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Rice Football: Undrafted free agent signings after 2020 NFL Draft

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The NFL Draft has come to a close and a new crop of Rice football pro hopefuls have signed with NFL teams as undrafted free agents.

Every college football player hopes to one day be an NFL Draft selection, but that’s not how every pro career begins. Conference USA had 10 players chosen. Alex Highsmith, an edge rusher from Charlotte was the first C-USA player taken. He came off the board in the third round.

Rice did not have any players chosen in the 2020 NFL Draft. This year’s crop of Rice football NFL hopefuls will attempt to make their marks as undrafted free agents. We’ll keep you updated as announcements come out. So far, these former Rice football players have signed with teams:

Nick Leverett, a starter for Rice on the offensive line last season after transferring from NC Central, has signed with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Leverett started all season for the Owls.

Myles Adams, the lone senior starter for the Rice football defense this past season, is heading to the Carolina Panthers. Adams had 42 tackles last season and one sack.

Justin Gooseberry, a one-year starter on the offensive line after transfering from Ouachita Baptist, has signed with the Atlanta Falcons.

Other notable signings

Former Auburn punter Arryn Siposs signed with the Detroit Lions. He’ll join Matt Wille and former Rice punter Jack Fox in a competition for the Lions’ punting job next season.

Rice Football recent NFL Draft history

The Owls’ streak of drafts without a selection has now stretched to five. Christian Covington, selected by the Houston Texans in the sixth round of the 2015 NFL Draft, was the last Owl chosen.

Covington’s selection marked the end of a nice run of selections for Rice. From 2009 to 2015 Rice had eight players chosen: 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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Rice Football Recruiting: 2021 DL Elroyal Morris commits to Owls

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The 2021 Rice Football recruiting class continues to grow. Dekaney defensive lineman Elroyal Morris has committed to the Owls.

Rice football recruiting has developed a pretty strong track record. They’re not afraid to be the first to offer anyone who meets their rigorous criteria. Those were the circumstances surrounding the recruitment of Dekaney lineman Elroyal Morris.

Rice was the first to offer Morris. They were active in his recruitment from start to finish. In many ways, everything went according to plan.

The Owls offered Morris on National Signing Day as part of a 2021 blitz that included a half dozen other offers. Morris had already established a relationship with the staff at that point and seemed poised to make the jump in short order. His social media accounts profile pictures reflected him decked out in Rice attire, all that was left was to make his lean official.

More: 2021 Rice Football Recruiting Tracker

Morris has done that now, committing to Rice amidst the coronavirus lockdown. He becomes the seventh member of the 2021 Rice Football Recruiting class and the second defensive line commit, joining Blake Boenisch, another Houston-area product.

Rice has broadcast its commitment to a national recruiting strategy, but they’ve maintained a commitment to winning in-state too. Six of the Owls’ seven commits hail from the state of Texas.

The 2021 defensive haul is starting to look rather impressive. Along with Boenisch and Morris, a trio of linebackers rounds out Conference USA’s top-ranked recruiting class. The Owls were already No. 1 on that front before adding Morris to the fold. He’ll add to the Owls’ advantage as the Early Signing Period begins to approach.

Standing 6-foot-3 and tipping the scales at 270 pounds, Morris is a bully in the trenches. He’ll enter Rice with a frame ready to be built upon, already set with a strong foundation for his future.

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Contingency plans for the 2020 College Football Season

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The 2020 college football season is unlikely to go on as planned. What alternatives are being discussed? How will they impact Rice football?

The sports world is on pause as the globe works through a pandemic that has left chaos in its wake. When can we play ball again isn’t the most important question that needs to be answered now, but a return to sports, to a unifying cause, would be a welcome distraction.

For that reason, contingency plans are being worked. Possibilities upon possibilities are being propagated. Rice football, like everyone else, waits for a resolution. Here’s what I’m hearing about potential options for the upcoming college football season.

When will the season start?

Playing the season as planned with kickoffs beginning in late August is the first, and most tenuous scenario. The next would be a delayed start. That could involve pushing games back several weeks and continuing the regular season through December. More drastic still, a third option is gaining traction: football in the spring.

Multiple sources have mentioned a growing sentiment in the industry toward a much later start date. College football is the monetary engine that drives so many athletic programs. The ramifications of a lost season could be potentially devastating. Even though the offset would inevitably cause challenges of its pow, playing later in the academic calendar would absolutely be on the table.

Potential schedule adjustments

Different states have been impacted by the coronavirus to varying degrees of severity. Individual governors have passed their own stay-at-home-orders and various public safety initiatives. Gathering together a conference that runs from Texas to Virginia will be an arduous task and Conference USA won’t be alone in that struggle. Every conference consists of members from a half dozen states, if not more.

Alternative schedules and games with and without fans are on the table. Quite frankly, everything is on the table. Here are three possibilities that I found most interesting.

