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17 Days: Owls must start stronger in 2018

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Rice football didn’t get off to many fast starts last season, forcing the team to play catch up all year. Can they become a better first quarter team?

Ultimately it’s not how you get the points that matter, it’s having more of those points than the other team when the clock reads 00:00. Rice only outscored their opponent though for quarters once in 2017. A tendency to start slow did them in several times, forcing them to play catch up and put up a dearth of garbage time stats.

Rice scored 17 points in the first quarter last season. That’s 12 first quarters and 17 points, which averages out to about 1.4 points per quarter. Not great. The Owls also seemed to move a bit slower after halftime, posting their second-lowest scoring quarter then:

Score by quarters  1st  2nd  3rd  4th  Total 
Rice  17 56 43 79 195
Opponents  142 136 79 72 429

The skewed distribution of the Owls’ 2017 scoring comes into focus further on a percentage basis. Rice scored only nine percent of their total points in the first 15 minutes of regulation. That makes for a sizable deficit when compared to their opponents who scored nearly a third of their total points in the first quarter alone:

Score by quarters  1st  2nd  3rd  4th  Total 
Rice  9% 29% 22% 41% 100%
Opponents  33% 32% 18% 17% 100%

No matter which way you look at it, Rice needs to find a way to be more productive at the beginning of games. Setting the tone by getting on the board early is going to be extremely important in Mike Bloomgren’s first year as the head coach.

Intellectual Brutality, in terms of the physical pounding the Owls hope to deliver, will take its toll on teams later in the game. Tired teams make mistakes, hopefully opening the door for opportunities later in the Rice offense. That, combined with a strong start, should move the needle on the win column in 2018.

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18 Days: Owls boast rich history of All-Americans

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Through the highs and lows, Rice football has produced plenty of talented players. The Owls boast 18 All-American selections in school history including six consensus selections.

Some eras of Rice football have been objectively much better than others. The Owls have had their down years, but there have always been a few transcendent players sprinkled in to inject bursts of excitement. Over the century-plus of Rice football, the Owls have had 18 players named All-Americans.

Two Owls received the honor twice, Trevor Cobb in 1991 and 1992 and Jarrett Dillard in 2006 and 2008. Six Owls put together impressive enough seasons to be honored as consensus All-Americans: Cobb in 1992 as well as Weldon Humble (1946), Froggy Williams (1949), Dicky Maegle (1954), Buddy Dial (1958) and Tommy Kramer (1976).

The eras of college football have moved the measuring stick of what constitutes an All-American. Here’s the full list of the Owls’ honorees, including some notable stats from their All-American seasons.

Rice Football All-Americans

Consensus (bold)

Bill Wallace, 1934 – 1978 College Football Hall of Fame inductee
H.J. Nichols, 1944 – first lineman honored as an All-American
Weldon Humble, 1946 – 1961 College Football Hall of Fame inductee
Froggy Williams, 1949 – Rice’s all-time leading scorer with 156 career points
Joe Watson, 1949 – three-time All-SWC selection
Bill Howton, 1951 – future four-time Pro Bowler and Green Bay Packers Hall of Fame inductee
John Hudson, 1953 – versatile player than converted from defensive tackle to offensive guard
Kosse Johnson, 1953 – also an AP and FWAA first-team selection
Dicky Maegle, 1954 – led the Owls to Cotton Bowl victory over Alabama
King Hill, 1957 – 798 yards passing, four passing touchdowns
Buddy Dial, 1958 – 264 yards receiving, four receiving touchdowns
Malcolm Walker, 1964 – two-way player, center on offense and linebacker on defense
Tommy Kramer, 1976 – 3,317 yards passing, 21 touchdowns
Steve Kidd, 1985 – 45.9 punting average
Trevor Cobb, 1991, 1992 – 3,078 rushing yards, 25 touchdowns over two seasons
Charles Torello, 1997 – offensive guard and former walk on
Jarett Dillard, 2006, 2008 – 34 receiving touchdowns, 2,367 yards over two seasons
Kyle Martens, 2010 – 46.0 punting average

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Offensive and defensive standouts from scrimmage (8/6)

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Rice football held a full scrimmage at practice on Monday, August 6 with the offense and defense going head to head. Here are a few standouts on each side.

The offense and the defense each had their moments in an evening affair that drained the final slivers of sunlight from the sky. The blazing ball of fire was nowhere to be seen overhead as the final players made their way off the practice field. Like head coach Mike Bloomgren told the team this week, it’s an “All Ball, all day” kind of week.

With no classes to distract them the team got down to business. Bloomgren wanted to hold reserve judgment until he had a chance to look at the film, but couldn’t help but crack a smile as he talked the high-level of play the Owls got from several players on Monday. The physicality of the team is growing. “I wouldn’t say we’re there,” he grinned, “but I like where we’re heading.”

With that in mind, here are three guys from each side of the ball that had impressive showings on Monday:

Offense

Austin Walter – Running back

Walter is as slippery and quick as they come. A major theme of Monday’s practice was moving the ball horizontally to create space vertically. Walter beat his man to the edge of the formation and accelerated time and time again. The Owls had several running backs have good evenings, but Walter’s consistency stood out.

