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The Roost Podcast joins the DCTF Republic of Football Podcast Network

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The Roost Podcast has news! We’re joining the Dave Campbell’s Texas Football community as part of the Republic of Football Podcast Network.

Since The Roost Podcast launched, we’ve endeavored to give you the best Rice football and Rice athletics news and analysis that we can. Today we take that one step further, aligning our brand with one of the best and biggest in the Lone Star State, Dave Campbell’s.

We are thrilled to have the opportunity to partner with the premier source for football coverage in the state of Texas, Dave Campbell’s. The Roost Podcast will be joining the DCTF Network alongside a fantastic team of fellow college football outlets.

Nothing about The Roost website or memberships is changing, we’re still your go-to place for Rice Athletics news and analysis, but now working alongside a podcast network you won’t want to miss. Stay tuned for more news to follow in the weeks ahead.

You can access all of our show notes and our full array of podcasts on our podcast page.

Read the full release from DCTF here.


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The Roost’s 2022 Rice Football Season Superlatives

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The Roost’s 2022 Rice Football Season Superlatives exist to honor exceptional Owls who made a difference on the field this season. Here’s the complete list.

There were many individual performances worth recognizing in the 2022 Rice Football season. In addition to the more traditional awards below, make sure to check out The Roosties, our fourth annual award show from The Roost Podcast, which features a different angle of honors. From our favorite plays to the players that surprised us the most, we cover some of the more creative superlatives on the show.

Offensive Newcomer of the Year — WR Isaiah Esdale | Full Story

Excerpt: “Esdale would go on to catch 42 passes as a Rice Owl. 25 of them went for a first down. 13 of them were for 15+ yards or longer. He was a chain mover and a big-play maker, coming through in clutch moments time and time again. While Bradley Rozner and Luke McCaffrey were the wideouts that most often found paydirt and racked up the yards, Esdale’s contribution was clutchness.”

Defensive Newcomer of the Year — LB Chris Conti | Full Story

Excerpt: “After a parade of reliable all-conference caliber linebackers that have passed through the Rice football locker room in recent years, finding someone who could fill those shoes was a daunting task. The Owls found at least one such man in Conti. And fortunately enough, he still has two more seasons of eligibility to make a difference at South Main.”

Sp. Teams Players of the Year  — PK Christian VanSickle | Full Story

Excerpt: “In that span, he made six kicks from beyond 30 yards. Rice had one such make all of last season. He had four go through the pipes from 40+ yards away. And this after attempting his first collegiate field goal last season. For someone brand new to the position to give his team the utmost level of reliability was truly remarkable.”

Rising Star — DL Blake Boenisch | Full Story

Excerpt: “The kid is a freak of nature,” fellow teammate and captain Trey Schuman said of Boenisch. “He’s 6-3, 330 and can move. It’s not every day that you see somebody like him. Really the thing about Blake is his maturation process has been insane.”

Iron Man — OL Shea Baker | Full Story

Excerpt: “When Baker donned his helmet for the final time against Southern Miss in the Lending Tree Bowl he put an exclamation point on a Rice football record that won’t soon be broken, if ever. Baker leaves Rice as the all-time leader in career starts, making 53 starts over his six-year career.”

Off. Player of the Year — WR Luke McCaffrey | Full Story

Excerpt: “The emergence of McCaffrey coincided with an offensive awakening that never seemed to be fully realized. Rice football is better with McCaffrey on the field and the Owls are fortunate he’s got more eligibility to spend catching football at South Main.”

Def. Player of the Year — LB Josh Pearcy | Full Story

Excerpt: “Pearcy would go on to make more plays, including tying a season-high seven tackles with one sack and 1.5 tackles for a loss in the Owls’ Lending Tree Bowl matchup with Southern Miss. All three of those measures tied or lead the team outright. In another big moment, Pearcy showed up. Because that’s what great players do.”

