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Rice Football 2023 Game Preview: South Florida

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Rice football visits USF in their first-ever AAC game this weekend. How to watch, key stats, x-factor picks and more.

Winners of two in a row, Rice football heads to the Sunshine State for their first ever AAC game against a South Florida squad that  played well against Alabama in Week 2, albeit in losing fashion. Head coach Alex Golesh didn’t mince words with the result. “Valiant efforts are for losers. Moral victories are for losers,” he said. “That’s what losers say. Winners win.”

There will be no moral victories this weekend. Someone will be tied atop the conference standings and someone else will be o-1. Here’s everything you need to know about this week’s matchup between Rice and USF.

Kickoff time | 3:00 PM CT
Venue | Raymond James Stadium – Tampa, Florida
TV | ESPNU (Viewing Guide)
Radio | Varsity Radio App (Online)

Audio / Visual Preview

We’ll preview Rice football vs USF on this week’s episode of the Blue and Gray Preview Show, streaming live on Wednesday at Noon on the Rice Athletics YouTube channel. Look for a recap of the game on the site afterward as well as on The Roost Podcast, which should be released early next week.

Sizing up the contenders

Neither USF nor Rice football were expected to be among the contenders for the AAC this season. The Owls were picked to finish 12th, the Bulls picked just behind them at 13th. The winner will be tied with Memphis at 1-0 for first place. If Rice wins, they’ll be 3-1 with a Power 5 victory already under their belt. If USF wins, they’ll be .500 through four games under a first year head coach. This is a big one.

Series History

All Time | n/a
Last Five | n/a
Last Meeting | n/a

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Rice Football Stat Notables

Passing | Daniels – 53/85 (62.4 percent), 805 yards, 8 TD, 3 INT
Rushing | Connors – 24 carries, 137 yards (5.7 yards per carry), 1 TD / Alexander – 14 carries, 40 yards (2.9 yards per carry), 5 TD
Receiving | McCaffrey – 11 receptions, 171 yards (15.5 yds/rec), 4 TDs / Walker – 7 receptions, 151 yards (21.6 yds/rec), 2 TD
Tackles | Wyatt – 17 / Morrison – 16 / Pearcy – 15
Pass Breakups | Fresch – 4 / Devones, Jean, Wyatt, Narcisse – 2 
Interceptions | Devones – 1

USF Stat Notables

Passing | B. Brown – 49/96 (51.0 percent), 450  yards, 4 TD, 3 INT
Rushing | B. Brown – 65 carries, 269 yards (4.1 yards per carry), 4 TD / Wright – 41 carries, 210 yards (5.1 ypc), 0 TD
Receiving | Atkins – 16 receptions, 142 yards (8.9 yards per reception), 0 TD / K. Brown – 6 receptions, 109 yards (18.2 yds/rec), 2 TD
Tackles | Shuler – 21 / Gordon – 19 / Evans – 18
Pass Breakups | Berryhill, Logan – 2 /  Five others – 1 
Interceptions | Berryhill – 2 / Stokes – 1

USF X-Factor | Contain the passing attack

USF ranks in the bottom quartile of the country in explosive passing plays allowed on defense (12), averaging four 20+ yard completions against their defense through three games. Against Alabama last weekend, though, USF gave up just one such play and (not coincidentally) posted their best defensive performance of the season against one of the most talented teams in the country. 

If one is inclined to believe the box scores, as unthinkable as this might have been to those outside of South Main until even a few weeks ago, Rice quarterback JT Daniels has been better than either of the signal callers Alabama played against USF last weekend. He will test USF downfield. If they can stand tall and take that element away from the Ric offense, things could get interesting. 

The Rice running game was more productive in the second half against Texas Southern than it had been yet this season, but it certainly hasn’t been fantastic quite yet. Someone is going to try to force the Owls to be one dimensional and it might just be USF.

