From a one-catch campaign to becoming the go-to guy, Rice football wide receiver Matt Sykes has stepped up in big ways when his team has needed him most.
Rice football wide receiver Matt Sykes had the best spring of any player at his position, bar none. It was hard to walk through the halls of the Brian Patterson Center and avoid the chatter about the transfer wideout’s big step forward. Coaches and teammates were quick to speak of his playmaking ability at practices. The drumbeat for a breakthrough season was there.
But at the same time, it was just spring football.
Countless players have shown out in the spring when nobody wearing a different color jersey breaks across the middle of the field and delivers a jarring hit the stakes are lower. Translating practice into game day has always been the differentiator between good and great. Sykes had done all the right things, but he still hadn’t done it on Saturdays, not yet.
Sykes caught one pass in his first season at Rice following a transfer from UCLA. Injuries and inconsistent play kept him from making a more meaningful impact that season. Then came the strong spring and a chaotic fall camp that transformed the Owls’ feel-good story from a luxury to a desperate need. Sykes wasn’t going to be eased into his new role. He was needed now.
Landon Ransom, Rawson MacNeill and Thai Bowman were thought to be the Owls’ top three receivers entering the season. All three of them were injured in some capacity by the time the 2024 season began. Suddenly, Sykes’ emergence was essential.
Debut
In the Owls’ season opener against Sam Houston, Sykes caught six balls for 74 yards, both career-highs in his fifth season of college football. He followed that up with two catches for 47 yards and his first Rice touchdown grab a week later against Texas Southern. For a receiving corps decimated by injuries in need of a playmaker, Sykes delivered.
“I feel a lot more comfortable,” Sykes said, evaluating the difference between his first and second season on South Main. “Getting a lot of reps, just feeling back in my flow. [I’m] really confident, playing fast.”
Sykes would continue to be the primary target for Rice quarterback EJ Warner as the season progressed. As the offense ebbed at flowed, having No. 8 on the field proved to be a positive more often than not. As his production on the field grew, expectations came with it. More and more was asked of Sykes as the offense tried to find its way.
“The thing that I’m most impressed with him and most pleased with him about is that I think he wants to step up. I think he’s capable of doing it. Like I said, he hasn’t arrived yet, but I think he’s on his path to being that guy,” receivers coach Bobby Kennedy said. “Because of him and the way he works, you think, okay, maybe he can get this done. Maybe he can really, really, really be the guy. And if he continues to have some more success, I’m excited to see what happens as games go on because I think he’s got it in him.”
Although so much of what Sykes did on the field was encouraging, there were still growing pains that come with less experienced players growing their roles so quickly. Sykes struggled through some concentration drops against Army and had a pass tip off his hands into the waiting arms of a defender for an interception.
Adversity is part of the game, but it’s also one of the reasons Sykes’ coaches theorize he’d yet to emerge in a significant way on Saturdays. Coaches pointed to a lack of confidence in the old Matt Sykes, a tendency to get in his own head and get rattled with things didn’t go according to plan. The veteran player had struggled when faced with trying situations in the past, but with no relief coming, something was going to have to change.
Sykes responded to a rough start against Army with a flawless touchdown grab later in the game. Then he authored the best game of his college football career.
Against Charlotte the following week Sykes hauled in a career-best eight passes for a career-high 97 yards. A 25-yard reception in the fourth quarter put Rice in position to attempt a game-winning field one play following what could have been a debilitating penalty that set the offense back near midfield.
At that point, the grab was one of the most high-leverage moments in Sykes’ well-traveled career. This time, he made the play.
Miracles
Unfortunately, Rice football didn’t win that game. A missed field goal at the end of a regulation made Sykes’ valiant effort for naught. For as far as he had come to that point, the Owls still needed a little bit more from their new go-to receiver. Could Sykes transcend from reliable to game-changer?
Sykes almost didn’t get that chance. A week and a half later he found himself in a hospital bed, forced to check himself into the emergency room on the Monday evening prior to the Owls’ next game against UTSA. He stayed in the hospital for almost three days. “He was essentially ruled out,” Bloomgren admitted.
The situation got so dire that the team elevated multiple scout team players during the week to take reps with the first team offense. Corner Sean Fresch even made a cameo appearance as a receiving threat. It was all hands on deck with Sykes, regrettably, sidelined.
Then the first miracle happened. Sykes walked out of the hospital and was cleared to return to practice. Members of the coaching staff were making resurrection jokes on the sideline while inwardly breathing sighs of relief that their top passing game option would be on the field, still not knowing for sure how much he’d have in the tank to give. As it turns out, he had plenty.
Days removed from his hospital bed, Sykes hauled in seven receptions for 85 yards, setting a career-high in receiving for the fourth time this season and the third consecutive game. This time, though, it wasn’t just the counting stats that told the story.
With nine seconds remaining on the clock on third down, Rice had the ball at the UTSA 18-yard line trailing by four points with one time-out. Even by conservative estimates, that meant the Owls had time for two shots at the endzone should they require it. Warner took the snap, dropped back and fired a missile to the middle of the field, finding the fingertips of Sykes at the top of the capital C in the white RICE OWLS lettering that adorned the navy blue endzone.
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Blanketed by a defender who had one hand already on his jersey and another swiping at the ball, Sykes momentarily juggled the pigskin in the air before hauling the precious rock into his arms, which smacked the turf in bounds milliseconds later. At that moment, fans listening to the radio broadcast heard longtime Rice Owls Voice announcer JP Heath exclaim, “Matt Sykes pulls down a miracle, back of the endzone, Rice scores.”
Touchdown. Not only had Sykes secured the ball, he’d won Rice the game.
“I knew I was definitely one of the reads to get open on the post and I know EJ likes to take chances with me so I knew, regardless, that I had to win my route,” Sykes said after the game. “I knew that was a must-do, do-or-die moment, so I had to come down with it.”
In so many ways, Sykes’ journey has been unbelievable. A fifth-year senior who had one catch to his name and was bound to a hospital bed just days before had somehow transformed into a storybook ending.
“It’s an amazing feeling,” Sykes said. “I don’t think I’ll ever have something like this again, to feel this great.”
The 2024 version of Matt Sykes remains a work in progress. There will be more highs and lows along the way. But it’s hard to imagine where Rice football would be without him.
“He just became a dominant catcher of the ball, like he was so confident in his ability, he saw the ball in the sky and went and got it,” head coach Mike Bloomgren said of Sykes’ ascension. “That’s the standard he set for himself and what we have to expect of him. When you ask what’s different, I think it came down to confidence in allowing him to grow into the player we thought he could be.”
** This story has been modified from its original version ** Photo credit: Maria Lysaker **
