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Rice Football Recruiting: 2022 class flyover entering the summer

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The 2022 Rice Football recruiting class is approaching May with one commitment secured. Here’s the 10,000-foot view of the class so far.

The summer is near and the 2022 Rice football recruiting class is progressing, mostly behind the scenes. Rice has one commitment so far and only a handful of offers. Here’s a quick update on what the Owls have been up to over the last few weeks and the outlook for what their plans could be as the summer nears.

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Rice Football: Austin Trammell signs UDFA deal with Atlanta Falcons

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Rice football did not see any players selected in the 2021 NFL Draft, but former wide receiver Austin Trammell has since signed with the Atlanta Falcons.

The 2021 NFL Draft had a much smaller player pool this season than it typically does. Relaxed eligibility rules saw many draft-eligible upperclassmen choose to return to school, including several Rice football seniors. Wide receiver Austin Trammell was the only Owl to make a serious run at the professional ranks.

Trammell participated in the College Gridiron Showcase and did his NFL Pro Day with the University of Houston. He stopped by The Roost Podcast in the weeks prior to the draft to share what the process was like and talk about what life was like during the Owls’ unpredictable 2020 season.

After doing all he could to get himself on the radar of NFL teams, Trammell knows his next steps. Although he was not selected during the 2021 NFL Draft, Trammell has signed an undrafted free agent contract with the Atlanta Falcons.

Trammell’s signing is one of several such free agent agreements for Conference USA players. In total, Conference USA had four players chosen during the draft itself:

Rice Football recent NFL Draft history

The Owls’ streak of drafts without a selection has now stretched to six. Christian Covington is the most recent Rice football draftee. He was selected by the Houston Texans in the sixth round of the 2015 NFL Draft.

Covington’s selection marked the end of a nice run of selections for Rice. From 2009 to 2015 eight Rice football players were seelcted: Jarret Dillard (2009), James Casey (2009), Cheta Ozougwu (2011), Scott Solomon (2012), Vance McDonald (2013), Luke Wilson (2013), Phillip Gaines (2014), Christian Covington (2015). McDonald was the highest selection, going No. 55 overall to the San Francisco 49ers.

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The Roost Podcast | Ep 74 – Rice Football and C-USA mailbag

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We reached out to the masses for this week’s mailbag show, with topics ranging from Rice football recruiting, Conference USA towns and tacos.

Our offseason interview series took a brief pause this week. Instead, we asked our listeners what they wanted to hear about, and the range of topics did not disappoint. There’s a chance several Conference USA fan bases will have an opinion on which school has the best town in the conference. If you do, make sure to give the podcast a follow on Twitter and chime in.

You can always find previous episodes on the podcast page. For now, give a listen to Episode 74.

Episode Notes

  • Housekeeping
    • Plan on hearing more from The Roost Podcast in your feed every other week as we continue our interview series. We’ll have some returning guests and hopefully a few new Owls to talk with over the next few months.
    • 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 our debriefing series on spring football, recruiting news and more.
      Become a Patron!
  • Rice Athletics and Conference USA mailbag 
    • Why doesn’t Rice use the great success of women’s sports as a springboard to join a better conference such as the Big 12 or ACC?
    • Who’s stepping up to help fill the loss of Blaze Alldredge?
    • Rank your top-5 C-USA cities outside of Houston.
    • Is Rice recruiting any legacy kids? Why or why not?
    • What’s the best taco shop in Houston?
    • What impact will COVID-19 have on the 2021 football season?

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 ESPN FPI not kind to Owls

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The 2021 ESPN FPI projections are out. Where did Rice football finish and how much stock should we put in these estimations?

ESPN recently released its 2021 Football Power Index (FPI), a statistic geared toward predicting team performance. Rice football (-11.7 FPI) checked in No. 11 in Conference USA, ahead of only UTEP (-20.1) in the West Division. On the opposite end of the spectrum, UAB and Marshall were the frontrunners.

2021 ESPN FPI

  1. UAB, 4.1
  2. Marshall, -3.9
  3. UTSA, -5.3
  4. WKU, -7.4
  5. FAU, -7.6
  6. MTSU, -8.9
  7. Southern Miss, -10.1
  8. LA Tech, -10.5
  9. Charlotte, -11
  10. North Texas, -11.4
  11. Rice, -11.7
  12. FIU, -17.9
  13. UTEP, -20.1
  14. ODU, -26.8

Looking Closer

Despite the poor rank, FPI considers Rice to be a fringe bowl team. The numbers peg the Owls with a projected win-loss record of 4.8 – 7.2, essentially putting them a game away from a bowl berth. FPI gives Rice a 31.3 percent chance to reach that threshold. If they did, it would mean the first six-win season for the program since 2014.

The numbers look a bit peculiar, though, when compared to last season. Rice had an FPI of -6.7 in 2020, five full points higher than their -11.7 mark this year. That drop represents the largest in the conference, only superseded by Marshall who fell from 2.0 to -3.9, still a significant margin ahead of the Owls.

On the surface, that steep drop seems hard to defend. Rice loses Mike Collins, Austin Trammell and Blaze Alldredge from the starting ranks this year, but only had Alldredge for the bulk of last season to begin with.

The defense should be just as good, if not better. The offense must solve the quarterback question (again), but gets back a wide receiving corps that missed virtually all of 2020. From that standpoint, Rice would seem close to level footing with where they left off. Ultimately, the proof will be in the product on the field.

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Rice Football 2021 Spring Ball Review: Quarterback

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Finding a quarterback remains at the top of the Rice football to-do list. Here’s what we learned in the pivotal position battle this spring.

Quarterback is the most important position in football. It’s also been the most challenging spot for Rice football to solidify over the past several seasons. With Mike Collins departed, there’s a real Rice will start a different quarterback in their season opener in 2021, marking the sixth consecutive year with a different QB1 on opening day following a multi-year run by Driphus Jackson in 2014 and 2015.

Rather than dwell on history, the Owls need answers. Here’s what we learned about the most important position battle of the spring, including a best guess at how things will look entering the fall.

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The Roost has you covered from the start to end of spring practice and takeaways still to come. Subscribers get access to all spring practice notes, recruiting updates and special features. Subscribe on Patreon and get access to it all today.

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