lose, they’ll develop a better understanding of where they stand as a program.

Houston, Arkansas and Kansas State would all make incredible additions to the Rice football schedule going forward. Who do you want to see Rice play in the future? Leave your answer in the comments or lets us know on Twitter.

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Matt Bragga to hire assistants Cory Barton and Paul Janish

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After the hiring of Matt Bragga as their new head coach, Rice baseball continues to flush out their coaching staff. Assistant Cory Barton is the newest member of Bragga’s staff.

Matt Bragga has only been on the job for two weeks. In addition to getting situated in a new city and a new campus, he’s been hard at work assembling his staff. His first move was to bring back assistant coach and former Rice baseball player Paul Janish. Next, he went outside the walls of Reckling Park, hiring current Louisiana Tech assistant Cory Barton. The hire was first reported by D1 Baseball’s Kendall Rogers.

More: Matt Bragga eager to usher in a new era of Rice baseball

Barton comes to Rice after a short stint as the pitching coach at Louisiana Tech. He joined the Bulldogs for the 2018 season following a successful career at McNeese State. His tenure, although brief, was effective. The Bulldogs posted their lowest team ERA of this century, 3.48. That led all of Conference USA and is much closer to the standard that Rice strives to achieve.  Five of the pitchers on his staff had sub-3.00 ERAs and three of them pitched complete games.

In addition to what he’ll bring as far as wisdom on the mound, Barton is also an excellent recruiter. Ties to the south are going to be important for Bragga, and Barton certainly checks those boxes. He’s been making an impact on the recruiting trail since his days as the recruiting coordinator at Louisiana-Monroe and has elevated the level of talent at each of his steps along the way.

If Rice intends to put themselves back in the postseason conversation they’re going to need a continual influx of talent, and that takes good recruiters to get. Barton is one more piece to what continues to be a promising staff that Bragga is assembling so far.

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Can Owls pull off a stunning upset in 2018?

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Rice football needs to focus on winning the easy game before they start thinking upset, but a signature win in 2018 is well within the realm of possibility.

At risk of stating the obvious, Mike Bloomgren has never been a college football head coach before. With the inexperience will come an inevitable learning curve, but it also sets the Owls up to play the role of spoiler. Unlike in years past, nobody truly knows what to expect from the Owls in 2018.

A meteoric rise overnight won’t be expected, then again, look at what Scott Frost did at UCF over the past two seasons.  Great coaching (and a little bit of luck) can overcome a multitude of roster issues.  As things stand right now, the talent gap is far too wide for the Owls to compete consistently with most major conference squads. However, a perfect game from the Owls combined with a bad outing from one of their tougher opponents could pave the way for a monumental upset.

Last year it was the Troy Trojans that went into Death Valley and downed the LSU Tigers. Although stunning, the upset wasn’t completely unforeseen. Neal Brown’s squad was coming off a 10-win season the year before and the Trojans were very much so a complete football team. Rice has too many question marks to be expected to exchange haymakers with LSU this go round, but the Owls could ruffle the feathers of their other non-conference foes.

Rice also plays Wake Forest and Houston in 2018. The Demon Deacons have to replace their long-time starting quarterback and have several questions on the other side of the ball. Their defense was subpar last season. They finished in the bottom half of the nation in scoring and were gutted by Texas A&M in the Belk Bowl to end the year. Dave Clawson is an adequate coach, but he’s not turning that unit into a shutdown group overnight. That gives Rice an opportunity, albeit a small one, to make their road trip to Winston Salem a little interesting.

Then there’s Houston. A win in the battle for the Bayou Bucket would be tremendous for the Owls, who have the added benefit of hosting the Cougars early on in the season. Rice opens the season a week before Houston and can use the Prairie View A&M game to work out some of their kinks. Houston, on the other hand, will be opening their season against Rice with not tune up games before their trip to South Main. If Rice can find any way at all to contain Houston pass rusher Ed Oliver they’ll have a fighting chance.

Rice needs to focus on becoming more competitive in their own division first before they start thinking upset. Nevertheless, the possibility of a marquee upset in coach Mike Bloomgren’s first season shouldn’t be ignored. Rice hired him to win games, and if he’s as good as the administration believes he is, that could start soon.

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