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Rice Football 2021: Pre-Texas offensive tweaks and practice notes

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Rice football needs to rebound on offense in the worst way this week. Here’s what’s changing headed into the Texas game and some other practice notes.

Neither side of the ball was happy with how they performed against Houston last Saturday. Noticeably eager to put rinse the bad taste away, Rice football hit the practice field hard this week getting in work despite a minor disruption from Hurrican Nicholas.

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For those checking in for the first time, or those returning, a quick programming note. Practice reports are reserved for our subscribers. If you want updates on how Rice football plans to deploy its quarterbacks, position battles, standouts, injuries and more, this is your go-to source. You can get access to all practice notes, recruiting updates and special features like this one when you subscribe to our All-American Tier on Patreon today.

Scheme adjustments prior to the Texas game

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Rice Football 2021: Texas presser quotes, practice notes and depth chart

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Rice football hits the road again this weekend to face Texas. Here’s what Mike Bloomgren had to say about it, injury updates and practice notes.

This is the first of a couple of updates coming this week as Rice football prepares to take on Texas. We’ll include updates from head coach Mike Bloomgren’s midweek press conference, then dig further into the details on the depth chart and what the team looks like on the field headed into the weekend.

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While some attention was given to Texas, much of this week’s discussion revolved around the Houston game. Bloomgren was able to shed greater clarity on what went wrong and offer some comments on how the Owls plan to fix those issues. Practice notes are lighter with the hurricane throwing a wrench in the typical schedule. Expect a deeper breakdown on that front later in the week. First, the quotes:

Press Conference Quotes

“We just think he gives our team the best opportunity to be succesful, not only today, but going forward. There’s thing that he brings to the position and to the team that are diferent. The ability to affect the game with his legs. The ability to keep plays alive. When he’s comfortable and stands in there and throws or when he’s on the move, he’s got a super strong arm. But the ability to keep plays going and do things with his legs are really the reasons right now.” – Mike Bloomgren on the decision to start Luke McCaffrey at QB

“Going back to the commonality of the opponent, I think it should be very encouraging to our guys to watch what we did against Arkansas and and watch [Texas against Arkansas], and know that we can go stand toe to toe with these guys. If we just stick to our fundamentals, listen to our coaches and play our butts off, we’ll have a chance to stand toe to toe in front of these guys, get the game to the fourth quarter and hopefully find a way to win that thing.” – Mike Bloomgren on the common opponent with Texas

“I think when you go into and yoilook at the schedule and you get to play those old South West Conference teams, I think a lot of our fan base was excited. I think they’d like us to beat a couple of them, and certainly we would like that as well. But you look back at the history of this game and how many times it’s been played, it’s a great rivalry. Now, it’s been a little bit of a one sided rivalry, right? I think the last win we have in this program is 1994, but we’ve done a lot of firsts in the last three years and we’d sure like to find a way to earn this victory. And our guys are going to work our butts off to try and make that our reality.” – Mike Bloomgren on rekindling the rivalry with Texas, SWC opponents

“We have grown so much. Being here for four years, I’ve seen a lot of downs and those downs have been really hard. I think we’re on the trajectory of going up and on Saturday that obviously was not showing our progress, but we’re on the way there.”  – Shea Baker on the growth in the program since Rice last played Texas in 2019

“We felt like we’ve played good corners but not full games, and that’s not good enough. Anytime that the offense gets the ball, we can’t let them score, it’s as simple as that, especially not in the red zone. We haven’t been good enough in the red zone. We given up too many points, which I know will get corrected. I believe in it. I believe in our scheme, our players. Not not the way we wanted to start our season defensively, but we have 10 more games.” – Antonio Montero on the play of the defense

Depth Chart

The Rice football depth chart was updated following the Houston game. The primary changes were injury related.

Depth Chart Changes and injuries

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Rice Baseball: 2021 MLB Owls update – Sep 11

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The 2021 MLB season is underway and Rice baseball alums are busy on the mound and at the plate. Here’s the latest from the MLB Owls from this week.

Glen Otto – Texas Rangers

Otto was handed his first big league loss this week, allowing eight runs on eight hits in 3.1 innings against the Oakland A’s. The tough outing inflated his ERA from below 2.00 to 6.92. He struck out five.

Through September 11, Otto has a 6.92 ERA with a 1.231 WHIP. He’s averaging 11.1 strikeouts per nine innings.

Brock Holt – Texas Rangers

Holt is scheduled to begin a rehab stint at AAA Round Rock on Sunday. He’s been on the COVID-19/Injured List since August 23.

Through September 11, Holt is hitting .208 with 14 extra-base hits, 22 walks and 40 strikeouts. His OPS is .580 and he’s collected 19 RBI.

Tyler Duffey – Minnesota Twins

This was one of Duffey’s busiest weeks of the 2021 season. He appeared in four games, recording one save, one hold and a win. He allowed just one hit over 4.0 innings pitched with four strikeouts, allowing no walks and no runs.

Through September 11, Duffey has a 3.27 ERA with a 1.357 WHIP. He’s averaging 8.4 strikeouts per nine innings.

Lucas Luetge – New York Yankees

Luetge appeared in three games this week, working across multiple innings on two separate occasions. He allowed three hits, struck out three batters and walked three, but was charged with just one run in 3.2 innings of work.

Through September 11, Luetge has a 2.84 ERA with a 1.140 WHIP. He’s averaging 9.7 strikeouts per nine innings.

