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Conference USA Football 2020: 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 vs Gardner-Webb PPD at Marshall
FAU vs FIU W, 38-19 — OFF —
FIU vs FAU L, 38-19 at WKU
LA Tech vs Rice PPD vs UL Monroe
Marshall vs MTSU W, 42-14 vs Charlotte
MTSU at Marshall L, 42-14 at Troy
North Texas at UAB PPD vs Rice
Rice at LA Tech PPD at North Texas
Southern Miss at WKU L, 10-7 vs UTSA
UAB vs North Texas PPD UTEP (PPD)
UTEP at UTSA L, 52-21 UAB (PPD)
UTSA vs UTEP W, 52-21 at Southern Miss
WKU vs Southern Miss W, 10-7 vs FIU

Notable Week 11 results – Standings

Never had the chance

Postponements were a problem again for Conference USA in Week 11, although the rest of college football was equally fatigued. Rice at Louisiana Tech, North Texas at UAB and Charlotte vs Garnder-Webb were all lost to postponements.

Shula Bowl blowout

Rivalries run hot and cold, but this one has gone tepid, fast. FIU won three of four from 2011 to 2014, but the last four of five games have gone handily to Florida Atlantic. The Owls have scored 52, 49 and now 38 in the past three meetings while FIU has averaged just 15 points.

50 for 75

This weekend marked the 50th anniversary of the plane crash that took the lives of 75 people, including members of the Marshall football team. The Thundering Herd made easy work of the Middle Tennessee Blue Raiders, running 38 times and attempting 37 passes, a fitting combination of 75 total plays.

Week 12 storylines

Advanced notice

The first postponement for Week 12 was in before the Week 11 slate kicked off. COVID-19 concerns at UAB preemptively forced the postponement of their game at UTEP, which had already been moved to Friday morning in Midland because of the COVID-19 climate in El Paso.

Time to play ball, at last?

Rice last played football on Halloween. North Texas hasn’t played in more than a month. Both hope to return to the field following long delays next weekend. The two teams have combined to play seven games so far this season. More than half of their conference peers have played at least that many contests on their own.

For the East

Marshall has been on the warpath toward the Conference USA Championship Game. The Thundering Herd already have a win over FAU under their belts. Beating Charlotte would all-but clinch the division while a Charlotte upset would open the door for others to sneak in.

Rice Football Opponent Scouting Report

A weekly update on who the Owls will be playing this season including updates on key storylines, injuries and more.

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Rice Football Recruiting: Owls launch new wave of 2021 offers

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The 2021 Rice Football recruiting class is off to a great start, but the Owls aren’t done. Here’s a quick roundup of the most recent offers.

COVID-19 concerns with their opponents have kept Rice football off the field, but they’ve been hard at work on the recruiting trail in recent weeks. The Owls have extended four offers in the past three days, and six since mid-October.

Most notably, Rice has ventured onto the transfer market. For the first time during this cycle, Rice has extended offers to transfer players. Here are the new names that have been added to the offer list in the last week and a bit more about each target.

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The Roost Podcast | Ep 60 – Rice Football vs LA Tech Preview

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Rice football had its game against UTSA postponed last weekend. Carter and Matthew talk discuss the fallout and the Owls upcoming contest against Louisiana Tech.

What we had hoped would have been a postgame debrief turned into talk of the Owls’ first unexpected postponement of the 2020 season. UTSA called off last week’s game on Friday morning, citing COVID-19 issues within the football program. That left Rice without an opponent on Saturday.

Carter and Matthew discuss how that postponed game fits into the ever-complex maze of 2020 scheduling and look ahead at Rice football’s upcoming (currently scheduled) game against Louisiana Tech.

You can always find previous episodes on the podcast page. For now, give a listen to Episode 60.

Episode 60 Notes

  • Housekeeping — Don’t miss this opportunity to subscribe on Patreon. You’ll get practice reports, film room sessions, recruiting news and the latest analysis and updates on all things relating to Rice Athletics.
    Become a Patron!
  • Conference USA news and notes
    • Four C-USA games were canceled last weekend
    • Only four C-USA teams played
  • Rice Football vs UTSA postponed
    • First postponement from a Rice opponent since the season began
    • Decision was announced on Friday before the game
    • Both Rice and UTSA hope to reschedule with hopes that Rice could drop the Marshall game
    • Rice gets the added benefit of more players healthy with the off week
  • Rice Football vs LA Tech game preview
    • Bulldogs two-quarterback system has proven faulty, at best
    • Justin Henderson and the running game are going to have a hard time gaining ground
    • Louisiana Tech is opportunistic and aggressive on defense. Limiting mistakes is a must.

