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Rice Football Recruiting Update: Adding on to 2024

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There’s been a lot of action on the Rice football recruiting front in recent weeks. Here’s the latest on the Owls’ new additions.

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Rice Football 2023: NFL Owls Week 9 Roundup

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Rice Football is well represented on 2023 NFL rosters. Here’s the latest from the NFL Owls in action in Week 9.

There are former Rice football players scattered across the NFL. Stay tuned each week for their game results and notables from each player.

Team NFL Owl(s) This Week Result Next Week
Denver Broncos Elijah Garcia (DL)  — BYE —  — at Bills (MNF)
Detroit Lions Jack Fox (P)  — BYE —  — at Chargers
Indianapolis Colts Kylen Granson (TE) at Panthers W, 27-13 at Patriots
Los Angeles Rams Austin Trammell (WR) at Packers L, 20-3  — BYE —
New England Patriots Calvin Anderson (OL) vs Commanders L, 20-17 vs Colts
Pittsburgh Steelers Chris Boswell (PK) vs Titans W, 20-16 vs Packers
Seattle Seahawks Myles Adams (DL) at Ravens L, 37-3 vs Commanders
Tampa Bay Bucs Nick Leverett (OL) vs Texans L, 39-37 vs Titans

Offense

Calvin Anderson – OT, Patriots

Anderson was inactive for the Patriots’ Week 9 game against the Commanders.

Kylen Granson – TE, Colts

Granson returned to the field after missing the last two weeks with a concussion. He was targeted twice this week but did not record any receptions.

Nick Leverett – OT, Buccaneers

Leverett was active but did not play in the Bucs’ Week 9 game against the Texans.

Austin Trammell – WR, Rams

Trammel was busy on Sunday, returning three punts, one kick return and recording a six yard reception.

Defense

Myles Adams – DL, Seahawks

Adams was inactive for the Seahawks Week 9 game against the Ravens.

Elijah Garcia – DL, Broncos

Garcia and the Broncos were on bye in Week 9.

Special Teams

Jack Fox – P, Lions

Fox and the Lions were on bye in Week 9.

Chris Boswell – K, Steelers

Boswell was perfect once again this week, delivering a pair of short field goals and two extra points in the Steelers’ Thursday Night Football victory over the Titans.

More Owls in the NFL

From practice squads to current free agents, there are other Owls on the cusp of returning to active rosters. Find more detail on current contractual agreements and former Rice football players waiting for their next opportunity here.

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Rice Women’s Basketball silences HCU in historic defensive performance

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Rice women’s basketball pitched a near-perfect defensive performance in their season opener against HCU, holding the Huskies to 38 points in the win.

The crowd filling the lower bowl of Tudor Fieldhouse hadn’t even had time to exhale from their raucous cheering at the opening tip before Rice Women’s Basketball had its first lead of the 2023-2024 season. Malia Fisher won the tip, got the ball to Destiny Jackson and watched as Owls’ senior leader drained a three to put Rice in front.

Those three points by themselves would nearly be enough to preserve the Owls’ advantage in the first half. Rice held Houston Christian to a meager 6.5 percent shooting mark from the field, holding the visiting Huskies to just five first half points, a school record.

“It’s definitely something that we’ve worked really hard on,” head coach Lindsay Edmonds said of her team’s defensive performance, mentioning her team’s experience in her system. “They know exactly what I want and they know what the expectations are.”

It would prove to be the start of a historic defensive performance for the Owls. Just three times in the past 10 seasons had Rice held an opponent to fewer than 40 points. The program record is 28 points, set against Prairie View A&M in 1994. To even be in that conversation is impressive.

Houston Christian entered the fourth quarter with just 17 total points. With history in reach, Rice limited HCU to just 21 more, posting a 70-38 win in their season opener.

Rice women’s basketball didn’t secure a program-best defensive performance — at least not according to the record books — but Edmonds and company will take the win, soak in the strong defensive showing and get to work on tightening up the mistakes.

“Winning is hard. The expectations are set really high for this team and we’re striving for perfection,” Edmonds said. “I feel like tonight we showed in spurts who we are, but I don’t think we played a 40-minute game of Rice women’s basketball. I think there’s definitely some areas that we can clean up and improve in, but [we’re] 1-0 to start the season and I’m proud of them for that.”

Final Box | Rice 70 – HCU 38

Key takeaway | Don’t worry about the offense

Counting the exhibition, this was just the second game this team has played together against people wearing different color jerseys. If you’re going to have some growing pains, it’s best to get them out of the way against opponents the caliber of HCU before getting to the meat of the nonconference schedule — and that is coming — but for now, Rice is happy to take the win and plenty of teaching material.

The offense was never a serious concern for this program under Edmonds, not in the slightest. Rice led Conference USA in field goal percentage last season and would have ranked second by a few percentage points to AAC-leading USF. This team can shoot. The scoring will come.

“There’s going to be nights when the shot doesn’t fall,” Edmonds said. “But the two things that we can control is our defensive intensity and our rebounding effort.”

