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The Roost Podcast | Ep 91 – Rice Football vs Houston Review

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Matthew and Carter break down the second tough loss of the 2021 Rice Football season this week, recapping what went wrong against Houston.

There wasn’t much in the way of positive news to take away from the Rice football loss to Houston at home in Week 2. The Owls started slow and ended with a walk-off pick-six. Nevertheless, what went wrong, and how much can reasonably be expected to improve in the weeks ahead are worthy conversation topics for this week’s episode.

You can find previous episodes on the podcast page. For now, give a listen to Episode 90.

Episode Notes

  • Housekeeping
    • Don’t forget to rate, review and subscribe to the podcast on your platform of choice. Every little bit helps.
    • Check out the Blue and Gray Preview Show every Wednesday at Noon, hosted by Matthew and Rice radio broadcaster JP Heath on the Rice Athletics Youtube Channel
    • Don’t forget to grab your copy of the 2021 Rice Football Season Preview.
    • Please support us on Patreon. Be the first to get the inside scoop on what’s going on with Rice football and stick around for even further analysis. That includes updates from fall camp, practices and more.
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  • Rice Football vs Houston Game Review 
    • The offense started slow, had execution problems and poor line play
    • How much can we evaluate Luke McCaffrey with so much in flux around him?
    • Why should we view the defensive performance as an off night? Will they bounce back?
    • What do we need to see from both sides of the ball moving forward?
    • One quick look ahead at key matchups against Texas

Where can you find us?

Download and subscribe to The Roost Podcast on any of your favorite podcast providers. The show is available on iTunes, GooglePlay, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, TuneIn and PodBean. Please consider leaving a review wherever you listen.

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Rice Football 2021: NFL Owls Week 1 Stats Update

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Rice Football is well represented on 2021 NFL rosters. Here’s the latest from the NFL Owls in action in Week 1.

There are former Rice football players scattered across the NFL. Stay tuned each week for their game results and notables from each player.

Week 1 results

Las Angeles Chargers (Covington) def. Washington, 20-16
Denver (Anderson, Callahan) def. New York Giants, 27-13 
Pittsburgh (Boswell) def. Buffalo, 23-16
San Francisco def. Detroit (Fox), 41-33
Tampa Bay (Leverett) def. Dallas, 31-29

Offense

Calvin Anderson – OT, Broncos

Anderson did not see any offensive snaps for the Broncos in their Week 1 game against the Washington Football Team. He’s primarily appeared on special teams since signing with the Broncos last year.

The Broncos visit the Jacksonville Jaguars in Week 2.

Nick Leverett – OT, Buccaneers

Leverett was inactive for the Buccaneers Week 1 win over the Dallas Cowboys on Thursday night. The Buccaneers host the Atlanta Falcons in Week 2.

Defense and Special Teams

Chris Boswell – K, Steelers

Boswell was perfect in his 2021 debut. He converted all three of his field goal attempts, with a long of 45 yards. He was also successful on a pair of extra point tries. Scoring 11 of the Steelers’ 23 points on his own. The Steelers host the Las Vegas Raiders in Week 2.

Bryce Callahan – CB, Broncos

Callahan made his return to the gridiron in Week 1 after battling injuries last season. He recorded two tackles. The Broncos visit the Jacksonville Jaguars in Week 2.

Christian Covington – DL, Chargers

Covington had a productive debut with the Los Angeles Chargers, finishing tied for third in tackles with five. He also had one tackle for a loss. The Chargers host the Dallas Cowboys in Week 2.

Jack Fox – P, Lions

Fox punted three times against the San Francisco 49ers, averaging a whopping 50.7 yards per punt. His long traveled 57 yards. He did not have any touchbacks. The Lions visit the Green Bay Packers on Monday Night Football in Week 2.

More Owls in the NFL

From practice squads to current free agents, there are other Owls on the cusp of returning to active rosters. Find more detail on current contractual agreements and former Rice football players waiting for their next opportunity here.

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Rice Football 2021 Game Preview: Texas Longhorns

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Rice Football heads to the state capital this week for a matchup with the Texas Longhorns in Week 3. How to watch, key stats, x-factor picks and more.

Both teams hope their second Southwest Conference reunion of the season turns out better than the first. Rice football fell to Arkansas in Week 1. Then Texas followed them with a loss to the Razorbacks in Week 2. Texas enters this game 1-1 with their win coming over a ranked Louisiana squad at home while Rice sits at 0-2 after falling to Houston their last time out.

Broadcast Info

Kickoff time | 7:00 PM CT
Venue | Darrel K Royal Stadium – Austin, TX
TV | Longhorn Network
Radio | Sports Map 94.1 (FM) / Stretch Internet (Online)

Audio / Visual Preview

We’ll preview Rice football vs Texas this week’s episode of the Blue and Gray Preview Show, streaming live on Wednesday at Noon on the Rice Athletics YouTube channel. You can also catch the recap of last week’s game on The Roost Podcast, which should be released shortly. Find us on the podcast page or wherever you like to listen to podcasts. (And consider leaving us a 5-star review while you’re at it.)