Rice X-Factor | Win the turnover battle

Sometimes, it’s not rocket science. The Owls were -3 in turnovers against Texas and lost the game by four scores. They were -1 against Houston, allowing the Cougars to erase a 28-point Owl advantage because of miscues. Against Texas Southern, inarguably the least talented team Rice football has played thus far, they won the turnover battle 2-0 and won in dominant fashion.

The USF offense has shown spurts of ability in the early days of the Golesh era. If they’re able to move the ball well against the Owls, adding a turnover deficit on the road would not be a recipe that portends success. For Rice to enable themselves to play their game and stay on schedule, being turnover neutral, at a minimum, is a must.

In practice, that means a bit more poise from Daniels on some of his bolder throws and sure hands from the skill players, who have put the ball on the deck a few times so far this season. 

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One Final Thing

Rice football has never started 3-1 under head coach Mike Bloomgren. The Owls got to 3-2 last year but had to knock off UAB in game five to get there. 3-1 would be a first. As Bloomgren continues to make his case that 2023 will be his breakthrough season, a strong start like that would certainly be noticed. It also could set up something more.

Rice returns home the following weekend and plays ECU (0-3) and UConn (0-3) before a bye week. This program is not far enough removed from some very hard seasons to start counting a single win before it happens, but it’s not too presumptive to say the schedule couldn’t be set up much more favorably for this team in the weeks ahead. A 3-1 start could turn into much more.

First, though, Rice football has to take care of business. Win this game on the road, their first road victory of the season, and come home healthy. If you can achieve that, we could be looking at a rare opportunity and an intriguing start to a season that hasn’t been seen on South Main in quite some time. They’ll just need to beat first-year head coach Alex Golesh to get that chance. 

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Rice Football cruises past Texas Southern

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Rice Football cruised past Texas Southern, posting its second straight win over a Houston-based squad to improve to 2-1 on the season.

From the very first snap, it was unequivocally clear Rice football was on a different level than Texas Southern. The most talented team ever fielded under head coach Mike Bloomgren, fresh off its upset win of Houston the week before, absolutely smoked an FCS squad that couldn’t keep step with the Owls on either side of the ball. Here are a few immediate reactions from the game:

Defensive dominance

The Rice football defense set the tone of the very first play. Tre’shon Devones scooped up a fumble to give the Owls’ offense the ball on a short field, the third consecutive game in which Rice had forced a turnover on their opponent’s first possession. Then, for the third consecutive game, Rice took a lead on their ensuing drive.

The defense allowed negative four yards on the next three TSU drives, all three-and-outs, asserting its dominance in a way that brought back memories of the 2020 side that finished as a top 15 unit in the country.

The pass rush made it all but impossible for TSU to move the football. While Rice only registered one official sack, TSU’s line was no match for the pressure the Owls were bringing. They added four tackles for a loss and two quarterback hurries.

Texas Southern threated twice before the fourth quarter. The first time TSU found a hole in the coverage and completed a long pass then got into the redzone with the help of a defensive penalty on a tackle out of bounds, setting up their lone touchdown of the night.

The second time came in the final minutes of the third quarter in which they had the ball with a first down inside the 10. Rice held firm, stonewalling them with a fourth down stop.

This could have been a shutout and honestly, it probably should have been. Rice was that much better.

Offensive outburst

Meanwhile, on the other side of the ball, quarterback JT Daniels made it look easy. Three of his first six passes went for touchdowns and one of those competitions that did not score was a long bomb to Landon Ransom who was ruled down on the one-yard line.

The list of accolades was, understandably, epic.

  • Rice has scored 21 points in the first quarter for the second straight week, heading into this season, the Owls had not scored 21 or more in the first since 2013
  • Rice’s 42 points in the first half are the most for the Owls since they scored 56 in the first half vs. North Texas in 2008
  • JT Daniels 4 TD passes tie his career high (Mississippi State in 2020) and he is the second Owl to throw four TDs in the first half (Chase Clement, 2008)

Daniels was not sacked. The TSU pass rush offered little threat and the Rice offensive line gave him plenty of protection. Five different receivers caught passes of 35 yards or more, another game in which Daniels was able to spread the ball around and find the open receivers. That’s an area where he’s notably impressed so far this season.

