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40 Days: Owls must find ways to get stops and force punts

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Rice football fielded few punts last season, partly because of their inability to hold on third down. Will that change in 2018?

The Owls forced a grand total of 40 punts in 2017. If that number seems a bit low, it is. There was only one FBS team that forced fewer punts than Rice last season, Oregon State, who not-so-coincidentally also went 1-11.

This goes all the way back to the basic fundamentals of football. Run the ball and play defense. Last season Rice wasn’t fundamentally sound, and it showed. The Owls finished 90th in the nation in total defense and a miserable 125th in third-down defense. Opponents converted a staggering 48.6 percent of their attempts. The national average on third down was 38.6 percent, putting the Owls in the red by a sizable margin.

If you can’t get off the field, you can’t get your offense onto it. The defensive woes bled through to an offense that ranked 125th in the nation in scoring. And the problem compounded on itself. It’s a vicious cycle. The only way to fix it? Find a way to get stops on defense.

The best teams in the nation, as far as forcing punts go, average just north of seven punt attempts against per game. Combine that with a couple of turnovers, maybe the end of a half and you’re approaching 10 possession in which your opponent doesn’t score and you get the ball. The math adds up rather quickly, and sooner or later those numbers translate into wins.

Rice football has a laundry list of items that need to be changed as the program continues to progress under head coach Mike Bloomgren. A switch isn’t going to flip overnight; it’s going to be a process. One of those stepping stones, which could make a huge difference for the psyche of this team early on, is getting off the field on third down.

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Nahshon Ellerbe primed for increased workload in 2018

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The Rice football offense is going to look a bit different under Mike Bloomgren in 2018, starting with the emergence of one lead back. Could that be Nashon Ellerbe?

Mike Bloomgren is no stranger to the workhorse running back. During his time with Stanford he coached both Christian McCaffrey and Bryce Love. Those are two generational backs, but his trend of relying on one man in the backfield started before even those two superstars. Remound Wright carried the load prior to McCaffrey, who eventually gave way to Love.

Here’s how Bloomgren’s No. 1 tailback fared during his four years as the offensive coordinator at Stanford:

Year Lead Back LB Carries LB Rushing TD % Total Carries % Total Rushing TD
2014 Remound Wright 135 11 29.2% 50.0%
2015 Christian McCaffrey 337 8 56.3% 24.2%
2016 Christian McCaffrey 253 13 49.3% 65.0%
2017 Bryce Love 263 19 57.0% 61.3%

Just once did Bloomgren’s lead back account for fewer than 40 percent of the total carries. The same was true when it came to touchdowns, which makes sense — more touches lead to more scoring opportunities. Last year’s No. 2 back, Cameron Scarlet, tallied 389 yards. No. 3? 142. In comparison, Rice’s third-best leading rusher ran for 308 yards, just a touch below Ellerbe’s 429.

Beyond putting his trust in one workhorse back, Bloomgren predominately employs a run-first offense. The Cardinal ran 60.4 percent of the time under his four years as the OC.

All of those pieces put together suggest Bloomgren will have to find someone on the current roster to take charge of the offense at Rice in 2018. Whereas there are a host of options at quarterback, the running back position should already have a clear-cut leader: Nahshon Ellerbe.

A redshirt junior, Ellerbe led the team in carries, rushing yards and rushing touchdowns last season. His 85 carries represented a mere 17.7 percent of the team total, putting him in line for a massive uptick in work under Bloomgren in 2018. A workload closer to 180 carries would put him on track to reach the 1,000-yard mark, something that hasn’t happened at Rice since Charles Ross reached 1,280 yards in 2013.

Ellerbe is going to get the first shot at earning the workhorse role. If he’s slow out of the gate, players like Aston Walter, Collin Whitaker and Emmanuel Esukpa will all have a chance to throw their hat into the proverbial ring. However, by the time the Owls return home in October they should have one man poised to carry them the rest of the way.

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44 Days: Chase Clement owns school-record 44 passing touchdown season

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Chase Clement owns the entirety of the Rice football passing record books including throwing a school-best 44 touchdown passes as a senior in 2008.

The Rice football passing record books are dominated by one name: Chase Clement. In a four year career spanning 2005 to 2008 he accomplished things at South Main that no soul has come anywhere close to equaling. His 44 touchdown passes in 2008 broke his own record of 29 touchdown passes in 2007. Driphus Jackson, sitting at third all-time, threw for 24 touchdowns in 2014.