Sizing up the contenders

It’s been more than two years since Rice football last beat Texas, knocking off the Longhorns most recently in 1994. Should pull off the upset in Austin this time around, they’d push new head coach Steve Sarkisian to 1-2 and, turning grumblings generated from the Arkansas loss into a full-blown panic.

Reaching that point seems more even more daunting after last weekend’s dismal outing against Houston. But the Owls will find some solace in a reeling Texas team that doesn’t look nearly as invincible as it did after their opening weekend victory.

To some degree, the bulk of the pressure rests on Texas in this game. The Rice faithful expect clearly visible improvement. The struggles from the Houston game need to be rectified and this team needs to look competitive. Texas fans demand a win, preferably by a comfortable margin.

Series History

All Time | Texas leads 73-21-1
Last Five | Texas leads 5-0
Last Meeting | NRG Stadium 2019, Texas won 48-13

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Rice Stat Notables

Passing | McCaffrey – 14/29 (48.3 percent), 161 yards, 1 TD, 3 INT
Rushing | Griffin – 32 carries, 121  yards (3.8 yards per carry)
Receiving | Pitre – 4 receptions, 97 yards (24.3 yards per reception), 1 TD / Bailey – 5 receptions, 62 yards (12.4 yds/rec)
Tackles | Montero – 21 / Morrison – 14 / Schuman – 13
Pass Breakups/Interceptions | Smith, McCord – 2 PBU, Fresch – 1 INT

Texas Stat Notables

Passing | Card – 22/36 (61.1 percent), 285 yards passing, 2 TD, 0 INT
Rushing | Robinson – 39 carries, 172 yards (4.4 yards per carry), 2 TD
Receiving | Whittington – 12 receptions, 145 yards (12.1 yards per reception), 1 TD / Robinson – 5 receptions, 77 yards (15.4 yds/rec), 1 TD
Tackles | Overshown – 21 / Brockmeyer – 14 / Foster – 11
Interceptions/Pass Breakups | Cook – 2 PBU, Foster – 1 INT

Texas X-Factor | Quarterback

Hudson Card was named the Texas starter prior to the start of the 2021 season. He completed 14-of-21 passes for 224 yards and two touchdowns in the opener, effectively guiding the Longhorns to victory. He was much less composed in Week 2, compiling 61 yards on 8-of-15 passes before being benched in favor of Casey Thompson.

Thompson was more productive, primarily as a rusher. He scored twice on the ground and added 57 yards passing, but it came well after Arkansas had built a comfortable lead. Rice can sympathize about the struggles of finding consistent play at the quarterback position, but that doesn’t change the pressure the Texas coaching staff will be under this week.

Whether it’s Card or Thompson, someone is going to have to emerge for Texas to get into a rhythm along the lines of where they were in their opener. Whatever happened last week was not the answer for the Longhorns.

Rice X-Factor | Getting off the field

Last week against Houston, Rice was rather impressive on early downs and rather abysmal on third down. Try as they might, they just could not get off the field. The Owls allowed 3.3 yards per carry and 5.9 yards per attempt on first down. On third down, those numbers ballooned upwards to 12.8 yards per carry and 9.7 yards per attempt.

Houston converted 4-of-5 third downs of nine yards or more. For comparison, all five of the Owls’ third down conversions came with four yards to gain or fewer. Rice converted none of their third and long tries and only 38.5 percent of their total third down opportunities. Houston converted 61.5 percent, despite averaging almost a full yard more to-gain (8.1 to Rice’s 7.2) per attempt.

Rice did the right thing by forcing their opponent into third and long. They brought pressure, but Clayton Tune put the ball on the money, frequently finding his favorite target, Tank Dell. If Texas can assemble a similar third down performance, the Owls will be fighting a losing battle.

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Need More?

The Roost’s 2021 Rice Football Season Preview has FIVE pages dedicated to every opponent the Owls face. There are depth charts, important new arrivals and positional breakdowns for every team in Conference USA sourced from local beat writers and sources on the ground who cover these teams every day. It’s the most thorough C-USA publication on the market.

One Final Thing

Playing with a “goldfish mentality” is something various members of the Rice defense have mentioned over time. It’s something we’ve seen this unit improve upon. After being picked apart down the field in Year 0 and showing signs of shellshock like Riec football head coach Mike Bloomgren mentioned in his postgame comments last week, they’ll need to return to that state of being with haste.

Like the fleeting memory a goldfish memory, the Rice defense has long preached their commitment to putting the last play behind them and focusing on the task at hand. If they’re going to show positive improvement from Week 2 to Week 3, it’s going to be one play at a time. That same will be true for the offense, which couldn’t put more than one extended driver together.

Both sides of the ball need to forget the Houston game in its entirety. They need to bring whatever mindest they entered the Arkansas game with. That mentality, although lacking perfect execution, got them to where they wanted: into the fourth quarter with the chance to pull off a big win.

Rice would happily take a 17-17 fourth quarter state again this time around. But even if they get there, they’ll need to find a way to finish it.

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Rice football: Owls must put Bayou Bucket loss behind them, quickly

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Nothing went right for Rice football in a frustrating loss to Houston in the Bayou Bucket. Where do the Owls go from here?