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Rice Football 2023: Texas Southern Game Week Practice Report

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Rice football looks to build on a big win with a home matchup against Texas Southern. Here’s what we learned from practice this week.

It’s always more fun to make corrections after a win and that’s what Rice football had the opportunity to do on the practice field this week. The Owls were able to finish the job against Houston, but it was by no means a perfect performance and they had a list of things to attend to before their next contest against Texas Southern.

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This week’s roundup focuses on the ground game, a few individual highlights and some health updates as the team prepares for Week 3.

For those checking in for the first time, or those returning, a quick programming note. Special features like this are reserved for our subscribers. Have questions? You can get those answered in our monthly Q&As and get access to all practice notes, recruiting updates and features like this one when you subscribe on Patreon today.

What to make of the running game?

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Rice Football 2023 Game Preview: Texas Southern

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Rice football hosts Texas Southern this weekend in an intracity matchup. How to watch, key stats, x-factor picks and more.

Rice football enters Week 3 riding high after an upset win over Houston to kick off their first of seven home games at Rice Stadium this season. Texas Southern was less fortunate, getting thumped by Toledo on the road 71-3. Here’s everything you need to know about this week’s matchup between Rice and Texas Southern.

Kickoff time | 6:00 PM CT
Venue | Historic Rice Stadium – Houston, Texas
TV | ESPN+ (Viewing Guide)
Radio | Varsity Radio App (Online)

Audio / Visual Preview

We’ll preview Rice football vs Texas Southern on this week’s episode of the Blue and Gray Preview Show, streaming live on Wednesday at Noon on the Rice Athletics YouTube channel. Look for a recap of the game on the site afterward as well as on The Roost Podcast, which should be released early next week.

Sizing up the contenders

Texas Southern is in the opening days of what is shaping up to be another challenging season. The Tigers were able to keep pace with the Owls when these two teams met up in 2021, but there’s not a lot at stake for the visitors this time around with expectations fairly limited. The same can not be said for Rice, which will be expected to win this game and win it comfortably after last weekend’s landmark victory.

Series History

All Time | Rice leads, 1-0
Last Five | Rice leads, 1-0
Last Meeting | Home 2021, Rice won 48-34

Get the Inside Scoop

Get access to practice reports, analysis and special features during the week when you subscribe to our Starting Lineup Tier on Patreon today. If you want updates on how Rice football plans to attack this week’s opponent, position battles, standouts, injuries and more, this is your go-to source. Don’t miss out! Join now!

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Rice Football Stat Notables

Passing | Daniels – 42/68 (61.8 percent), 550 yards, 4TD, 3 INT
Rushing | Connors – 16 carries, 71 yards (4.4 yards per carry), 0 TD / Alexander – 7 carries, 17 yards (2.4 yards per carry), 3 TD
Receiving | McCaffrey – 9 receptions, 121 yards (13.4 yds/rec), 3 TDs / Walker – 6 receptions, 116 yards (19.3 yds/rec), 1 TD
Tackles | Wyatt – 14 / Fresch, Morrison – 12/ Coco, Conti, Pearcy, Taylor – 10
Pass Breakups | Fresch – 4 / Devones, Jean – 2 / Wyatt, Narcisse – 1
Interceptions | Devones – 1

Texas Southern Stat Notables

Passing | Body – 18/38 (47.4 percent), 286 yards, 3 TD, 3 INT
Rushing | Owens – 16 carries, 141 yards (8.8 yards per carry), 1 TD / Howard – 20  carries, 76 yards (3.8 ypc), 0 TD
Receiving | Davis – 7 receptions, 120 yards (17.1 yards per reception), 1 TD / Johnson – 10 receptions, 87 yards (8.7 yds/rec), 0 TD
Tackles | Williams – 25 / Henderson – 18 / Bogerty, Noel – 15
Pass Breakups | Henderson, Player, Williams – 1
Interceptions | Williams – 1

Texas Southern X-Factor | Take the ball away

Turnovers have been a problem for Rice football and were almost their undoing against Houston last weekend. The Owls led by 28 points before JT Daniels through a redzone interception and the Owls fumbled a later possession away, allowing the down-and-out Cougars to stick around and put the result in doubt late.