Off. Player of the Year — WR Bradley Rozner | Full Story

Excerpt: “Making it back to the field in any capacity and contributing to the offense would have been a relief for Rozner who hadn’t seen the field in such a long time. Becoming a go-to game-breaker was even more impressive. In many ways, it’s just like that game-winning score against UTEP. Someone gave Rozner a chance. He did the rest.”

Check out the 2021 Rice Football Season Superlatives here.

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Where things stand: Rice Football, Mike Bloomgren and the future

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Rice football head coach Mike Bloomgren is coming back for another year. What went into the decision and what’s next for the program?

Athletic director Joe Karlgaard and Rice football head coach Mike Bloomgren met with the media last week to discuss the upcoming Lending Tree Bowl. Both men were asked about the game itself, the significance of potentially winning it and other postseason-related questions. The status of Bloomgren’s job security wasn’t discussed.

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This update will focus on that previously unspoken situation. After reaching a bowl game, but not six regular season wins, where does Bloomgren stand and what is the outlook for the Owls as they look forward to entering the AAC in 2022?

Officially, official

First, let’s start with the first official statement, given to The Roost this week from Karlgaard himself:

“Mike is coming back. He’ll be our coach next season. Our progress over the last several years has been slower than we had hoped but we did post our highest win total since 2015 and our players were exceptional in the classroom.

This is not the same college athletics that was in place the last time we went to a bowl game. We’ve seen all these environmental changes with Alston and NIL and the Transfer Portal and the deregulation of the NCAA rules. I’m proud of the roster and foundation that coach Bloomgren and his staff have built and how we’ve navigated the shifts to the environment so far. But for us to strive for excellence in the future, we’re going to have to be innovative, progressive and values driven.”

What other factors are in play?

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“If they forgot about him, shame on them”: Rice football wideout Bradley Rozner is back with a bang

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Bradley Rozner took a winding route to get to where he is right now, once again delivering game-winning moments for Rice football.

There was 3:20 left in regulation and Rice football was facing third and long from their own 14-yard line with a six-point lead. The North Texas Mean Green led by quarterback Mason Fine had gotten hot on offense, marching through the Rice defense with relative ease over the last two quarters. That left head coach Mike Bloomgren had a decision to make.

Bloomgren could easily have opted to play it safe and run the ball. That would have taken more time off the clock and forced North Texas to go the length of the field, again. Or, he could roll the dice. On that particular Saturday afternoon, with the game hanging in the balance, Bloomgren put his trust in the arms of Bradley Rozner.

A former JUCO wide receiver, Rozner was coming off an eight-catch, 130-yard, three-touchdown game against Middle Tennessee the week prior that propelled the Owls to their first win of the 2019 season. He had just 35 yards on four catches against North Texas on Saturday, a quiet outing by his standards. But Bloomgren believed in No. 2.

Quarterback Tom Stewart dropped back to pass and surprised everyone with a deep bomb to Rozner, who exploded past the defense and hauled in the 35-yard shot. The Owls would run out the clock on the ground shortly after, winning the game.

If there had ever been any doubt, Rozner had arrived. Then things took a turn. Rozner would play the season finale next week against UTSA, then, over the span of the next 1,000 days, Rozner would play in just one quarter. After missing the 2020 season with injuries, Rozner would play the first quarter of the Owls’ 2021 season opener against Arkansas before being shut down again,

By no fault of his own, the focal point of the Rice football offense had disappeared.

“The middle chapters of this thing weren’t real cool,” Bloomgren said when looking back at Rozner’s career at South Main thus far. “They were real rocky with a kid that had to go through a lot of challenges to get back to this point.”

What point is that? Another game-winning moment from Rozner that brought back memories of that game-sealing grab against North Texas almost three years ago.

This time Rice had the ball in a tie game against UTEP at the 23-yard line, 30 seconds remaining and no timeouts. The Owls had plenty of time to hand the ball off again, spike it and attempt at 40 or so yard field goal to win the game. But Bloomgren hadn’t forgotten the playmaker he had lined up on the far side of the field.