It wasn’t just one or two productive seasons for Clement at Rice. He remains the only player in Owls history to top 6,200 passing yards. Clement threw for 9,785 yards in his career. He holds the school records for total touchdown passes (99), quarterback rushing touchdowns (25) and is third all-time with a 60.0 percent completion percentage (minimum 300 passes).

The numbers were impressive by themselves, but the awe is amplified when one considers the situation around him. As a freshman in 2005, he was a part of Ken Hatfield‘s last season at Rice, a 1-10 season. Hatfield gave way to Todd Graham who left Rice after one season for Tulsa. Clement was on his third coach in three years when David Bailiff took control of the program in 2007.

As the change intensified Clement got better and better. He improved in every significant passing metric every season of his collegiate career. As a freshman, he completed 42.7 percent of his passes for 582 yards, 4.7 yards per attempt and five touchdown passes. Three years late he completed 66.5 percent of his passes for 4,119 yards, 8.4 yards per attempt and the aforementioned 44 touchdown passes.

Mike Bloomgren’s offense doesn’t figure to be pass happy, but it’s worth noting his experience on staff at Stanford with Andrew Luck. He’s an offensive guy and has worked with one of the best college quarterbacks ever to play the game. That can only be a good thing for the Owls moving forward.

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45 Days: Owls searching for depth after 45 different tacklers in 2017

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45 different players registered at least one tackle for Rice football in 2017. Who will step up for the Owls this coming season?

One of the glaring deficiencies of the Rice football team in 2017 was a top-heavy defense. After you got past Emmanuel Ellerbee, who led the team in tackles with 95, the Owls got thin, fast. Not only is Ellerbee out of eligibility, so too are the Owl’s four leading tacklers from last season. That leaves a lot of questions that need to be addressed going forward.

In addition to Ellerbee, Rice will have to replace Brian Womac, Destri White, D.J. Green and J.T. Ibe. Those five players combined for 282 tackles, 30 tackles for a loss and 11.5 sacks. All told, that’s 55.6 percent of the team’s tackles out the door. That leaves a gaping hole in the defense and plenty of opportunity for some moderately experienced players to step up.

Even with those big departures, the Owls won’t be left empty-handed. After the top four, the Owls return the vast majority of their defensive starters and a few key depth pieces. Senior linebacker Nick Uretsky is the only one that saw any semblance of meaningful time in 2017 that won’t be back next season. That leaves coach Mike Bloomgren with a new challenge: development.

Returning starters are a nice idea, but improvements in record will only go as far as the improvements in talent on the field. The talent profile should continue to climb under the new coaching staff — Bloomgren has already begun to bring his own recruits in — but only a handful of them will be expected to make sizable contributions this season. If Rice is going to take a step forward, someone on the defensive side of the ball (or two) is going to have to make major strides in 2018.

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46 Days: When will Owls add to their 46 seasons of .500 or better?

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Rice football has seen spurts of winning spanning more than a century of competition, but they’ve struggled to find sustained success. Can that change any time soon?

Beyond reaching the mountaintop and bringing home conference championships, new Rice football head coach will be tasked with one primary objective: consistency. Rice is entering its 105th season of college football. In that span, they’ve had 46 seasons in which they finished .500 or better.

Reaching 6-6 should be this program’s baseline. They’ll have better years and win some conference titles. They’ll have worse years and struggle to 3 or 4 wins. But by and large, they should be averaging somewhere around seven .500 seasons every decade. That level of consistency hasn’t existed at Rice since the 1950’s and the end of the Jess Neely era.

In the decades following the Owls haven’t stayed close to .500 for long:

 Decade .500+ seasons
 2010’s   3
 2000’s   3
 1990’s   4
 1980’s   0
 1970’s   2
 1960’s   3

Since 1960, Rice football has won 35.6 percent of their games. The good ‘ol days were good, but finding a way to tread water will be a tremendous accomplishment in itself. That takes investment, and that’s something that the university has taken seriously since the arrival of athletic director Joe Karlgaard. Bringing in a respected coordinator and recruiter like Bloomgren speaks volume’s about his intentionality and the focus on rebuilding Rice into what it once was.

Winning cures all ailments. And the administration has put a staff in place which they believe can reach that end goal — it just might be a messy process. Rice has been down for longer than many would like to admit. Despite a few positive blips on the radar, there’s plenty of work to be done. Bloomgren and his group will be given time to rebuild the program in the way they best see fit, but they’ll truly be starting from square one.

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