That’s the same formula Texas Southern will have to replicate if they want to have a chance to compete against a more athletic team on both sides of the ball. Rice corner Tre’shon Devones said it well in his postgame comments, “We can only beat ourselves at this point.”

Texas Southern needs to force the issue, play aggressively and take risks. If they can get Rice to cough up the football they can make this one interesting.

Rice X-Factor | Limit mistakes

In the same vein, Rice football has to make this as formulaic of a game as possible. Finding a way to have success on the ground would be a plus, but as long as the Owls can protect the football and play fundamentally sound, they should win this game.

That might be easier said than done though. Rice hasn’t played a turnover-free football game since Week 2 of 2022 against McNeese State, a span of 13 consecutive games with at least one turnover. Running backs, wide receivers and quarterbacks have all been culpable over that stretch. It’s a team problem that needs to be fixed. Saturday would be the perfect time do so.

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One Final Thing

While Rice football hasn’t won a game quite as significant as the Houston game to this point under Bloomgren, they have had a few big victories along the way. What the Owls have lacked is any sort of reliable consistency from week to week.

This program is not too far removed from losing to a Charlotte team with an interim head coach to take any game for granted, regardless who lines up on the other side of the field.

That’s what will make Saturday so intriguing for this team. If they can hold serve against Texas Southern they’ll enter their final nonconference game against UConn with a winning record as they ready for their first-ever AAC game. Now isn’t the time to look ahead, but it is the time to prove you can succeed where your feet are and take care of business one snap at a time and one game at a time.

Rice football needs to replicate its fast start against Houston and extend its success into the second half and through its conclusion, proving they’ve learned from their hiccups and can make the necessary adjustments to elevate their level of play. If they can do that, a special season could be underway.



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Rice Football tops Houston in 2OT, wins first Bayou Bucket since 2010

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Rice Football came out hot, fell behind, took the lead and held on, earning a massive rivalry win over crosstown rival Houston for the first time since 2010.

The final moments got hairy, but the scoreboard does not lie. Rice football notched a monumental rivalry win over Houston on Saturday night, claiming their first victory in the series since 2010. After leading 28, Rice allowed 35 unanswered points before slamming the door on a pass breakup in double overtime. Here are a few immediate reactions from the game:

The offense comes to life

The working theory regarding the Rice football offense this week was more or less this: once the Owls’ offensive line faced a less-than-super-human pass rush and JT Daniels had time, the Owls’ would start putting up points. It didn’t take long for that theory to be tested on Saturday and the early returns were overwhelmingly positive.

On the first series of the game, Daniels stepped up into the pocket, avoided pressure and found an outlet across the middle, getting the ball to Juma Otoviano who scampered 35 yards into the redzone. Two plays later Daniels again climbed the pocket, scanning the field and found Luke McCaffrey darting across the field toward the sideline. He slung it his way and McCaffrey did the rest for the Owls’ first score.

It wasn’t a first-drive fluke, though. The Rice offense had three possessions in the first quarter and put the ball in the box on each attempt. Daelen Alexander picked up his first career score on a fourth-and-one plunge and McCaffrey added another touchdown on this spectacular grab:

Touchdown after touchdown after touchdown after touchdown. The Rice offense didn’t just kick off some dust, it went into overdrive right up until turnovers and penalties killed the positive vibes. Short of the self-inflicted wounds, the unit was productive. It’s hard to ignore a scoreless second half and an overtime that never should have happened, but the offense delivered in overtime and Rice walked away victorious.

When asked the difference between Daniels’ play from last week to this week, head coach Mike Bloomgren quipped, “he was playing the game standing up, to be quite frank. He got to play quarterback.”

