Rice football took down Prairie View 31-28 in their season opener. It was closer than expected, but the Owls are happy to walk away from this one with the victory.

Things started off well, with Rice taking a 16-0 lead as the offense marched up and down the field. Then things went downhill, fast. Then they turned around. That’s how the Rice football season opener played out on Saturday night. There was a little bit of everything in this one, including a scare of historic proportions.

The last time a current SWAC team beat an FBS squad was 1985 when Grambling State beat Oregon State. Current SWAC members are now 2-99 against FBS teams in their history, the aforementioned win by Grambling State and Alkorn State’s upset over Central Michigan in 1978.

Fortunately for the Owls, Rice wasn’t added to that list. Prairie View came dangerously close, but Rice was ahead when the clock hit zero, and that’s what matters.

There will be plenty to digest coming from this game in the following days. Here are a few initial thoughts.

1. Houston, we don’t have a quarterback, we have two… sort of

Stankavage started strong out of the gate, going 3-of-4 through the air for 24 yards. He wasn’t asked to stretch the field, but he hit the open man and kept the offense moving with a couple big third down conversions with his legs.

After Jackson Tyner entered the game on the final play of the second quarter the offense spread out a bit more. The Owls ran a lot of plays out of the gun and the pistol with Tyner, letting him stretch the defense with his arm. Tyner didn’t have a great day throwing the ball, completing 5-of-9 passes for 44 yards. He did not play in the second half.

Coming into camp it didn’t seem like a platoon between a primary passing quarterback and a primary running quarterback was in the cards, but that’s more or less what we saw on Saturday. When the Owls had to manufacture a comeback in the second half they left Stankavage in but pounded the rock on the ground.

2. Get used to seeing tight ends and fullbacks

The first play of the game was a two-tight end set with a fullback. Emmanuel Esupka took the handoff straight up the middle for a first down. The Owls lined up in a host of different formations after that, but the bread and butter of this offense will always be based on a strong ground game.

11 of the Owls’ 14 plays were rushes. The trend continued as long as Stankavage was in the game. The first quarter was a clinic in how this offense is supposed to operate. Heavy on the ground with short, quick passes mixed in to keep the defense honest. That’s what we saw when the game was tied up in the fourth. Lots of blocks paving the way for several of the Owls talented backs.

Emmanuel Esupka led the charge, racking up 168 yards on 31 carries and one touchdown. Austin Walter had a big day out of the backfield as well, carrying the ball 11 times for 83 yards and two scores.

3. Defensive woes loom large

Everything seemed to be working out well for the Owls early on. The first three Prairie View drives ended with punts, but things started to break down when Prairie View started pushing the ball on the perimeter.

Former 4-star receiver Tristen Wallace, once enrolled at Oregon, absolutely had his way with Brandon Douglas-Dotson and the rest of the Owls corners. When all was said and done, Wallace turned five catches into 147 yards and one touchdown. That’s a rate of 29.4 yards per catch.

When the pass rush couldn’t reach the quarterback (three sacks, two quarterback hurries, one forced fumble) the Owls’ secondary struggled. The defensive scheme is predicated on corners that can win on the perimeter and that remains a work in progress for the Owls. Prairie View tallied 244 yards through the air.

4. Starting off on the right foot

Two decades ago Mike Bloomgren was a graduate assistant for Bobby Bowdon at Florida State. He’s held a variety of jobs all over the country as he climbed the latter, but he’d never been a head coach – not until Rice offered him the job last winter.

Fast-forward to the final weekend of August when the Rice Owls defeated the Prairie View A&M Panthers in front of an energetic crowd at Rice Stadium. Not only is Mike Bloomgren a head coach, he’s a winning head coach. The 2018 season is only one game old and there’s plenty more for Bloomgren to achieve before he calls his time at Rice a success, but you can’t start better than 1-0. Was it messy? Sure. But it was still a win.

1-0 isn’t as easy as it seems. Fred Goldsmith, who coached the Owls from 1989 to 1993, was the last head coach at Rice to win his first game. Since then, Ken Hatfield, Todd Graham and David Bailiff combined to go 0-3 in their inaugural games. That included a loss to Nicholls State in 2007 who failed to defeat any other FBS teams that season.