“We can’t go out there and do what we just did,” Rice football defensive tackle Elijah Garcia said, point-blank following a particularly discouraging loss to crosstown rival, Houston. “It hurt. It was embarrassing. We just got to do better.”

From a defensive perspective, it seems plausible that better days are indeed ahead. Rice allowed 18.8 points per game last year in a schedule limited to five conference opponents. Through two games in 2021, Rice has allowed 41 points per game with largely the same personnel, with a few parts and pieces swapped out via injury or transfer. Surely, the defense will revert closer to that standard once the schedule eases up.

But the offense, that’s a tougher sell. To borrow a word from Rice football head coach Mike Bloomgren in the aftermath of Saturday’s loss, this team looked a lot like its head coach felt: “shellshocked”.

That’s how Bloomgren opened his brief comments with the media following the loss. And that’s how this team looked in the first quarter of a game that — on paper — was more favorable to the Owls’ chances of winning than their previous contest. Except Rice managed to hang with their Week 1 SEC opponent, Arkansas, well into the fourth quarter. The Houston game felt like it might be out of reach in the first 15 minutes of regulation.

More: Takeaways from disappointing Rice football loss to Houston

Rice football has now played 86 minutes and 16 seconds of game time since Wiley Green hit August Pitre on a wide-open 44-yard bomb to open the third quarter against Arkansas. They have seven total points to show for it. Rice averaged 23.4 points per game last season. They’re down to 14 points per game in 2021, a small sample, but still a noticeable reduction.

“I thought we would be able to fight them tooth and nail,” Bloomgren said in disbelief. “That’s not the way it went.”

The Owls have seven days to pick up the pieces and ready themselves for a road trip to Austin where they’ll face Texas, a team they’ve beaten once since 1965. They last topped the Longhorns in 1994, before every member of the current Rice roster was alive.

A rough start was always possible, given how strenuous the schedule seemed to be. Two games in, those worries have turned into reality. Rice won’t play Arkansas, Houston and Texas every week, but they’ll have to deal with the repercussions of a brutal opening stretch. There’s no better time than the present.

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Conference USA Football 2021: Week 2 C-USA Roundup

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Conference USA Football was back in action this weekend. Here’s the latest from the teams on the gridiron in Week 2.

Team Week 2 Result Week 3
Charlotte vs Gardner-Webb W, 38-10 at Georgia St
FAU vs Georgia Southern W, 38-6 vs Fordham
FIU vs Texas St. L, 23-17 (OT) at Texas Tech
LA Tech vs SE Louisiana W, 45-42 vs SMU
Marshall vs NC Central W, 44-10 vs East Carolina
MTSU at Virginia Tech L, 35-14 at UTSA
North Texas at SMU L, 35-12 vs UAB
Old Dominion vs Hampton W, 47-7 at Liberty
Rice vs Houston L, 44-7 at Texas
Southern Miss vs Grambling W, 37-0 vs Troy
UAB at Georgia L,  56-7 at North Texas
UTEP at Boise St. L, 54-13 — OFF —
UTSA vs Lamar W, 54-0 vs MTSU
WKU at Army  L, 38-35 — OFF —

Notable Week 2 results – Standings

Non-conference nonsense

In Week 1, the Texas Longhorns handled Louisiana with ease and Rice came within one quarter of upsetting Arkansas. At the same time, Houston collapses against a Texas Tech team that nearly lost to SFA in Week 2. How then, did Arkansas pummel Texas and Rice get overwhelmed by Houston in their second games? Because this is college football and nothing makes sense.

Second-week snoozers

The seven Conference USA teams that won in Week 2 did so against non-FBS teams. For the most part, those victories were uneventful, save for a too-close-for-comfort escape by Louisiana Tech over in-state foe Southeast Louisiana, who never trailed by more than 10 points at any time in the contest.

Zapped

Western Kentucky quarterback Bailey Zappe lit up the boxscore, but it was too little, too late against Army on Saturday. The Black Knights jumped out to a 21-7 lead in the first quarter, putting the Hilltoppers in come-back mode early. Zappe went on to throw for 435 yards and three scores, but it was too big of a mounting for even him to overcome.

Looking ahead – Key storylines

Let the (conference) games begin

The first Conference USA matchups of the season start next week. Middle Tennessee visits 2-0 UTSA in San Antonio while North Texas hosts UAB in a battle of two programs coming off a Week 2 losss. There’s plenty of season still to be played, but the winners of those matchups can put themselves in favorable position right out of the chute.

More opportunities for marquee wins

FIU and Rice both draw Power 5 opponents this week and Louisiana Tech gets perennial AAC power, SMU. Each of those non-conference foes has struggled early in the season, with Texas coming off a Week 2 loss and neither SMU or Texas Tech looking too mighty following more harrowing wins of their own.

Sneaky, tricky games

Marshall would do well to keep one eye open when they prep for a home contest against East Carolina. The Pirates gave South Carolina a scare in Week 2 and were able to put up some points against Appalachain State the week prior. After consecutive snoozers against Navy and NC Central, this contest might take a bit more focus.

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