Defense joins the fray

The offensive explosion came, in part, because that unit was able to get into a rhythm. There weren’t any long waits confined to the bench while they waited for their next turn. Instead, the defense quickly did their job and handed the ball right back to the offense as both sides operated with a synergy that hadn’t been seen to such a degree in quite some time.

The defense pitched a shutout in the first quarter and didn’t allow points until Houston’s final drive of the second quarter, one that required a pair of fourth-down conversions including one via penalty.

Before the Cougars were able to get on the board, the Rice defense recorded its first takeaway of the season — an interception by Tre’shon Devones — and added a three-and-out on the very next possession. Houston managed just 32 yards of total offense in the first quarter. Rice had 186.

As the game progressed, the defense was strained. Houston drove the length of the field on their first drive of the second half and opted to go for it on fourth and goal, trailing by three scores.

After bringing the heat, the Owls dropped into coverage and gave Houston quarterback Donovan Smith nowhere to throw it. The Cougars turned the ball over on downs, ending a seven-minute drive without points. The defense turned Houston over on downs again on the very next drive.

It wasn’t until the offense endured a prolonged scoring drought that we saw the defense start to sag. That was the same story in the opening game against Texas, but fortunately for the Owls, it wasn’t enough to sink them on Saturday. When the defense needed a play, they got it, with Jojo Jean breaking up a pass in double overtime to win the game.

Houston, we have a quarterback

When Rice football kicked off the season, the Owls were the owners of one painful, notorious quarterback stat: Rice had started more quarterbacks than any other FBS institution since 2017. For one reason or another, the search for stable play under center had evaded Bloomgren since his arrival at Rice.

Rice had tried journeymen. They’d tried freshmen. The Owls had started pocket passers and runners, two of which made their way into the Owls’ receiving corps on Saturday night. Injuries and ineffective play had rendered the fruits negligible. For an offensive-minded head coach, the lack of production on that side of the ball was maddening.

So when JT Daniels arrived on South Main, there was ample reason to be cautious. Even though he brought his blue-chip recruiting profile, his multiple stops to reach Rice caused many to raise their eyebrows. Against Texas, the entire offense went flat. But Bloomgren kept the faith. On Saturday, he was rewarded.

Daniels lit Houston up to the tune of 401 yards (sixth most in school history) and three touchdowns. He led Rice to 28 first half points in the rivalry for the first time since 2008. He was surgical, slicing and dicing a Houston defense that secured a victory over Rice with its own finishing blow just last season. That wasn’t the case on Saturday.

With the game on the line, Daniels delivered in overtime, securing one of the Owls’ biggest victories of the Bloomgren era. For all the good and bad from Saturday night, the simple truth was this: Rice football asked a quarterback to go win them the game in overtime and he delivered.

The Owls have landed

Streaks are meant to be broken. For the first time since a 2013 victory over Kansas, Rice football has notched a win over a Power 5 opponent. The string of defeats since had spanned 18 games, including the Owls’ prior outing last weekend against Texas. Saturday’s result was quite the opposite.

For the first time since 2010, Rice football has beaten crosstown rival Houston, snapping a seven-game losing streak to the Cougars. Getting the Bayou Bucket back on this side of South Main is exciting, serving to validate years of building under head coach Mike Bloomgren while (hopefully) providing a launching point for their inaugural season of American Conference play.

Rice football sits at 1-1 with two nonconference games remaining before it’s time to take on the AAC. The Owls want to make some noise in their new conference. Wins like this suggest this is a program that should be up for the challenge, although consistency, not ability, has been this program’s nemesis in prior seasons.

Today, though, Rice football can and should feel pretty good about where they stand. They beat Houston and proved they can play with one of the most talented teams remaining on their schedule. Celebrate tonight. Then it’s time to prove they can become the program they’ve been building toward.

“We probably made it a little more interesting than we needed to, but to win the Bucket for the first time in 12 years and get it back to Main Street, which was one of our goals for this season, that’s a big deal for a program. To beat a Big 12 team is a big deal for our program.”

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Are we still pounding the rock?

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