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Rice Football tops AAC in returning production

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The game isn’t played on paper, but ESPN’s returning production metrics are high on Rice Football in 2024.

In his final formal media availability of the season following, Rice football head coach Mike Bloomgren interjected a ray of hope after a frustrating result, a bowl game loss to Texas State. “This is a really good football team coming back,” he said, projecting hope for 2024, and hopefully beyond.

Several months later, the numbers are in. According to ESPN’s returning production estimates, Rice football returns the highest percentage of their production out of any team in the AAC in 2024.

Bill Connelly, who compiles the metric for ESPN, estimates the Owls return 81 percent of their production from the 2023 team that won six games and made a second consecutive bowl game appearance.

That number dips a bit to 73 percent on offense but skyrockets to 89 percent on defense. In fact, no team in the nation projects to return more on defense than Rice. The Owls have lost De’Braylon Carroll and Tre’shon Devones from last year’s unit, but the rest of the defensive cupboard is fully stocked.

With a stacked defense and plenty of returning pieces on offense, Rice is positioned as well as it has been in quite some time to take another step. Rice and USF are the only AAC team in the top 20, nationally in returning production. The Owls’ biggest challenge will be replacing impact players on offense — JT Daniels, Luke McCaffrey and Clay Servin. If Rice can do that, 2024 has the makings of a special season on South Main.

One other interesting tidbit… Connelly notes this on Twitter:

Here are the full numbers:

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2024 Rice Football Roster by State

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The Rice football roster is built primarily with Texas players but still boasts athletes from coast to coast. Where are the 2024 Owls from?

Rice football head coach Mike Bloomgren committed to a national recruiting strategy when he took over the program prior to the 2018 season. Since then he’s stayed true to his word, searching the nation to build the best possible roster he can. The 2024 roster is expected to feature players from 21 different states (and the District of Colombia), up from 18 states a year ago.

The 2024 roster includes new arrivals from Phoenix, Arizona (EJ Warner), Alpine, Utah (Michael Daley) and Hinesburg, Vermont (Graham Walker), among others.

Here’s a visual breakdown of the 2024 roster upon the conclusion of spring practices, with the announced 2024 signing class and transfers included.

2024 Rice Football Roster by State

Not pictured: Hawaii (4)

Breaking down the roster

Of the projected 122 players, 69 (57 percent) hail from Texas. The next highest totals come to Rice from California (10) and Florida (six), noted college football recruiting hotbeds. After that, the pool diversifies quickly. New Jersey is the home to five Owls, four from Hawaii and five other states have three Rice players apiece. Rice has developed a sizable footprint in the northeast in addition to the traditional southern recruiting grounds.

Breaking down the incoming class

Of the incoming commits and signees, 67 percent are from Texas. That’s an uptick of 10 percentage points from the full scope of the roster. A sizable portion of those new players are walk-ons, typically arriving on campus from nearby.

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Rice Baseball 2024 Season Review: Lineup

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The offense was underwhelming for Rice baseball in 2024, posting the second-lowest OPS in the AAC while leading the league in strikeouts.

Rice baseball took a while to figure out the bats in 2024, but even when the Owls did get things going at the plate, the lineup remained fairly hot and cold. Fortunately for the Owls, having the league’s top home run hitter and some veteran pieces helped keep them competitive at the plate through the hard times. Through it all, there were individual highlights — described in more detail below — but for the most part, it was another challenging year with the sticks.

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Rice Baseball 2024 Season Review: Bullpen

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The bullpen made improvements as the 2024 Rice baseball season progressed, turning into a dependable unit by season’s end.

It was a rocky start for the Rice baseball bullpen. It took a few weeks for the staff to figure out who they could trust in the most high-leverage moments and for the players put into those positions to feel comfortable in their own shoes. Once everything came together, though, this pitching staff really excelled, providing plenty of backing for the starting pitching and give the Owls a shot to win some ballgames. For the purposes of this discussion, we focused on players who through at least 20 innings this season.

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Rice Baseball 2024 Season Review: Starting Pitching

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The Rice baseball starting rotation was imperfect, but productive in 2024, paving the way for much of the team’s successes.

For the first time under head coach Jose Cruz Jr, the Rice baseball starting rotation was truly set it and forget it. The Owls kept the same triumvirate of arms almost every weekend of the regular season and never had to truly consider demoting any of the three because of poor performance. The rotation was deployed without any hiccups.

For the purposes of this discussion, the three pitchers who were mainstays in the weekend rotation were included as the Owls tended to rotate through midweek guys as injuries cropped up and players produced. Here’s a rundown of how the starters faired this season.

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** Photo credit: Maria Lysakar **
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