Instead of taking the conservative route, Bloomgren dialed up another deep shot. Quarterback TJ McMahon took the snap, dropped back and delivered a dart to the pylon, finding Rozner with his hands fully extended for the game-sealing score. Number two had done it again, this time with a career-best 140 receiving yards in the process.

When asked about the gutsy call after the game, Bloomgren beamed. It’s kind of like [we] dare people to cover him one on one. That’s a heck of a weapon to have your X-receiver.”

Rozner’s explanation made the herculean grab sound remarkably commonplace. “I saw the safety kind of creeping over my way but he wasn’t far enough over,” he recounted. “I just gave the corner and inside move and TJ [McMahon] put the ball up there and I just made the play.”

More: Rice Football rallies past UTEP, game recap

Just making plays has become the norm for Rozner once again. Since returning to the field this season, Rozner has topped 100 receiving yards five times in nine games, the most of any player in Conference USA. His nine career 100-yard games are the most since Jarrett Dillard (12) and James Casey (10), who played their final season at Rice in 2018.

Dillard and Casey are among the all-time greats to catch passes at South Main. Rozner is starting to force his way into that conversation.

For Rozner, though, he’s just trying to win football games and his coach continues to put him in positions to do just that. “It’s huge,” Rozner said of the trust Bloomren continues to display in him. “When you’re able to go to your coach and you know you can tell him, ‘Hey, I got this.’ And they give it to you and it all works out.”

Things just keep working out for Rozner, who once again is back at the center of the Owls’ offensive success. Almost as if he never left.

“If they forgot about him, shame on them,” Bloomgren said. “He’s reminding them right now.”


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How five UAB snapshots tell a Rice football story

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From a blowout to back-to-back wins, the rise of Rice football parallels the Owls’ progression against the UAB Blazers, one of C-USA’s best programs.

Rice football has faced UAB five times since head coach Mike Bloomgren assumed leadership of the program prior to the 2018 season. The Owls are 2-3 against the Blazers in that time, but the progression demonstrated in that quintet of contests speaks volumes as to just how far this program has come in that time.

To fully understand what made Saturday’s upset win so significant, one must look back in time. Bloomgren certainly has. When meeting with the media following a 28-24 victory that lifted the Owls to 3-2 on the season, Bloomgren was quick to mention how this burgeoning rivalry started.

“They beat the life out of us,” Bloomgren said of that 2018 contest, one that UAB won 42-0 in Houston on the same field where Rice had just avenged themselves.

Bloomgren has been quick to compliment the Blazers in his remarks over the years. Even after the win, he referred to UAB as “the standard in our conference.”

Then came the follow-up question: if UAB is the standard, what does it say about a Rice program that has now taken down that giant twice in successive seasons?

“It means that we’ve taken some real steps in this football program, and I couldn’t be more proud of these guys,” Bloomgren said between smiles. “I’m incredibly proud of them, to beat them two years in a row means everything.”

The progression

Following the 2018 shellacking, Rice cut the margin significantly the following season, falling to UAB in Birmingham by a final score of 35-20 in a weather-delayed, rain-soaked slugfest. Rice led 7-0 after the first quarter before UAB hit on three long touchdown plays in that contest which proved to be the difference. It was another loss, but Rice had shown a pulse.

In 2020 the teams played their closest game yet. Rice led 13-7 at halftime, another positive step, but the defense could not stop the UAB rushing attack and the offense was held out of the endzone in the second half, losing starting quarterback Jovoni Johnson to injury along the way before falling 21-16.

From a 42-point defeat to a 15-point defeat to a 6-point defeat. The deltas kept dwindling until they flipped for the first time in 2021. To win that game, Rice had to be absolutely perfect. They were.

Gabriel Taylor forced a fumble on the very first play of the game. Juma Otovanio provided a pivotal 50-yard kick return, the Owls’ longest of the season. After completing one of his first four passes, quarterback Wiley Green finished the game by completing 16 of his next 18 attempts for 200 yards and a career-high three touchdowns.

