Putting an imperfect 2020 Rice football season into perspective
The 2020 Rice Football season has come to an end. Putting the up-and-down campaign into perspective will be an ongoing task.
With 49 seconds to play in the fourth quarter, Rice football trailed UAB 21-16. Third-string quarterback Wiley Green lined up alongside third-string running back Ari Broussard, dropped back and threw to Jake Bailey. First down. Three plays later Green found Bailey again. First down. Then, on fourth-and-18, Green uncorked a Hail Mary pass which was intercepted on the 2-yard line. Game over.
"I guess I need to be more prayerful," head coach Mike Bloomgren said after the game. He was speaking more broadly about the unfortunate injury luck his team had suffered at key positions this season, but his whistful "what if" hung in the air. Just like that last-second pass from the arm of Green.
Green, the backup to the backup quarterback, targeting a tight end in the endzone from 50 yards out was, in many ways, a fitting final play of the Owls' bizarre 2020 season. Rice almost had to throw it to a tight end because they had run out of wide receivers.
Bradley Rozner had been injured and opted out before the season. Transfer Christian McStravick never played a down for the Owls. Neither did Zane Knipe. August Pitre caught one pass in the season opener before suffering an injury. Austin Trammell, who set multiple school records when he exploded for five touchdowns and 219 yards in the Owls' first two games, didn't suit up in this game either.
Rice was down to Jake Bailey, who had missed practice time during the week with an injury, and freshman Andrew Mason. Converted running back Kobie Campbell, who hadn't touched the ball this season, was targeted twice.
“We had multiple weeks where we had a practice with one scholarship wide receiver healthy," Bloomgren admitted, "We just love this game, and we said 'we’re going to play'.”
Takeaways: Rice Football falls to UAB
At quarterback, Mike Collins was missing his second straight game. Backup JoVoni Johnson had been injured a few drives earlier. And that doesn't take into account the secondary which had made do all season with players coming in and out of the lineup or the continued absence of lead running back Juma Otaviano.
Bloomgren isn't one to make excuses, and he acknowledged Rice wasn't the only team who had to deal with adversity this year. Their opponent on Saturday had more than a dozen key players missing (but they did have their quarterback, something that proved fateful for the Owls). Still, the Owls' headman did say this: "We’re all better with our ones."
Instead, that last-second heave fell into the hands of a defensive back and a year of highs and lows came to an unpleasant end. Rice was in the running for a bowl bid with a win. The loss ended the Owls' season sooner than anyone hoped it would finish.
“We know nothing’s perfect in 2020," Bloomgren affirmed.
Before he stepped off the stand and began the first steps of the Owls' sudden offseason, he posed one more "what if".
"We lost today by one score... we had a double-overtime game. We got to find a way to win those things, and that's the difference. Think about how different we feel about our season right now, and how jubilant everybody would be if we'd won one or two of those games.”
Rice didn't win those games. Their final 2020 record will forever be inked at 2-3. But Bloomgren's hypothetical isn't too farfetched. It might even have more merit than initially meets the eye. Rice beat the C-USA East champ and was one third-string-quarterback Hail Mary from beating the top team in the West.
A few more favorable bounces wouldn't have helped the teams Rice defeated. Those victories both came by three scores. But one more bounce, or a prayer, in those losses might very well have been enough. It wasn't perfect, but in 2020, nothing was.
In a future article can you share insight on any Rice players who might be considering a request for a waiver to extend eligibility?
Okay, here is my myopic take on 2020
Offense - C-
Defense - A
Special Teams - C+
Offense
According to Riceowls.com, we have 16 Wide Receivers and 6 running backs. Granted that many of them were practice squad players, I am baffled that we were so depleted on offense at both skill positions especially given the nature of our offensive scheme. I am a bit critical of this short coming because of how well the defense performed. The defense was exceptional; not just the 1s and 2s, but the 3s and possibly 4s especially on the back end of the defense. On the wide receiver front, injuries played a role and losing Bradley Rozner doesn't help, but the offense needs a very strong off season of S&C and depth development. Looking at the running backs, it was puzzling to not see Jawan King get any carries whatsoever. Given our lack of general health at the running back position and our offensive philosophy, it would behoove us to have as many backs available. And while the QB play was better than expected, that position is only as capable as the skill talent available...especially if we are employing a pocket passer.
Moving on to the defense, I don't think we have enough time to rave on the quality of the defense from a schematic, depth, and execution perspective. I was quite impressed especially with the quality of depth. If we can hold on to Brian Smith, this defense has potential to not only be the best in CUSA, but also break into the upper half of FBS.
Finally, Special Teams. There were a bunch of positives. Jake Bailey running a kick off back for a touchdown (not counted) against North Texas is a positive sign. I won't give too much grief for the quadruple doink, but we have got to clean up the drops on punt returns. Charlie Mendes did a fantastic job with punts and the overall coverage was very good. The drops keep this from being a B-.
Hopefully, there is significant evaluation of the offense in the off season and the ball security (special teams and offense) woes are fixed. As good as the defense is, we will need more pick 6s if the offense does not continue to improve.
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I don't think we'll ever quite see anything like what happened at the wide receiver position this year.
- Rice signed Christian McStravick, but he never made it into fall camp.
- Brad Rozner and Zane Knipe missed the entire season with injuries.
- August Pitre had just one catch before getting hurt.
- Trammell didn't finish the season
I don't think its a stretch to say that few offenses in the country would function very well down their top six wideouts. That's enough weird, bad luck for a typical 12 game slate. The fact that it happened in the span of five games is unthinkable -- but here we are.
As for the running backs, I'm honestly not quite sure what happened at that spot. The coaching staff has been pretty choosy over the past few years about who gets onto the field at the skill positions. For the most part, Rice trusted two receivers last year (Rozner and Trammell) and two running backs (Walter and Booker) for the vast majority of the touches.
Maybe the circle of trust needs to be expanded? But it's hard to say what the true limiting factor was there. The bottom line is this offense has to get more consistent production from its running backs. The line played reasonably well.
And I agree 100% on special teams and defense. Minus the muffed punts, both units were exceptional.
Quote from Donald on December 31, 2020, 3:21 AMIn a future article can you share insight on any Rice players who might be considering a request for a waiver to extend eligibility?
There won't be any waivers. The NCAA has granted all players an extra year of eligibility, should they chose to use it. As for which seniors / graduates would chose to return, we should no more in the next several weeks. Good question.
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