Rice won the battle of the boards 57 to 32. The defensive performance speaks for itself.

Scoring is volatile. Defense is more absolute. Either you can defend at a high level or you can’t. Monday’s debut game against Houston Christian suggests Rice might be pretty good in that respect. The baskets will come.

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AAC Football 2023: Week 10 Roundup

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AAC Football was back in action this weekend. Here’s the latest from the teams on the gridiron in Week 10.

Team Record  This Week Result Up Next
Charlotte 3-6 (2-3) at Tulsa W, 33-26 (OT) vs Memphis
ECU 1-8 (0-5) vs Tulane L, 13-10 at FAU
FAU 4-5 (2-3) at UAB L, 45-42 vs ECU
Memphis 7-2 (4-1) vs USF W, 59-50 at Charlotte
Navy 3-5 (2-4) at Temple L, 32-18 vs UAB
North Texas 3-6 (1-4) vs UTSA L, 37-29 at SMU
Rice 4-5 (2-3) vs SMU L, 36-31 at UTSA
SMU 7-2 (5-0) at Rice W, 36-31 vs North Texas
Temple 3-6 (1-4) vs Navy W, 32-18 at USF
Tulane 8-1 (5-0) at ECU W, 13-10 vs Tulsa
Tulsa 3-6 (1-4) vs Charlotte L, 33-26 (OT) at Tulane
UAB 3-6 (2-3) vs FAU W, 45-42 at Navy
USF 4-5 (2-3) at Memphis L, 59-50 vs Temple
UTSA 5-3 (5-0) at North Texas W, 37-29 vs Rice

Notable Results (Standings)

Survive and advance

Tulane, UTSA and SMU remain unbeaten in league play, posting a combined 15-0 perfect record, but that doesn’t mean it was smooth sailing to get there. All three faced scares of various degrees this weekend, with Tulane and SMU facing do-or-die defensive stands to close out the game in the fourth quarter against teams that now sport losing conference records.

Not in last!

Charlotte found a way to edge Tulsa on Saturday, giving them two conference wins and officially lifting them to at least fifth from worst in the league standings. It’s not last place, to headman Biff Poggi’s delight, but it isn’t exactly a resounding success either. The 49ers sit at 3-6 in need of three more wins to reach bowl eligibility, let alone contend in the conference against the better teams.

On the board

Temple got its first AAC win this weekend, taking care of business against Navy thanks to quarterback EJ Warner being back in the lineup. There are no guarantees the Owls would have had a significantly better season without Warner’s injury, but it’s encouraging to see them right the ship with their trusty signal caller back at the helm.

Looking ahead – Key storylines

QB-who?

Rice and SMU both lost starting quarterbacks in their game this past weekend with Preston Stone and JT Daniels returning to the fields without their helmets after hits to the head. Whether or not they’re cleared this week we’ll be a critical storyline to follow for both squads. Rice is fighting for bowl eligibility and SMU still has very real conference championship aspirations.

Postseason possibilities on the table

We’ve reached the point of the calendar when the middle-tier teams in the conference standings are going to start to feel the pressure to secure their tickets to the postseason. There’s one such do-or-die matchup for both squads next weekend when Navy visits UAB. Both have a game to spare in the loss column, but this is a game both sides likely feel they should be able to win.

Gotta take care of business

The race for the top of the AAC remains razor thin, with one-loss Memphis still very much alive as we enter the final stretch. None of the top four play each other this weekend, but the margin for error could be as little as one game. All four (Tulane, UTSA, SMU and Memphis) should be favorites, but they’d better make sure they take care of business if they want a shot at a conference crown in a few weeks.

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Rice Football valiant comeback effort falls short against SMU

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Rice Football pushed another AAC heavyweight to the brink on Saturday, but came up short with a backup quarterback, falling to SMU at home.

Down to a true freshman backup quarterback for the entirety of the second half, Rice football hung around and had their chance to knock off SMU, one of the AAC’s three remaining teams to be unbeaten in league play. Chase Jenkins led multiple scoring drives but was picked off in the final minutes as the Owls fell on Homecoming night.

“It’s a win business. And the fun is in the winning and we all know that,” Rice football head coach Mike Bloomgren said in his comments after the game. “They’ve been trained in that way they understand that, but I told them it doesn’t change the fact that I’m incredibly proud of them and how they fought in the second half of this ballgame through a lot of adversity and gave them a chance to win against an incredibly talented football team. That’s something we never could have done in years past.”

Here are a few immediate reactions from the game:

Special teams show out

It’s been a bumpy road for the Rice football special teams this season. Following a particularly disastrous day against UConn, which featured a missed field goal and a muffed punt, head coach Mike Bloomgren delivered a rather confident defense of special teams coordinator Pete Alamar, promising better days.

“What I do know, is we have the best special teams coordinator I’ve ever been around in Pete Alamar and I trust him to fix it,” Bloomgren said that night. “I’ll certainly do everything I can to help him.”