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Rice Football Film Room 2020: Louisiana Tech Preview

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Rice football has a new challenge ahead of them this week against Louisiana Tech. We break down the Bulldogs on both sides of the ball in this week’s film room.

Well, any thought that Rice football’s delayed start to the season would save of from the vagaries of scheduling in 2020 can be put to bed. With no tape from a delayed matchup with UTSA, we’ll turn our attention to this Saturday’s (scheduled for now, anyway!) opponent, Louisiana Tech. In an odd but maybe not surprising bit of symmetry, the Bulldogs also had last weekend’s game canceled due to a COVID outbreak in their opponent’s program.

Louisiana Tech’s schedule looks a lot like many C-USA teams to this point in the season: a couple of close conference wins, a shootout with Houston Baptist, and blowout losses to Marshall and BYU. Perhaps we should give some credit to Skip Holtz’s team for managing to win four of their seven games thus far while not looking especially good at any particular aspect of the game.

More: LA Tech Press Conference Quotes and Practice Notes

They’re dead last in the conference in rushing offense, with a paltry 2.8 yards per carry (that only rises to 3.7 without sacks). They’re second in passing yards per game, but average just 6.7 YPA and have been shuffling back and forth between Luke Anthony (176 attempts) and Aaron Allen (75). Overall, they’re 11th in C-USA in yards per play on offense and eighth on defense.

Their best win of the season thus far is their most recent game against UAB, which they pulled out in double overtime, 37–34. UAB is probably the best team in C-USA West and second behind Marshall in the conference as a whole, so that’s a great win—but results can be deceiving. The Blazers outgained the Bulldogs by a significant margin on both a total and per-play basis and had three turnovers to Louisiana Tech’s one.

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In fact, per ESPN’s Bill Connelly, the victory over UAB was the sixth-lowest postgame win expectancy by a winning team this season*. Postgame win expectancy is a metric Bill creates by looking at the in-game stats which correlate most strongly with winning (success rates, explosive plays, and so on), then projecting a winner based only on those stats. While a game’s outcome is all that matters in the standings, for predicting a team’s performance going forward, you have to take a deeper look, beyond the final score.

*As you can see in the tweet, their earlier win over Southern Miss was the fifth-least likely win of the season. The Bulldogs are fortunate to be 4–3 instead of 2–5.

Still, it’s not wise to take any opponent lightly in this conference. So we’ll take a closer look at a play from each side of the ball in the aforementioned win over UAB to show how the Bulldogs can be dangerous.

On defense, one thing the Louisiana Tech defense does well is get picks. They’re tied for the conference lead in interceptions and have scored twice on pick-sixes, including the play we’re looking at.

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Rice Football 2020 Practice Notes: Presser quotes and o-line growth

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Rice football took advantage of the off week to rest up and get healthy. The Owls are working toward this week’s game at Louisiana Tech.

There was plenty to observe and talk about as Rice football got back to practice after an unexpected free Saturday following the postponement of the UTSA game. Head coach Mike Bloomgren shared his thoughts on the future of that matchup. I recapped those thoughts, shared a few quotes from Tuesday’s press conference and dug into some observations from the Rice o-line at practice this week.

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UTSA postponement

At this point, both UTSA and Rice have made it abundantly clear who they want to be playing on Dec. 5. The Owls were originally free that day before Conference USA slated Marshall into that open weekend only days before the Rice vs UTSA game was postponed.

UTSA head coach Jeff Traylor has gone on record saying he wants to see that game rescheduled. Bloomgren echoed those sentiments on Tuesday, saying “if we had our choice, we’d love to play the team down the road.” Bloomgren reiterated that would ultimately be a conference decision.

Notes and Quotes

“We all love the rhythm of a college football season. We love the routine, but 2020 has been anything but routine, as we all know. And something we’ve asked our players for is flexibility and adaptability … I would love to get into a routine for the next six or seven weeks … but at the same time I think we’re probably going to have more opportunities where we’ve gotta be flexible.” – Mike Bloomgren on the unexpected schedule change

“We’ve been in the system — this is our third year — now it’s just like riding a bike … They’re great young men. They have great balance on and off the field and when we come in here it’s just football.” – Defensive line coach Cedric Calhoun on the improvements this year

I know that we’ve been really efficient on first and second down and then that’s allowed us to be really efficient on third down. I think it’s been a really notable thing from this season. We’ve had a couple third and shorts that we converted on. It’s something we take a lot of pride in. But I also think what you’re seeing is that we’re finding ourselves being pretty dang dynamic, because we’re being so efficient on first and second down… if we do our job up front, this offense is really going to shine.” – Sanders Davis on the overall – on the growth of the offense

Giving some love to the offensive line

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