J.T. Chargois – Tampa Bay Rays

Chargois also saw three appearances this week, but struggled in his latter two outings. He was charged with a blown save against the Red Sox on Wednesday, allowing a go-ahead home run to Hunter Renfroe.

Through September 11, Chargois has a 2.54 ERA with a 1.065 WHIP. He’s averaging 8.0 strikeouts per nine innings.

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Rice football: Owls must put Bayou Bucket loss behind them, quickly

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Nothing went right for Rice football in a frustrating loss to Houston in the Bayou Bucket. Where do the Owls go from here?

“We can’t go out there and do what we just did,” Rice football defensive tackle Elijah Garcia said, point-blank following a particularly discouraging loss to crosstown rival, Houston. “It hurt. It was embarrassing. We just got to do better.”

From a defensive perspective, it seems plausible that better days are indeed ahead. Rice allowed 18.8 points per game last year in a schedule limited to five conference opponents. Through two games in 2021, Rice has allowed 41 points per game with largely the same personnel, with a few parts and pieces swapped out via injury or transfer. Surely, the defense will revert closer to that standard once the schedule eases up.

But the offense, that’s a tougher sell. To borrow a word from Rice football head coach Mike Bloomgren in the aftermath of Saturday’s loss, this team looked a lot like its head coach felt: “shellshocked”.

That’s how Bloomgren opened his brief comments with the media following the loss. And that’s how this team looked in the first quarter of a game that — on paper — was more favorable to the Owls’ chances of winning than their previous contest. Except Rice managed to hang with their Week 1 SEC opponent, Arkansas, well into the fourth quarter. The Houston game felt like it might be out of reach in the first 15 minutes of regulation.

More: Takeaways from disappointing Rice football loss to Houston

Rice football has now played 86 minutes and 16 seconds of game time since Wiley Green hit August Pitre on a wide-open 44-yard bomb to open the third quarter against Arkansas. They have seven total points to show for it. Rice averaged 23.4 points per game last season. They’re down to 14 points per game in 2021, a small sample, but still a noticeable reduction.

“I thought we would be able to fight them tooth and nail,” Bloomgren said in disbelief. “That’s not the way it went.”

The Owls have seven days to pick up the pieces and ready themselves for a road trip to Austin where they’ll face Texas, a team they’ve beaten once since 1965. They last topped the Longhorns in 1994, before every member of the current Rice roster was alive.

A rough start was always possible, given how strenuous the schedule seemed to be. Two games in, those worries have turned into reality. Rice won’t play Arkansas, Houston and Texas every week, but they’ll have to deal with the repercussions of a brutal opening stretch. There’s no better time than the present.

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Conference USA Football 2021: Week 2 C-USA Roundup

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Conference USA Football was back in action this weekend. Here’s the latest from the teams on the gridiron in Week 2.

Team Week 2 Result Week 3
Charlotte vs Gardner-Webb W, 38-10 at Georgia St
FAU vs Georgia Southern W, 38-6 vs Fordham
FIU vs Texas St. L, 23-17 (OT) at Texas Tech
LA Tech vs SE Louisiana W, 45-42 vs SMU
Marshall vs NC Central W, 44-10 vs East Carolina
MTSU at Virginia Tech L, 35-14 at UTSA
North Texas at SMU L, 35-12 vs UAB
Old Dominion vs Hampton W, 47-7 at Liberty
Rice vs Houston L, 44-7 at Texas
Southern Miss vs Grambling W, 37-0 vs Troy
UAB at Georgia L,  56-7 at North Texas
UTEP at Boise St. L, 54-13 — OFF —
UTSA vs Lamar W, 54-0 vs MTSU
WKU at Army  L, 38-35 — OFF —

Notable Week 2 results – Standings

Non-conference nonsense

In Week 1, the Texas Longhorns handled Louisiana with ease and Rice came within one quarter of upsetting Arkansas. At the same time, Houston collapses against a Texas Tech team that nearly lost to SFA in Week 2. How then, did Arkansas pummel Texas and Rice get overwhelmed by Houston in their second games? Because this is college football and nothing makes sense.

Second-week snoozers

The seven Conference USA teams that won in Week 2 did so against non-FBS teams. For the most part, those victories were uneventful, save for a too-close-for-comfort escape by Louisiana Tech over in-state foe Southeast Louisiana, who never trailed by more than 10 points at any time in the contest.

Zapped

Western Kentucky quarterback Bailey Zappe lit up the boxscore, but it was too little, too late against Army on Saturday. The Black Knights jumped out to a 21-7 lead in the first quarter, putting the Hilltoppers in come-back mode early. Zappe went on to throw for 435 yards and three scores, but it was too big of a mounting for even him to overcome.

Looking ahead – Key storylines

Let the (conference) games begin

The first Conference USA matchups of the season start next week. Middle Tennessee visits 2-0 UTSA in San Antonio while North Texas hosts UAB in a battle of two programs coming off a Week 2 losss. There’s plenty of season still to be played, but the winners of those matchups can put themselves in favorable position right out of the chute.

More opportunities for marquee wins

FIU and Rice both draw Power 5 opponents this week and Louisiana Tech gets perennial AAC power, SMU. Each of those non-conference foes has struggled early in the season, with Texas coming off a Week 2 loss and neither SMU or Texas Tech looking too mighty following more harrowing wins of their own.

Sneaky, tricky games

Marshall would do well to keep one eye open when they prep for a home contest against East Carolina. The Pirates gave South Carolina a scare in Week 2 and were able to put up some points against Appalachain State the week prior. After consecutive snoozers against Navy and NC Central, this contest might take a bit more focus.

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