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Rice Football: Linebacking corps set for breakthrough season

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Here come the tackling machines. The 2019 Rice Football linebacker rotation could be one of the Owls best units on the field.

A groundswell of optimism is emerging around South Main regarding the 2019 linebackers. Blaze Alldredge and Antonio Montero made their marks at the tail end of the 2018 season, taking over starting roles midway through the year. Firmly entrenched as the alphas at their position, this duo has had an incredible spring. Expectations are sky high.

Both Montero and Alldredge have the talent and the drive to cement themselves among the most productive linebackers in Conference USA this season. If they play to their potential, they’re well within the range of 100-tackle seasons, something which has happened at Rice just twice in the past 20 years.

Travis Bradshaw racked up a staggering 121 tackles in 2009. Cameron Nwosu notched 108 tackles in 2011. None of the dozens of other linebackers who took the field for the Owls over that time cracked the 100-tackle mark.

A season of that magnitude would put either of those two defenders in rarified air. The impact on the defense as a whole would be tremendous. That kind of production would vault them into consideration for individual recognition, too. Eight CUSA players reached the 100-tackle plateau in 2018. UTEP linebacker A.J. Hotchkins, FIU linebacker Sage Lewis and North Texas linebacker E.J. Eliya all finished with more than 120 takedowns.

Whether it’s 120 tackles of 70, it’s hard to envision a scenario right now in which both Montero and Alldredge don’t make the defense significantly better in 2019 than it was in 2018. They’re the kind of vocal leaders in the middle of the field who spark change and lead with effort and physicality. The Rice linebacker room is primed for a special season.

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Rice Football: Best records across every conference

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Rice Football only plays a few games a year outside of Conference USA, but the Owls rich history stretches across almost every college football conference.

In 2005 Rice joined Conference USA. They left the WAC that year, a pitstop after spending decades in the Southwest Conference. During that time Rice has played dozens upon dozens of schools and amassed favorable records across several of the sport’s most notable names.

More than 100 years of football later, here are a few of the Owls more impressive series wins across nine different conferences and a few independent squads.

Power 5

  • ACC – North Carolina (1-0), Pittsburgh (2-1)
  • Big 12 – WVU (1-0), Kansas (2-1), Iowa State (3-2)
  • Big Ten – Northwestern (4-3)
  • Pac-12 – Arizona (4-0), Utah (3-1), Colorado (1-0)
  • SEC – Alabama (3-0), Auburn (2-0), Georgia (1-0), Florida (4-3-1)

Quick… how many active college football programs are undefeated in games against Alabama, Auburn and Georgia? Six of the Owls’ 82 wins against current SEC teams came over three of the truest blue-bloods in college football.

Rice has a rich rivalry with some of the premier academic institutions across the nation. They’ve played Duke and Stanford six times and Northwestern seven. The Owls and Wildcats are scheduled to meet again in 2029.

Group of 5 and Independent

  • AAC – Tulane (20-15-1)
  • CUSA– UTEP (14-8), Charlotte (2-0), FAU (2-1)
  • MAC – Western Michigan (1-0)
  • Mountain West – New Mexico (3-0), UNLV (2-0), Colorado State (1-0), Hawaii (5-3)
  • Independent – New Mexico State (1-0), Army (4-3)

Rice has a winning record over their first opponent of 2019, Army, but the Black Knights could even the series with a home win in August. Among Group of 5 teams, Rice and Tulane have some of the richest history. The series has had several starts and stops but always been close with Rice winning seven of the last 10.

Within the confines of the Owls’ current conference affiliations, Rice has controlled UTEP with the most regularity. The Miners got the upper hand in 2018, but Rice will look to avenge that defeat in El Paso this fall.

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Rice Baseball: Redefining the culture Matt Bragga biggest win in 2019

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The 2019 Rice baseball season saw mixed results and no NCAA Tournament bid, but head coach Matt Bragga is confident about the progress made in Year 1.

Last summer Matt Bragga hopped in the car and made the drive from Austin to Houston. Many Texans know the route, some have taken it fairly often. For Bragga, everything was new. He stopped off at a Men’s Wearhouse, bought a suit and continued on to South Main for an interview. It wasn’t long afterward that he was introduced as Rice baseball’s newest head coach.

At that press conference, Bragga said all the things you’d expect a new head coach to say. He talked about how excited he was to be at Rice, how hard it had been to leave his former school and how he was ready for the task at hand. A year later, Bragga remains resolute the program is going in the right direction, but he’d be lying if he’d said he thought it was going to be easy.

“It’s been 15 years [since being hired at Tennessee Tech]. I forgot how hard taking over a program was.” Bragga says, looking back at the 2019 season, “but that’s the fun of it, that’s the challenge. That’s why you do what you do.”

A year of inconsistency

There were some days when it felt like hard was putting things lightly. Rice lost their opener to Rhode Island in extra innings and five in a row to ranked competition (Texas, Arizona and UC Irvine) early in the non-conference portion of the schedule. There were flickers of hope, including wins over in-state powers Baylor, TCU and Houston.

That’s kind of how the season went. The team bounced from cavernous depths to unbelievable highs as they went from series to series. They’d sweep a quality opponent like Louisiana Tech, then turn around and drop three in a row to Western Kentucky. Sometimes there wasn’t much of a rhyme or reason.

At the end of the season, though, the 26-33 overall record was rather indicative of the season as a whole. Rice wasn’t a bad baseball team in 2019, but they weren’t excellent either. Consistency and the thirst for a true identity and a unified culture were marked areas in need of improvement.

