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Two freshmen break through defensive depth chart, Practice notes (10/4)

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Rice football is getting younger. Freshman linebacker Antonio Montero and safety Prudy Calderon are set to start on defense against UTSA.

Head coach Mike Bloomgren has been adamant that every player on this team has to earn the right to be on the field. Only a few young players have done that so far, but the starting units are getting younger, a trend that is likely to strengthen in the coming weeks.

Linebacker Antonio Montero and wide receiver Brendan Harmon became the first true freshman to start a game for the Owls in 2018, suiting up with the first team against Wake Forest in Week 5. They follow a pair of redshirt freshmen, cornerback Tyrae Thornton and receiver Rhett Cardwell each of whom have drawn spot starts earlier this year.

Montero credits his insertion into the starting lineup with the tremendous progress he’s made since the start of fall camp. “I’m playing a lot faster and more physical,” he said, “I’ve been getting a lot better with the mental aspect of the game, too.” He’s not alone, joining him and the other starters on defense in Week 6 against UTSA will be his roommate, safety Prudy Calderdon.

This will be Calderon’s first start of his collegiate career. He will be the 17th different Rice player making their first career start so far in 2018. Getting this opportunity required work, and Calderdon says he knows it’s going to have to continue to push himself if he wants to maintain his starting job going forward. “I can’t slack off for one second. This makes me want to go even harder now knowing what’s on the line,” they young safety declared, adding “I just have to go out and prove myself.”

Special teams

Special teams continue to get plenty of emphasis during practice. One of the few things the Owls’ highly ranked unit hasn’t accomplished so far is a kick return touchdown. Austin Walter and Austin Trammell have solidified themselves on the first team with Nashon Ellerbee and Aston Walter backing them up. That’s a lot of speed and quickness. Sooner or later, one of them is going to take one to the house.

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Gio Gentosi revitalizing the fullback position at Rice

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The 2018 Rice football team has a few new faces, but none have made as much of an early impact on the Owls as graduate transfer fullback Gio Gentosi.

Graduate transfer Gio Gentosi spent the vast majority of his collegiate career at UCLA. Although he played sparingly on special teams and limited packages he had the opportunity to see the Stanford Cardinal play in person several times. He always came away in awe.

A fullback by trade, Gentosi is part of an exclusive line of hardnosed hitters that are slowly becoming relics of the past. Gentosi is as fit as he’s ever been, but the fullback position continues to fade into the background as the spread and tempo offenses of modern college football become more and more normative.

For fullbacks, there aren’t many options. When Gentosi watched Mike Bloomgren’s offense at Stanford he knew he wanted to be a part of it, calling it the “dream school for fullbacks” during Rice football media days earlier this fall. Fast-forward a few short months — Gio Gentosi is living the dream.

Gentosi is seeing more of the field than he ever did at UCLA, getting more playing time with the Owls in 2018 than he’s seen since his high school days. The uptick in usage, which continues to climb with each successive game, has already led to career marks for Gentosi, who posted more yardage against Wake Forest (three carries for 31 yards) than any other game of his collegiate career.

And there could be more.

Mike Bloomgren called Gentosi “a weapon” that he’s “got to find ways to feed.” The first-year coach isn’t one for empty words. If he’s calling something out, it’s because he believes in it. Bloomgren’s offense requires the use of some sort of big-bodied bruiser to do the dirty work in the trenches. Gentosi was running over everyone last weekend, taking out multiple players blow by blow.

When asked about how he approaches the position, he shied away from the highlight reel plays, emphasizing the importance of good blocking. “Running the ball isn’t really the goal of that position,” he said, with one interesting caveat. If the Owls find themselves on fourth-and-goal with the game on the line, Gentosi knows what play he wants to see called. In front of the media during the Owls’ weekly press conference, Gentosi grinned, looked at coach Bloomgren and said — “I’d like to see a fullback dive.” As well as Gentosi has been playing, it wouldn’t come as a surprise.

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Mike Bloomgren evaluates early season results, presser notes (10/2)

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Rice football coach Mike Bloomgren didn’t mince words in his presser entering Saturday’s game against UTSA. He offered honest feedback on his team’s production across the board.

The press conference kicked off on a sober note as head coach Mike Bloomgren gave a few final remarks about his team’s performance against Wake Forest. Turnovers combined with a slow start put the Owls in an early hole from which they were never able to recover. Through the challenging situation, he remained unwavering in his belief of his team.

“As we sit here in this tough time I think our unity and our culture is going to shine through,” Bloomgren declared, “What I think you have right now is a hungry football team, to get back home play another conference opponent and put a much better product on the field for four quarters this Saturday.”

Quarterback

Playing for quarters starts with the position that gets more credit when the Owls win and more blame when they lose: quarterback. Bloomgren called the play of Shawn Stankavage “a little up and down” through the first five games of the season, offering a succinct critique for his starting quarterback, “the reality is he’s got to play better for our offense to be efficient and operate the way we want it to.”

Don’t read too far between he lines on that one. There isn’t any turmoil at the quarterback position. Stankavage is the Owls’ starter, and has shown early on in the season he can progress in his understanding and command of the offense. As coach says, he just needs to keep learning and executing.

Running back

It didn’t take long for Bloomgren to acknowledge his star running back Austin Walter, currently ranked No. 1 in the nation in all-purpose yards. He gleamed with pride, mentioning that Walter is the kind of player that “makes coaches look smart.”

Offensive line

Perhaps the most bothersome unit on offense thus far, Bloomgren expressed concerns with how his front five had progressed throughout the year. “We’re having problems with plays that we’ve repped multiple times against the same look, being able to perform and execute those assignments in games,” he said. Not a problem he hoped to be dealing with at this point of the season.

