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Rice Football: Owls in search of growth as regular season wanes

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Rice football hasn’t reached the goals it set for itself this season. What’s next for the Owls and what’s at stake moving forward?

“Not the way we wanted this game to go.” An understatement that felt like it carried more weight than the words alone could possibly have expressed when they were uttered by Rice football head coach Mike Bloomgren following the team’s third consecutive conference loss on Saturday at the hands of Western Kentucky. The loss dropped the Owls’ record to 3-7, realistically eliminating them from postseason contention.

It was after that loss that Bloomgren was officially forced to come to terms with his team was in relation to the expectations they set for themselves entering the season.

Senior leaders Shea Baker and Elijah Garcia delivered their brutally honest feelings, too. Baker called the loss “disappointing”. Garcia struck a heartstring with his assessment. “It hurts, man. It hurts. [Making a bowl game] is why I chose to come back.”

The atmosphere was, understandably, grim.

Although downtrodden, there were no signs of throwing in the towel just yet. Bloomgren said the message to his team remainder focusing on what’s next, on “how we’re going to go forward right now and stick together.”

Rice still has two games remaining on their schedule. The Owls travel to El Paso next week to play a UTEP team currently on a three-game losing streak. They then end the season against a Louisiana Tech team that has dropped five of their last six. On paper, neither opponent seems as daunting as the juggernaut that is Western Kentucky and quarterback Bailey Zappe.

Rapid Reaction: Rice football falls to Western Kentucky

One more win would give Rice the most victories in a season under Bloomgren to date (four). Two wins would give Rice an increased winning percentage in every season since he took over the program prior to the 2018 season. Both outcomes are still on the table and Rice has proven — with their wins over UAB this year and Marshall last year — that they can beat just about any conference foe on any given Saturday.

That’s not the question though. The question isn’t can they win. The question is have they and will they continue to show the growth that’s been expected of them. Can they become a program that consistently wins? And further still, have they shown enough progress to reaching those ends, and will they finish down the stretch?

“My confidence is really high. I look back at the program we took over that was 1-11. And then the first year in 2018 we went 1-7 in the conference and our average margin of defeat was 21 points,” Bloomgren said, looking back before addressing the here and now.

“The last three weeks prior to today we beat the defending conference champs and then in addition to that, we went to overtime twice. So I’d say that’s growth. Now we’ve got to take another step. We got to win those games. And that’s what we’re working towards.”

The team has talent. They’ve won some big games. If they can pull things together and close things out on a positive note, they’ll have achieved tangible growth in each successive season. It’s just been much harder and taken much longer than anyone on South Main would have liked.

Bloomgren called those big picture progress checks “conversations for after the year”, reverting his attention back to UTEP. Rice beat the Miners in El Paso the last time these two teams met. If conversations of tangible growth are still in the cards, finding a way to dig out another win against the Miners now seems like a must.

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Conference USA Football 2021: Week 11 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 11.

Team Week 11 Result Week 12
Charlotte at LA Tech L, 42-32 vs Marshall
FAU at Old Dominion L, 30-16 at WKU
FIU at MTSU L, 50-10 vs North Texas
LA Tech vs Charlotte W, 42-32 vs Southern Miss
Marshall vs UAB L, 21-14 at Charlotte
MTSU vs FIU W, 50-10 vs Old Dominion
North Texas vs UTEP W, 20-17 at FIU
Old Dominion vs FAU W, 30-16 at MTSU
Rice vs WKU L, 42-21 at UTEP
Southern Miss at UTSA L, 27-17 at LA Tech
UAB at Marshall W, 21-14 at UTSA
UTEP at North Texas L, 20-17 vs Rice
UTSA vs Southern Miss W, 27-17 vs UAB
WKU at Rice W, 42-21 vs FAU

Notable Week 11 results – Standings

Southern Miss scare

Owners of a seven-game losing streak, Southern Miss decided to throw everything they had against UTSA on Saturday… everything except a quarterback. And it almost worked. Frank Gore Jr. operated out of the wildcat for much of the game, completing two-of-three passes and running for 123 yards. This game was deadlocked at 17-17 well into the fourth quarter before UTSA was able to escape.

Monarchs heating up

Old Dominion has quietly won three games in a row. Before that, the Monarchs had been blasted by Western Kentucky (not unlike several other C-USA foes) and dropped one-score games to Marshall and UTEP. It took some time for the off-year dust to fall off, but Old Dominion is playing their best football of the year at the right time.

Miners trending backward

It wasn’t that long ago that UTEP was being mentioned amongst the best records in Conference USA. The miners were tied for the lead in the West through seven weeks, but have now dropped three in a row. Already at six wins, a bowl trip is secure, but the dreams of finishing near the top of the West took a hit when they fell to North Texas this past week.