Willing to go the distance

Bragga builds cultures. The reason he drove from Austin to Houston in the summer of 2018 was because he’d taken a Tennessee Tech program with no historical success to the cusp of the College World Series.

Despite losing to Texas in a decisive winner-take-all game, Bragga had already proven he had what it takes to reach the sports’ highest levels. What got him a seat at the table was no surprise to Bragga. It wasn’t a five-step plan to get to Omaha. It was dependent on creating an atmosphere and a system which enabled his team to get there.

“You as a coach build those expectations… At the end of the day, I got hired because I’m a good baseball coach and I’ve built good cultures where I’ve been. That’s what my focus is on. If my focus is on [getting to the College World Series] I’m hosed.”

Culture has been on his mind a lot lately. “I don’t think we’re tough enough and that is on me,” he remarked in the weeks following the end of the Owls’ 2019 season. That toughness, both mental and physical, has been one of the things Bragga has leaned into this year. By and large, the attitude is changing. “I could not have asked for a better first year in terms of our guys buying into what is we’re doing, he said.” But as Bragga knows as well as anyone else, it’s going to take time.

It took more than a decade for Bragga to take Tennessee Tech from a glorified high school field and a shoestring budget to being one game away from college baseball’s greatest achievement. The resources and commitment at Rice outweigh the support he was able to garner at his previous stop, allowing for an expedited ramp up. That’s a reality that hastens Bragga’s confidence.

Transitioning from rebuild to reload

Rice will lose two Top 5 MLB Draft selections following the 2019 season: Matt Canterino (Twins) and Evan Kravetz (Reds). They’ll solidify some of their roster deficiencies with important JUCO additions. The lineup will look different, but that might be because guys who were hitting at the top third of the lineup are pushed back to seventh or eighth in 2020.

The new look Owls will have more power at the plate. They’ll be more disciplined in the field, a facet of the game which they improved on significantly during the 2019 season. Rice began the season with an eight-error game in non-conference play against Arizona. They finished as the best fielding club in the conference tournament. Change is coming, one step at a time.

Bragga is under no illusions that gradual shifts will be enough for a program with the rich tradition of Rice baseball. But he’s confident that his abilities combined with the talent and resources available to him at South Main will produce a winning formula, sooner rather than later.

“I’ve dreamed since I started coaching baseball 23 years ago to coach at a premier baseball program in the country… That’s what Rice is. This is a goal that’s been on my mind for 23 years,” Bragga declared, “This program is going in the right direction. We’re going to get this program to the pinnacle of college baseball. I believe that with all my heart.”

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Rice Football Recruiting: 2020 Corner Sean Fresch commits to Owls

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The 2020 Rice football recruiting class includes a lock-down secondary, bolstered by the Owls’ new commitment, corner Sean Fresch from Austin, Tx.

A rousing run through June landed Rice yet another commitment. The Owls kicked off the month with the Adidas 3 Stripe camp, hosting hundreds of athletes on campus. One of those players was Austin cornerback Sean Fresch who has committed to play his college football at Rice.

Rice was interested in Fresch from the moment he stepped foot on campus at camp. He ran sub 4.4 40-yard dashes and came back and replicated the feet at the Owls’ Junior Day. Watching him work against some of their top targets in person was the litmus test the Owls needed. His blazing speed, complimented with impressive work in one-on-ones made extending an offer an easy decision for the Rice staff.
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Fresch turned down offers from Army, UTSA, UTEP and Sam Houston in favor of the Owls. Rice is carving out a talent pool of top-flight Texas talent. Fresch marks the eighth in-state addition in the 2020 class. Rice is sure to add more to that total before they wrap things up on signing day.

With Fresch in the fold, the Owls’ secondary class is as robust as any in recent memory. Safety Plae Wyatt, corner Devin Gunter, corner Jordan Dubar and Fresch are going to be mainstays at the back of the defense for years to come.

It’s hard to not get excited when you turn the film for Fresch. His ability to read the quarterback and make plays on the ball in the air are hallmarks of a successful player in defensive coordinator Brian Smith’s scheme. That innate ability combined with the jets to take a tipped ball to the house in the blink of an eye makes him an exciting addition to the 2020 class.

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Rice Football Recruiting: Owls make cut for rising 2020 LB Kenneth Phillips

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The 2020 Rice Football recruiting class is hanging with an SEC Power and more as they fight for linebacker Kenneth Phillips.

Kenneth Phillips made noise on the camp circuit this summer. The Owls got their foot in the door with an offer in early June, but several Power 5 teams followed soon after. There was a time when that would have been enough to push Rice football out of the minds of recruits the caliber of Phillips. Times are changing.

Phillips, who will enter his senior season at Fort Bend Bush High School this fall, is regarded as a 3-star prospect and a top-100 outside linebacker prospect in the nation. He released his Top 6 schools today which include Rice, Texas A&M, Indiana, Georgia Tech, Wake Forest and Texas Southern. It’s expected Rice will get an official visit from Phillips before he makes his decision this fall.

Bloomgren recalls the perception Rice had upon his arrival rather sharply: “It took us a little while to be able to get in the game. We would have had trouble getting someone with a Big 12 or a Big Ten offer to come visit,” he admitted. “Now we’re doing that and we need to find a way to close out.”

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Not only is Rice getting those players to campus, but they’re also winning recruiting battles. The current crop of 2020 Rice Football commits includes players who have turned down programs in the Pac-12, Big 12 and Big Ten to come play football at South Main.

Could Phillips add an exclamation point to the Owls’ new-look recruiting swagger? It’s certainly possible. That’s a compliment in itself.

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