The onus, in Bloomgren’s eyes, falls on the players on the field. “I’m a sideline away if someone doesn’t block the right dude,” he acknowledged, “more than anything we need that to be the mentality in the huddle during the week” adding “the technique, all the stuff in the weight room doesn’t come into play if we don’t block the right dude”

Dependability is the sticking point as this position, something which has opened up doors for other players in the past few weeks.

New faces

Although he stressed that the title “starter” wasn’t important, Bloomgren did name a few players that had elevated their play to warrant more playing time. Antonio Montero, Brendan Harmon, Cole Garcia and Gio Gentossi were all mentioned by name during the press conference.

At the end of the day “every rep you see if earned,” emphasized Bloomgren, before elaborating with “some of our more dependable players right now are some of those young guys and new guys to our program”

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Potential depth chart changes, practice notes (10/1)

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Rice football returns to conference play against UTSA in Week 6. Recent results should play an impact in which players see the most of the field against the Roadrunners.

As of Monday, there were no official changes to the starters on either side of the ball. But, that doesn’t mean new faces won’t be involved against UTSA on Saturday. Prudy Calderon has seen an uptick in time with the first team and could push for a starting spot in the coming weeks.

Mike Bloomgren directly made mention of left guard Cole Garcia and fullback Gio Gentossi. Garcia is challenging Jack Greene along the interior of the offensive line whereas Gentossi. Gentossi is in the mix with several guys at fullback and tight end has seen some playing time this year. The injury to Jordan Meyers has opened up more opportunities for him, and he’s taken advantage of those. He’s another guy that will continue to see more snaps.

Outside of those areas, I don’t expect to see many wholesale changes against UTSA. Antonio Montero, Kebreyun Page and Jason White are a few guys to keep an eye on for down the road.

Bloomgren says the goal of opening up position battles during the season is to “make people the best version of themselves” and “get everyone else to play at the level of our leaders.” Competition makes everyone better, and this team still has plenty of room for improvement.

Senior linebacker Martin Nwakamma echoed the need for improvement and thinks the team is headed in the right direction. As one of the teams eldest members, Nwakamma would know as well as anyone what progress looks like. He said there was “no silver bullet”, but he could see things like turnovers and big plays begin to happen more frequently when the team studied and executed the gameplan more carefully.

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This week in CUSA – Looking ahead at Week 6

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Rice football dropped a road contest at Wake Forest in Week 5. How did the rest of the conference fare and what’s next for Conference USA football in Week 6?

Team Last Week Result This Week
Charlotte at UAB L, 28-7 — OFF —
FAU at MTSU L, 24-25 vs ODU
FIU vs UAPB W, 29-27 — OFF —
LaTech at UNT W, 55-9 vs UAB
Marshall at WKU W, 20-17 vs MTSU
MTSU vs FAU W, 25-24 at Marshall
North Texas vs LaTech L, 29-27 at UTEP
ODU at ECU L, 37-35 at FAU
Rice at Wake Forest L, 24-56 vs UTSA
Southern Miss at Auburn L, 24-13  — OFF —
UAB vs Charlotte W, 28-7 at LaTech
UTEP at UTSA L, 30-21 vs UNT
UTSA vs UTEP W, 30-21 at Rice
WKU vs Marshall L, 17-20  — OFF —

Notable Week 3 results

Turn the conference upside down

North Texas and FAU were expected to be fixtures atop Conference USA in 2018. FAU had the misfortune of running into Oklahoma and UCF early on this season but looked to be more than competent in their other games. Sitting at 2-2, few had any doubts the Owls were poised to put together a new winning streak.

The same was true for North Texas. The Mean Green were 4-0 entering Week 5 including a blowout win over Arkansas on the road. Mason Fine was lighting up defenses left and right and didn’t look to be slowing down any time soon.

Then FAU fell to Middle Tennessee and North Texas was upset by Louisiana Tech. All of a sudden, the frontrunners in CUSA are a game back in conference play. Both schools have enough talent to bounce back contender for a title, but the path got significantly harder for each on Saturday. North Texas hosts FAU in November.

Short-lived celebration

ODU shocked the college football world when they upset a ranked Virginia Tech team at home in Week 4. Part of what made the win so stunning was the Monarch’s 0-3 record entering the game. They fell to ECU on Saturday, falling to 0-4 in games against teams not nicknamed the Hokies.

Take me home

After playing home games against Prairie View A&M and Houston to start the season, Rice football hit the road to play three games in four weeks. The time away from home has not been kind to the Owls, who dropped all three contests, the latest coming on Saturday against Wake Forest.

Week 4 storylines

Sorry, UTEP

The Miners are still looking for their first win. They fell to UTSA by nine points, but just when things were starting to look like they were trending in the right direction they draw a frustrated North Texas team that will be looking to pour on some points. It’s going to be another long weekend in El Paso.

Did FIU fall into the driver’s seat?

The Panthers own two close losses to Power 5 teams, falling to Indiana by 10 points and Miami by 14 points. Other than that, they’ve powered through the rest of their schedule. FAU’s loss in Week 5 plus further chaos in Week 6 when FIU has an off week could launch them into a win by Middle Tennessee over Marshall could put them in a three-way tie atop the East before their next game.

Time to prove it.

Louisiana Tech’s upset of North Texas was one of the most surprising results of the weekend. The Bulldogs recovered two fumbles and blocked the potential game-winning field goal at the end of regulation. If one or two balls bounce a different way, North Texas is still undefeated. Louisiana Tech can take the first step in proving last week’s result wasn’t a fluke by defeating UAB in Week 6.

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