Gio Gentosi – Fullback

The first touchdown of scrimmage was scored by UCLA transfer Gio Gentosi, a fullback. The first team offense took to the field with Gentosi in the backfield in front of Austin Walter, paving the way for the smaller, quicker back. Gentosi had a pair of designed runs himself with the second finding the endzone. Head coach Mike Bloomgren preaches physicality. It doesn’t get much grittier than fullbacks doing work in the trenches.

Austin Trammell – Wide receiver

Aaron Cephas had a nice snag in traffic, but it was Austin Trammell that won the day with his hands. The slot receiver looked like he was playing with glue on his gloves and is becoming a safety net on the inside for the Owls’ quarterbacks. With lots of question marks at the position, Trammell looks to be a lock to see a lot of playing time this season.

Defense

Dasharm Newsome – Safety

Newsome might have had the hardest hit of the practice, rocketing out of the defensive backfield to stop a ballcarrier dead in his tracks. The hit reverberated around the practice field as his teammates cheered. Having someone in centerfield ready to deliver a blow will be key for the Owls this fall.

Blaze Alldredge – linebacker

Not once, but twice during the evening session did Alldredge completely blow up a play from his inside linebacker spot. The first hit knocked quarterback Sam Glaesmann to the ground as the ball fell to the turf – the first turnover of the evening. The second would have resulted in a sack had Alldredge been permitted to make the hit. The offense just wasn’t able to stop him slicing through the gap and creating havoc. Fellow linebackers Antonio Montero and Kebreyun Page impressed as well.

Zach Abercrumbia – Defensive tackle

The senior leader of the defense proved his importance early and often. With Roe Wilkins alongside, Abercrumbia collapsed pocket after pocket and made things difficult for all of the Owls’ quarterbacks. It’s clear that the defensive line is one of the deepest position groups on this team and Abercrumbia is the heart and soul of that unit.

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19 Days: Mike Bloomgren the 19th coach in school history

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Mike Bloomgen is the 19th coach in Rice football history, joining a rich tradition which dates all the way back to 1912.

It all began with a 3-2 season in 1912 led by Phil Arbuckle, the first Rice football coach in school history. His 11-years in charge, albeit with a gap in 1918 when John Anderson led the team, set a precedent for long-tenured coaches at South Main.

Although there have been stretches with more turnover than others, Rice has had relatively few men in charge of the football program over the last three decades. Since Fred Goldsmith took over in 1989, Rice has had five head coaches: Goldsmith (five seasons), Ken Hatfield (12 seasons), Todd Graham (one season), David Baliff (eight seasons) and now Mike Bloomgren.

Limited turnover hasn’t necessitated sustained success. The Owls have two conference championships to their name over the last 60 years, a number which contrasts sharply with the six championships they won in the SWC from 1934 to 1957, a span of just 22 seasons. The majority of those championships came under the leadership of all-time great Jess Neely.

Neely’s career record of 144-124-10 isn’t awe-inspiring, but his 12-year stretch from 1946 to 1957 was arguably the most successful era of Rice football. During that period the Owls finished inside the top 10 nationally four times, climbing as high as No. 5 in the nation at the conclusion of the 1949 season.

Since Neely finished with a career 53.7 percent winning percentage no other Owls’ coach that lasted more than a single season has finished with an above .500 record. There have only been three coaches in school history to accomplish the feat, Neely, Arbuckle and Jimmy Kitts. If Bloomgren can get the Owls back to level he’ll already be among some of the most successful coaches Rice football has ever had.

19 is a lot of coaches, but if things break the right way, the Owls won’t have to start looking for No. 20 for quite some time.

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20 Days: Owls will use punting to their advantage

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Irrespective of struggles on offense and defense last season, the Rice football punting game via the leg of Jack Fox consistently produced impactful plays.

Rice football didn’t have many statistical boons to celebrate last season. Though the Owls issues on both sides of the ball the leg of their all-CUSA punter, Jack Fox, was not one of them. As a junior in 2017 Fox booted 56 punts. His 44.3 average was a top-20 mark in the nation and one of the brightest spots for the Owls last year.

Calling Fox an offensive weapon might be a stretch, but it’s true that he did more to flip the field than the starting 11 did most of the time. Just once in 2017 did he tallied fewer than 100 total punting yards, a loss to Southern Miss. Other than that Fox topped 200 yards with his leg six times and went over 300 yards on three separate occasions.

Fox blasted the eighth-most punts in the nation as a sophomore in 2016. His overall totals fell last season, but he’s got more than enough leg to kick it long whenever Rice calls upon him.

From his sophomore to his junior season Fox saw his effectiveness improve. He averaged 40.7 yards per punt as a sophomore before upping that average by more than 3.5 yards last season. Another bump up in distance would put him within range of last years’ leading punter, Michael Dickson of Texas. Dickson holds the distinction of being the first punter selected in the 2017 NFL Draft.

Fox was named to the Ray Guy watch list. He called it “an honor” to be listed alongside some of the best punters in the nation. Rather than be content there, Fox wants to get better. He hopes to boost his average to 45 yards per punt in 2018, a mark which would put him in the conversation to take home the award this fall.

If Rice truly intends to pick up a few more wins in 2018 out-punting their opponents won’t suffice. But that doesn’t mean an effective punter won’t play a meaningful role in the Owls future successes. Rice doesn’t have a roster overflowing with talent. Fox is one of the most talented players they have. While he’s here, the Owls had best make use of him.

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