The Owls haven’t kicked many field goals since then and the punting hasn’t been noticeably improved, but Saturday’s start was just about the best showing that phase of the football has had all season. In the span of a few minutes, the Rice special teams accomplished the following: snuffed out a fake punt, kicked a 50-yard punt and finally blocked an SMU punt and returned it for a touchdown.

Rice was never going to have a chance in this game if they didn’t find a way to compete on special teams. That unit gave the Owls a chance. Quinton Jackson added a 44-yard kickoff return. Tim Horn made a fourth quarter field goal. In just about every special teams phase, Rice had success.

Manufacturing an offense

In baseball, there’s a concept of manufacturing runs. When the bats aren’t swatting the ball all over the yard, managers resort to stealing bases, bunts, sac flies and everything else they can scheme up to find a way to get a run. The terminology carries with it the idea of stealing points when you’re not having a banner day on the offensive side.

Onlookers at Rice Stadium witnessed the football equivalent on Saturday night. The Rice offense totaled minus one yard in the first quarter. Quarterback JT Daniels was sacked three times before he registered his third completion of the night and the running game wasn’t working. The SMU defense was overwhelming the Rice line and the offense was stuck.

Yet somehow, Rice went into halftime with 21 points, trailing by just a field goal.

In what has to be one of the most impressive offensive performances we’ve seen at South Main this year, offensive coordinator Marques Tuisosopo was — as the kids say — in his bag. There were tight ends in motion, jet sweeps, reverses, lots of orbit motions and more importantly, extended drives that kept the SMU offense off the field.

If Rice kept everything vanilla, it felt as if the SMU front would have blown them off the field. They dialed up the creativity and pulled out almost every stop. Credit to all parties involved — coaches and players — for finding a way to make this game extremely competitive, starting quarterback or not.

Nights like tonight expose the quality of your scheme. When everything goes wrong, can you still move the ball? Rice was able to do that in very challenging circumstances against the best defense in the conference with a backup quarterback. There are no moral victories, but the coaching staff absolutely carried their weight on Saturday night.

Where’s JT?

So many Rice football seasons under Bloomgren have featured a familiar, painful narrative: quarterback injuries. Even after JT Daniels left the USF game with an ankle injury the Owls felt like they’d escaped the curse when their rugged signal caller returned the following week to play against UConn. The undeniable willpower of No. 18 made this season feel different.

And while the Owls’ season is not anywhere close to finished, watching Daniels view yet another game from the sidelines was a punch to the gut Rice fans had thought they’d put well behind them in the rearview mirror.

Chase Jenkins took the first snap of the third quarter while Daniels was nowhere to be found on the Owls’ sideline. He would later emerge from the Brian Patterson Center and walk down to the field with a ball camp on his head and no helmet in sight. That sight — Daniels alone on the sideline as the offense took the field — was absolutely crushing.

Bloomgren revealed he wasn’t aware Daniels was in any danger of missing time when he entered the locker room at halftime. Daniels was then taken away by team doctors and examined where it was then revealed he did not remember his final drive or the score of the game.

The game could have been over at that point, but Jenkins wasn’t going to roll over. Jenkins finished 10-for-16 with 85 yards passing. He ran the ball four times for 21 yards, including a long of 14 yards. He led multiple scoring drives against an elite SMU defense. You couldn’t have asked for much more from a true freshman backup quarterback who started the season working with the scout team.

Playing on fumes

The secondary entered the game without Marcus Williams or Jojo Jean available. Sean Fresch and Gabe Taylor each spent time on the turf during the game, with Taylor unable to finish the game and Fresch willing the defense to hold together. When logic dictated the defense should be out of gas, they delivered their best moments of the entire game.

Following a touchdown drive by the Mustangs to start the second half, the Rice defense limited SMU to just six points for the remainder of the contest, much of which came when SMU starting quarterback Preston Stone was still in the game.

Bloomgren acknowledged the effort. “The way those guys fought, that’s what it comes down to,” he said. Those guys just fought together and for each other. That’s a beautiful thing. That’s really cool.”

Margin

Earlier in the season, Rice football head coach Mike Bloomgren talked about margin. He talked about this team being talented enough to win games, even when they weren’t having their best day. After Saturday’s result, Rice has itself wrestling with a new kind of margin, the kind that ties directly to bowl eligibility.

Sitting at 4-5, below .500 for the first time this season, Rice now must win two of its final three games to secure six wins and clinch bowl eligibility. They had back-to-back “quality losses” but that doesn’t matter on the final ledger. If they didn’t already, the Owls officially have their backs up against the wall.

When asked whether the team was feeling that pressure, Bloomgren remained resolute. “We talked about UTSA. You know how we’re going to take this,” he said. It’s going to be one [game] at a time. It’s not going to be about margin. It’s not going to be about anything.”

“They all can see big picture. They’re smart kids; they go to Rice, but for us, we’re going to talk about the things that matter and preparing the right way. And what a big win it would be next week in the Alamodome if we can have a great week of practice and find a way to get that thing done.”

Rice has three games left: at UTSA, at Charlotte, vs FAU. They’ve played some really good football in recent weeks, but they’re running out of time to cash in on positive performances that come without a win on the final scoreboard.

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