Looking ahead – Key storylines

For the West

Opinions were split regarding C-USA West entering the 2021 season and folks fell into one of two camps. Some sided with Bill Clark and the UAB Blazers, the West Division champs three years running. Others felt UTSA and Jeff Traylor could continue their meteoric rise. Those two programs meet next weekend. The winner takes the West.

Controlling their own destiny

If Western Kentucky wins out, they win the East. The road to get there will be challenging, though. Up next is FAU, a team reeling from an upset at the hands of Old Dominion this past weekend. If Bailey Zappe and Co. continue to put up the points they could face the UTSA/UAB winner in a few weeks.

Bowl Battle

A mid-November tilt between Middle Tennessee and Old Dominion just much more interesting. The Monarchs kept bowl hopes alive with their win over Florida Atlantic. They need to more wins to reach the six-win plateau. MTSU needs one. This game could prove pivotal to both programs’ holiday plans.

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Rice Basketball: Owls shut down by stifling Houston defense

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After an impressive opening win, Rice basketball fell back to earth as Hoston cooled the Owls’ offense and handed Rice its first loss of the season.

If there was any remaining early-season rust, the Houston Cougars didn’t show it in their meeting with Rice basketball on Friday night at the Fertitta Center. The Coogs’ defense was suffocating early, holding a typically explosive Rice offense to just five points through the first 12 minutes of play. Rice was without Chris Mullins and Quincy Olivari was limited. But no matter who was on the court, the shots just weren’t falling.

Carl Pierre opened the scoring with a dunk. 2-0 Rice. From that point onward, Rice would make one of its next 14 shots. It wasn’t just an off night for the Owls’ offense, they couldn’t find open looks anywhere. In the seconds leading up to a triple from Jake Lieppert with 6:58 to play before halftime, the Houston lead had ballooned to 17 points.

“The knockout was early,” Pera said, point-blank.

Worn down from too many fruitless trips up the court, the Rice defense which held tough early, started to slip. By the time the halftime buzzer blared across the sea of red-clad fans, Rice trailed 44-15. That was all she wrote.

“They pretty much did they wanted all night,” Pera said. “We didn’t have much resistance and we didn’t have much attack on offense to get what we wanted.”

Entering this contest, the lowest scoring output for a Pera-coached Rice basketball team was 41 points in a losing effort against FAU on Feb. 16, 2019. Just how anomalous is that? Rice has failed to reach 50 points just three times under Pera, once each in the 2017, 2018 and 2019 seasons. Conversely, the Owls had topped 90 points 10 times over that stretch.

More: Rice Basketball Season Preview

Every team has its off nights, but this rough outing was magnified by a superb outing against one of the nation’s top teams. If the Pepperdine win was a solid launching point, this was the crash landing not long after. The reality of how good this team can and will be is most likely somewhere in between.

Houston head coach Kelvin Sampson offered a similar sentiment as he closed out his own postgame remarks. “That team could make the tournament,” he said of the Hofstra team that took Houston to overtime three nights prior, “I don’t know if they will or not, but they’re good.” Then came the twist. “Rice is probably a little better than Hofstra, but we were better tonight.”

Where does Rice fit in the mix between Houston and Hofstra? That’s what we’re going to find out over the course of the next several weeks and months. On Friday, the reality was this: whether expected or not, Rice wasn’t very close to a team coming off a trip to the Final Four.

Player Spotlight | Max Fielder

The box score might not fully reflect it, but Max Fiedler acquitted himself well for much of the game against Houston. He disrupted shooting lanes on the defensive side of the court, forcing Houston into difficult angles or bypassing the lane altogether in favor of an outside shot. On a night where Rice wasn’t securing anything that bounced off either rim, Fiedler was strong off the glass. In 22 minutes, he finished second among all players with seven rebounds.

Final Box | Houston 79 – Rice 46

Up Next | Full Schedule

Rice basketball returns home on Tuesday, November 16 to host Southern. That will be the Owls’ last home game for two weeks. They visit New Orleans on Friday, November 19 before heading to Florida to play in the Gulf Coast Showcase the following week.

Photo credit Maria Lysaker
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Rice Football 2021: WKU presser quotes, updates and depth chart

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Rice football knows what’s at stake this week against Western Kentucky. Here’s what Mike Bloomgren had to say about the matchup, updates and depth chart notes.

Head coach Mike Bloomgren and a pair of players met with the media for their customary weekly availability. They discussed the tough loss to Charlotte and laid out expectations and their prep work for their game against Western Kentucky next week. We’ll include updates from Bloomgren and those players, then dig further into the details of the Rice football depth chart and what the team looks like on the field headed into the weekend.

