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Rice Football Recruiting: Army LB Shepherd Bowling commits to Owls

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Rice Football recruiting has picked up a commitment from a hometown player. Army transfer Shepherd Bowling has committed to the Owls.

Shepherd Bowling is headed back to Texas. Formerly a star linebacker on the 2020 Katy High School state championship team, Bowling committed to Army during the 2021 recruiting cycle. After spending one season at West Point, the hometown product is coming back to Texas as the newest member of the 2022 Rice Football recruiting class.

As a high school senior, Bowling chose Army over offers from Air Force, several Ivy League programs and a few local FCS schools — Sam Houston, Lamar, and Incarnate Word among others.  After redshirting in his lone season at Army, he comes to Rice with four years of eligibility remaining.

Bowling’s addition comes after the recent defection of one-time Rice commit linebacker Cam Dillon, who elected to enroll at Duke this summer instead of coming to Houston. That left Rice in need of reinforcements at the position. Bowling had entered the Transfer Portal in the weeks prior to Dillon’s decision.

The 2022 Rice football recruiting class has now grown to 37 players, accounting for scholarship and preferred walk-on players. That number is likely to grow in the coming weeks prior to the beginning of the fall semester.

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As for Bowling’s prowess on the field, there’s a lot to like. In high school he primarily lined up outside and made a beeline for the ballcarrier. His film shows a player who is tremendous in pursuit but can still get low and bring his opponent to the ground with a thump. He also showed good awareness in coverage, something that’s always a plus to have given the variety of roles in the Owls’ defensive scheme.

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Southern Miss to represent Conference USA Baseball in Super Regionals

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Conference USA Baseball sent two teams to the 2022 NCAA Tournament. Southern Miss has advanced to the Super Regional Round.

Southern Miss

From start to finish, Southern Miss found themselves on a white-knuckled ride through the Hattiesburg Regional. The hosts were challenged right out of the gate, winning a 2-0 game over Army. Southern Miss then took a 6-2 lead into the ninth inning against 2-seed LSU before falling to the Tigers in extras. That sent Southern Miss to the loser’s bracket.

If anyone had the pitching depth to suffer an early loss and make it to a regional file, though, it had would have been Southern Miss. Sure enough, the Golden Eagles took down Kennesaw State 4-3 and won a revenge game against LSU on Sunday 8-4, setting up a winner-take-all finale on Monday.

Southern Miss drew first blood with a leadoff solo home run in the first before LSU broke through with a three-run bottom half of the inning to take the lead. The back and forth would pick up in the seventh inning until Southern Miss delivered the go-ahead and eventual game-winning run in the ninth.

By virtue of their regional victory and the elimination of national seed Miami, Southern Miss will host next week’s Super Regional, the first time doing so in program history. They’ll play a best-of-three series against Ole Miss, who won the Coral Gables Regional. The Rebs and the Eagles split their season series 1-1.

Louisiana Tech

Following their victory in the Conference USA Tournament, Louisiana Tech was awarded the No. 2 seed in the Austin regional. The Bulldogs took down Dallas Baptist in their opening game 12-5 and took host Texas to the wire in their second game. Tied 1-1 after six innings, Texas would pull ahead with a three-run seventh to send Louisiana Tech to an elimination game.

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Louisiana Tech jumped out to a 4-0 lead against 4-seed Air Force on Sunday before both bullpens started to falter and both sides poured on additional runs. Air Force would go on to win 9-7, eliminating Louisiana Tech from the tournament.

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London to Houston: NFL Academy makes Rice Football Recruiting visit

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More than a dozen players from the NFL Academy, based in the United Kingdom, were on campus Friday to check out Rice football.

The most recent Rice football recruiting visit had some international flair. Visiting Houston from London, England the NFL Academy brought 13 of its players for an unofficial visit on Friday morning, meeting with Rice staff in their first collegiate welcome to the United States which will kick off a busy recruiting weekend for these particular visitors.

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From London, to Houston

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Rice Football Recruiting: WVU OL John Hughes commits to Owls

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Rice Football recruiting continues to hammer the trenches, picking up another offensive line commitment, this time from WVU transfer John Hughes.

For the third time in this cycle, Rice football recruiting has added an offensive lineman from the Transfer Portal. The Owls added JUCO players Weston Kropp in April and Isaiah Gonzalez in May. With the calendar only recently flipping to June, they’ve picked up a commitment from West Virginia transfer John Hughes.

Hughes played in 31 games, making at least seven starts over three seasons in Morgantown. In 2020, He played 365 offensive snaps without giving up a sack and was part of an offensive line unit that ranked No. 28 nationally in total offense and No. 4 in the Big 12 in the fewest sacks allowed. Now as a graduate, he’s headed to South Main.

Also offered by Florida State and Houston coming out of high school, Hughes has experience at both right guard and right tackle. Redshirt freshman Ethan Onianwa manned the right tackle spot throughout spring and the guard duties were shared by Braedon Nutter and Shea Baker.

At this point in his career, he’s played more college football than Nutter and Onianwa and he should get a shot to compete for a meaningful role in fall camp. When he arrives, he’ll join fellow ex-Mountaineer wide receiver Isaiah Esdale who announced his intention to transfer to Rice on National Signing Day.

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The Rice offensive line was run through in the early portions of spring practices before ending on what seemed to be a high note in the spring game. Three transfer additions, as well as five high school commitments, seem to suggest the staff might have had more concern up front than they let on. Still, they’ll have plenty of options to work with come the fall, and that’s definitely a good thing.

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The Roost Podcast | Ep 112 – AAC Introductions with Fear the Wave

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Rice will soon move to the AAC. Kelly Comarda from Fear the Wave helps orient the Owls to their new conference, talks rivalries and more.

At some point in the not-so-distant future, Rice Athletics will join the AAC. When that time comes, the Owls will have revised schedules across all sports featuring some familiar faces that were once Conference USA foes and a few new faces. In order to get caught up on the league’s new look, understand dynamics and start some trash talk, Carter and Matthew sat down this week with Kelly Comarda from Fear The Wave.

You can find previous episodes on the podcast page. For now, give a listen to Episode 112.

Episode Notes

Housekeeping

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Interview — Fear the Wave’s Kelly Comarda

  • Getting to Know the new AAC
  • Buying into the Power 6 slogan
  • New and existing rivalries in the conference
  • Who fills the power vacuum left by the departing programs?
  • Baseball, basketball and other league sports
  • Where will Rice fit in with Tulane and the rest of the conference?

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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