Rice was as close to perfect as they could have dreamed to be and UAB still had a Hail Mary attempt at the buzzer to win the game. It fell incomplete. Rice won.

Defensive end Ikenna Enechukwu participated in that thrilling win and it was in his mind on Saturday when the Owls posted another victory over the Blazers.

“I feel like we’ve been able to play with them for at least the past maybe four years honestly and this is just another time like last year where we put all the pieces together,” Enechukwu said. “We were able to fight for four quarters and really dig in deep during the fourth quarter to come up with a victory.”

Far from perfect

While Rice football did technically play four quarters, they’d rather not write home about most of the first half. The Owls’ opening scoring drive accounted for 75 yards. Rice ended the first half with 75 total yards of offense, making absolutely zero progress on that side of the ball while allowing 17 straight points on defense.

“We played about as bad as we could in the first half,” Bloomgren admitted.

That’s part of what made the win so uplifting. Last year Rice football has to be perfect to squeak by a very good UAB team. This year the Blazers were picked to finish second in the conference in the Conference USA preason poll. Rice was tabbed as the No. 10 team in an 11-team field. And by the Owls’ own admission, they did not play their best brand of football on Saturday, and they still won.

“Who the heck picked us tenth?” Bloomgren joked in the aftermath. “I don’t know if you’re a betting man, but the lines have been off the last few weeks too.” Double-digit under dogs in each of their last contests, Rice has covered all three times and won outright twice, also dispatching Louisiana at home.

On Saturday against UAB, though, it wasn’t their underdog status that propelled them to victory. Rice won because Ari Broussard dominated short-yardage situations, scoring his seventh and eighth rushing touchdowns of the season. He’s currently tied for fourth in the nation in rushing scores and all of his touchdowns have come from inside the five-yard line.

Rice won because Treshawn Chamberlain, following a big hit by George Nyakwol that put the ball on the turf, was the only man on the field to hurry to the football, scooping it up for the go-ahead touchdown. The remaining 21 players on the field assumed it was an incomplete pass. Chamberlain recognized it as a fumble and made the play.

More: Postgame reactions — Rice football upsets UAB, again

Rice won because quarterback TJ McMahon, now 4-0 in games he’s finished at Rice Stadium, has the presence of mind to go down on a play action call rather than force the ball down field. His decision burned 40 more seconds of valuable clock time and made the UAB offense work at a frantic pace.

Rice won because its defense — which allowed UAB to rack up 360 total yards of offense — posted three sacks in the final sixty seconds, including the game-winner by Joshua Pearcy as the clock expired.

Rice won because they took advantage of 12 UAB penalties for 116 yards, ranging from holding to roughing the passer to taunting to everything in between. Flags were flying all night, with penalties to both teams. The Owls endured.

Rice won because they’re a fundamentally different team than the squad that was blasted in Birmingham in 2018. And a different team from the one that couldn’t make the key plays down the stretch in 2020. And from the program which needed perfection to overcome the odds last season.

Not done yet

The 2022 Rice football team had already won with a dominant showing this season. Against UAB, Rice won ugly. And if Rice can beat one of Conference USA’s premier programs without posting a single yard of offense from the second drive until halftime and while allowing 17 consecutive points on defense… watch out.

“The sky’s the limit for this program,” longtime running back Cameron Montgomery said following the game.

And if anyone should have a true sense of the trajectory of this program, it would be Montgomery. One of only a handful of players still on campus that was recruited by former coach David Bailiff, Montgomery remembers every step it took along the way for Rice football to get to this place. He’s not taking his eyes off the prize.

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“We’ll just keep taking it one week at a time. I’d love to take it day by day. I would love for my guys to have a great night tonight, celebrate this win, come back tomorrow, look at the film with a critical eye and wake up on Monday, recovered,” he said.

“And we’ll just keep chopping away at that wood, chopping away at that wood until we knock that tree down.”

If the past few seasons were spent sharpening the ax, Rice football has come out of the gates this season swinging it freely. UAB might not be the last giant (tree) to be felled.


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