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Rice football has found stability at the quarterback position after injuries and lineup adjustments. With that settled and no major injury updates looming, the lineup is starting to normalize. First, the quotes:

Press Conference Quotes

“I think for three and two-thirds quarters, we played about as well as we needed to. We certainly left some opportunities out there like you always do. We played good enough to win and we weren’t able to capitalize down the stretch and that’s really disappointing.” – Mike Bloomgren on the Charlotte loss

“We know [Western Kentucky] have a dominant offense. They have a great quarterback and they have been playing as good a defense as they have all year. They’re creating turnovers. They’re really playing solid in all three phases. They’re really good on special teams. They get after it on special teams. So, it’s going to be an unbelievable challenge for us.” – Mike Bloomgren on the Western Kentucky game

“I really think the past few weeks, it’s just been getting the five dudes together, gelling more as these five guys. And then also, it’s just a testament to our coaching. We’ve talked about it before. We have probably five or six elite level offensive line coaches just in this building. We’re really a product of our training when it comes to our coaching. And every week that we’ve gotten better, I would say as part of it is every week, our coaches have worked harder. So I think that’s a big testament to some of our recent successes.” – Guard Cole Garcia on the growth of the offensive line

“They’re going to throw the ball a lot. So we got to get back there. And [defensive line] coach [Cedric] Calhoun always says ‘put it on us’. The d-line is going to always give 100 percent effort and try and get some pressure on the QB to help on our DBs.” – Defensive end Miles Adams on Western Kentucky

Depth Chart

There are no changes to the official Rice football depth chart this week.

Rice Football

Secondary is on notice

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Rice Women’s Basketball rolls past St. Edwards in season opener

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Rice women’s basketball took care of business in their home opener, opening coach Lindsay Edmond’s tenure with a convincing victory.

To some extent, early season basketball games are hard to evaluate. Rice Women’s basketball opened their 2021-2022 campaign against St. Edwards, a DII school. Even with so many new pieces to work in and early-season jitters to iron out, a win was expected. Anything beyond that would have been icing on the cake.

On Tuesday night, with a crowd in the stands at Tudor Fieldhouse for the first time in more than a year, the Owls had feasted.

After trading buckets in the early moments, Rice extended a 5-4 lead to 28-4 lead before St. Edwards could score again. Freshman Malia Fisher led the way out of the gate. Fellow newcomer Alexis Stover added nine points of her own and the entire team played solid defense, the kind Rice fans have grown accustomed to over the last several years.

“Overall, the gelling is happening. It’s going to continue to happen as we go. I don’t expect it to be perfect on the first night, but I thought we looked pretty good out there for the majority of the game,” head coach Lindsay Edmonds said afterward.

More: Rice Women’s Basketball Season Preview

Team captain Katelyn Crosthwait played limited minutes in what is expected to be her last game of reduced minutes this season. Fellow captain Haylee Swayze was held out entirely. Edmonds said she could be a few more weeks away from seeing her first action.

It’s a long season and both are working to get back to 100 percent. That left extra court time available for Rice in the opener which coach Edmonds took advantage of, getting the majority of the roster meaningful playing time.

Given the various combinations of new faces, it wasn’t a perfect game by any means. This was the first time many of these players had seen the court in a live game and there were some growing pains. There was a sequence in which Rice committed a shot clock violation in the first quarter with plenty of time to work with.

There were smaller communication gaps on both sides of the court. But when you open up a 30-point margin, there’s room to work through those issues. Edmonds was quick to mention she was “obviously, a little worried about our third quarter effort” in which St. Edwards cut their deficit from 26 to 27 points, adding later that the team has “some work to do on the rebounding end, for sure.”

In totality, Rice women’s basketball netted just what they needed from this tune-up game. They won, gathered valuable time on the court and came away with a list of things to work on as the season progresses. And most importantly, they’re 1-0.

Player Spotlight | Malia Fisher

Freshman Malia Fisher was one of the positives from this game. Fisher scored or assisted on nine of the Owls’ first 11 points. She finished with nine points, six rebounds, two assists and two blocks. After starting the game a perfect 4-for-4 from the field, she did not attempt another shot from the floor, but found other ways to help the team win.

Edmonds’ noted the second-half lul and seemed confident Fisher’s consistency would come. She went on to call Fisher “a very special player, very athletic” adding that “she hasn’t even tapped into her full potential yet. She’s an exciting player that does a lot of things that make you go ‘wow’.” Consider that a ringing endorsement of one of the Owls’ newest faces.

Final Box | Rice 84 – St. Edwards 41

Up Next | Full Schedule

Rice women’s basketball opens its season with a stretch of five home games, not leaving the confines of Tudor Fieldhouse during the month of November. They’ll host Louisiana on Saturday, Nov. 13. That game tips off at 7:00 p.m.

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