Yes, it came against Prairie View. Houston will be a much larger challenge next week. But the Owls equaled last season’s win total on Saturday night. That’s as good of a start as anyone could have asked for.

Next up

Rice plays Houston. The Cougars weren’t active in Week 0, so this will be their first taste of game action in 2018. Houston defeated Rice 38-3 last season.

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Rice football has a healthy dose of new faces in their wide receiving corps this year. Led by Aaron Cephus, a few other pass catchers have emerged.

Aaron Cephus is the lone name at the top of the box scores from the 2017 season. The then-freshman receiver hauled in 25 receptions for 622 yards. He’s a raw, big-bodied athlete with enormous potential. His 24.9 yards per reception led all of college football in 2017, but there’s more to Cephus than that one statistic – just like there’s more to the Rice receiving corps than that one player.

Rice football doesn’t return any other receivers, outside of Cephus, who had more than four receptions in 2017. That’s an almost incomprehensible amount of turnover, but the clean slate has opened up opportunities for several players on the roster, both old and new. If Rice is going to be successful this fall they’re going to need several of these players to step into meaningful roles.

The most likely player to emerge from that mix is sophomore wideout, Austin Trammell. Dubbed “Mr. Consistent” for his reliability and soft hands throughout camp, Trammell is one of, if not the most sure-handed player on this roster. Despite only registering four receptions for 51 yards last season, Trammell could be the early favorite to lead the Owls in receptions this year.

Trammell has spent a good amount of time out of the slot early on this fall, a place that he has excelled. His quick release and elusiveness across the middle should open up opportunities for the guys on the outside.

He’s already proven that he’s not the kind of inside man that can be covered by your average linebacker. The 5-foot-10 receiver has a quick twitch and attacks the ball over the middle, showing a certain amount of fearlessness that begs his quarterbacks to trust him with the ball in critical moments.

Head coach Mike Bloomgren couldn’t be more thrilled with the growth Trammell has shown this offseason, acknowledging that Trammell is “good at everything” and at the center of the Owls’ plans on offense this year.

The third man who has separated himself from the pack was somewhat of a surprise this fall. True freshman Brendan Harmon is playing at too high of a level to not be on the field. That’s not just one man’s opinion.

When talking with Cephus about his strengths in the redzone Cephus turned the conversation to the talented freshman, lauding his “great ball skills” adding Harmon would “definitely be a threat” on the field this season. Trammell added to the praise, referring to Harmon as the missing piece on the outside, giving the Owls “every aspect of the passing game they need.”

More importantly, Bloomgren doubled down on both of those remarks. “He’s a redzone threat,” remarked Bloomgren of the 6-foot-5, 180-pound freshman after one of the Owls’ final practices of fall camp. “More than that,” he added, “he’s also proven he can run routes and be more physical than we thought he could be in year one. He’s going to play and he’s going to play a lot.”

Meanwhile, Harmon is humbling working on getting the ins and outs of this new offense covered. His focus this offseason has been simple: “I’ve just been trying to dedicate myself to learning the playbook so I can come in and make plays when it’s my turn,” he admitted, modestly. For Harmon, that turn might come sooner, rather than later.

Those three, along with redshirt sophomore Rhett Cardwell and versatile running back and converted wide receiver Austin Walters moving into the slot out of the backfield, will be the primary wideouts this season. Cephus has the experience. Trammell has the hands. Harmon has the size. Each of them brings a unique set of skills to the field and all of them will be needed for this passing attack to improve from where it was a season ago.

So far, so good. “Everybody is doing their job,” relayed Cephus. And, as Bloomgren has stressed throughout his tenure so far, it’s all about the process. For the Rice wide receivers, the process is just beginning and soon enough it will be time to put all of those techniques and tools onto the field at game speed. Each man brings something a little different and, in this case, the sum of the whole looks to be better than the parts.

“I just want to do my best, make plays, and have fun,” summed up Harmon, excitedly before adding one all-important closing comment, “And get some wins.” It looks like the Owls might have enough weapons in their receiving corps to do just that.

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