1. Conference games only

If the season can be delayed and truncated, Rice would play some component of C-USA teams, possibly just those currently on their schedule. Nonconference games (vs Army, vs Houston, vs Lamar, vs LSU) would be canceled.

2. Semi-regionalized scheduling

The last two ideas seem like longshots, but nothing has been predictable over the course of the last month and a half.

A long-rumored intermingling between Conference USA and Sun Belt teams has been floated around. In that scenario, the C-USA West and the Sun Belt would “merge” for the 2020 season, allowing for reduced travel and a more localized footprint. The lack of any major TV considerations might make this plan more viable than Option 3.

3. Texas-only scheduling

What if Texas is able to return to football but nearby states can’t? That could prohibit Option 1 and Option 2 from taking place. The only alternative remaining that included the possibility of college football would be an all-Texas league.

The logistics to be navigated would be unimaginably complicated, but even in-state powers like Texas and Texas A&M have financial considerations that would make not playing football this season a major problem. Likewise, ESPN, Fox and others would prefer to televise some football games rather than no football games.

If all of those parties can thread the needle — and that’s what it would take — the results could be spectacular. For one year we could be looking at an All-Texas Conference split like this:

  • West | Texas, Texas Tech, TCU, Texas State, UTSA, and UTEP
  • East | Texas A&M, Baylor, North Texas, SMU, Houston and Rice

All of this comes with a massive caveat. “There is no clarity right now for anyone,” a source familiar with these discussions told me. Right now, these ideas are just ideas, albeit ideas that have started to circulate within the college football community.

My two cents: if there’s any feasible way to bring together an all-Texas league for just one year. Please, someone make it happen. Have any theories or ideas? Leave them in the comments.

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The Roost Podcast | Ep. 29 – Christian Covington and Rice memories

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Christian Convington joins The Roost Podcast this week in the next installment of our longest offseason interview series.

The Roost Podcast is doing chugging along. In our newfound world without sports on the field, we’ve found time to sit down and interview current and former Rice Athletes across several sports. If you haven’t caught recent episodes, you’ll want to check out visits with Erica Ogwumike, JP Heath, Taylor McHargue and more.

This week former Rice football defensive lineman Christian Covington joined the show. We talked about his recruitment from Canada, his rude awakening to the Texas heat and what’s been going on in his life during the recent shutdown. From favorite JJ Watt stories to his free agency updates, you won’t want to miss it.

You can always find previous episodes on the podcast page. For now, Give a listen to Episode 29.

Episode 29 Notes

  • Housekeeping — If you’re on Twitter, please give the show a follow. Get a sneak peak when episodes are inbound and the latest happening by turning on notifications. We promise not to spam you and you’ll be the first to know when new shows drop. It’s a win-win.
  • Christian Covington joins the show — After interviewing his Rice football teammate Taylor McHargue on a previous episode, Covington was kind enough to join us this week. We discussed:
    • What free agency looks like during a pandemic
    • His journey from Canada to Rice to the NFL
    • His impressions on the Rice football program today
    • Favorite memories on and off the field at Rice
    • JJ Watt’s generosity and laser tag prowess … and more.

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: Oddsmakers rising on Owls for 2020

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Rice football is becoming more palatable in the eyes of Vegas oddsmakers. Those experts tab the Owls as a fringe bowl team in 2020.

The oddsmakers haven’t loved Rice football since the program began its rebuild two seasons ago. Preseason expectations have hovered somewhere between two to three wins per season, essentially a smidge above UTEP in the Conference USA pecking order. The first signs of the oddsmakers’ changing perception of the Owls have appeared in recent days.

Even with sporting events on an indefinite hiatus, the books released their numbers. Caesar’s set the over-under on Rice football 2020 regular season wins at 5.5. Only three teams in the West (UAB, Southern Miss and Louisiana Tech) had higher totals. UAB and FAU set atop the totals with eight apiece.

5.5 wins might not seem like that much of a leap from 2.5, but three wins is quite the jump for the oddsmakers considering a 12 game season. If Rice beats the number, something those inside the walls at South Main has been readying for since their season ended, Rice would be a bowl team for the first time since 2014.

BetOnline followed a week later with odds to win Conference USA West. UAB was the favorite at 5/4 with Louisiana Tech next in line at 5/2. Then came Southern Miss at 11/4 and Rice at 14/1.

For those unfamiliar with the fractional output, 14/1 odds equate to roughly a 6.7 percent chance of Rice winning the West. That’s a low number, but it’s leaps and bounds higher than UTEP (250/1, 0.4 percent) and the Miners hired their head coach at the same time as the Owls.

Projections will only carry Rice football so far. Eventually, they’ll have to prove those expectations on the field. That’s an opportunity for which coach Bloomgren and his players are eagerly awaiting.

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