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Rice Football 2020 Practice Notes: Post MTSU presser, changes and injuries

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Rice football returned to the practice field this week determined to put the MTSU game behind them. Here’s where things stand headed into Week 9.

The season is back in full swing and we’ve got a full slate of Rice football updates on deck for everyone this week. I’ll include a few snippets from today’s press conference here as well as updates from practice on Monday.

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Press conference notes and quotes

“Last week’s game obviously didn’t go the way we wanted it to. There’s no denying that. We didn’t get the result we wanted and we’re in a results-oriented business. The hard part about that is I look at it, and I thought our kids played incredibly hard from the start of the game, through overtime, through both overtimes. But as we said, the outcome wasn’t what we wanted. There’s a lot of things we need to clean up between game one and game two so that we don’t feel that way again. And that’s exactly what we’re trying to do. We’re committed to doing that.” –  Coach Mike Bloomgren

“I think what hurt us most on the defensive end is when we got a little more passive … that’s just the wrong mentality for us to have. That’s not who we are. We’re aggressive. We’re dominant. And just taking our foot off the gas pedal at all, is just not who we are.” – LB Blaze Alldredge

Looking back at it, we left way too many points on the board. The game should never have been that close. We should never have been in the position to need to score a last second touchdown, and that falls on me. But, talking to the offensive line, and the running backs and the receivers and everybody, we all know that we left too many points on the board, and we just got to get fixed.” – QB Mike Collins

What to look for this week from practice

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Rice Football 2020: Owls in the NFL Week 7 Update

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Rice Football is well represented on 2020 NFL rosters. Here’s the latest from the NFL Owls in action in Week 7.

There are former Rice football players scattered across the NFL. Stay tuned each week for their game results and notables from each player.

Week 7 results

Pittsburgh (Boswell, McDonald) def. Tennessee, 27-24
Cleveland (Sendejo) def. Cincinnati (Covington), 37-34
Kansas City def. Denver (Anderson, Callahan), 43-16
Detroit (Fox) def. Atlanta, 23-22
Green Bay def. Houston (Gaines), 35-20
Seattle (Willson) vs Arizona

Offense

Calvin Anderson – OT, Broncos

Anderson has played in every game for Denver this season with all of his snaps coming on special teams. That’s how he was used again on Sunday in the Broncos’ loss to the Chiefs. The Broncos host the Chargers in Week 8.

Vance McDonald – TE, Steelers

McDonald caught two passes for 14 yards against the Titans in Week 7, including a nine-yard first down grab. He’s now caught multiple passes in four of six games this season. The Broncos visit the Ravens in Week 8.

Luke Willson – TE, Seahawks

Luke Willson was inactive for the Seahawks’ Week 7 Sunday Night Football game against the Cardinals. The Seahawks host the 49ers in Week 8.

Defense and Special Teams

Chris Boswell – K, Steelers

Boswell had another perfect outing on Sunday, connecting on both of his field goal tries including a long of 38 yards, including what would become the game-sealing kick in the third quarter. He also went 3-for-3 on extra points. The Steelers host the Ravens in Week 8.

Bryce Callahan – CB, Broncos

Callahan was all over the field against the Chiefs in Week 7. He had five tackles, tied for second most on the team and scooped up a fumble recovery. The Broncos visit the Ravens in Week 8.

Christian Covington – DL, Bengals

Covington drew another start for the Bengals in Week 7, registering two tackles in the loss to the Cleveland Browns. He’s started the last four games for Cincinnati and has multiple tackles in five of seven games this season. The Bengals host the Titans in Week 8.

Jack Fox – P, Lions

Fox had another monster outing against the Falcons in Week 7. He punted three times, including a long of 67 yards, averaging 59 yards per punt. He put two balls inside the 20. The Lions host the Colts in Week 8.

Phillip Gaines – CB, Texans

Gaines had a season-high in tackles in the Texans’ Week 7 loss to the Packers with five. The Texans are on bye in Week 8.

Andrew Sendejo – Saf, Browns

Sendejo had six tackles in the Browns’ victory over the Bengals in Week 7. He’s now had at least four tackles in six of seven games this season. The Browns host the Raiders in Week 8.

More Owls in the NFL

From practice squads to current free agents, there are others Owls on the cusp of returning to active rosters. Find more detail on current contractual agreements and former Rice football players waiting for their next opportunity here.

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Rice Football 2020 Game Preview: Southern Miss

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Rice Football hopes to bounce back from a tough opener with a road win against Southern Miss. How to watch, key stats, x-factor picks and more.

The return to the gridiron was a painful one for Rice football last Saturday. They almost completed a late rally to beat Middle Tennessee, but a bad bounce and too many self-inflicted wounds pushed victory just outside of their reach. They’ll hope to rebound this week against another C-USA squad suffering a painful loss.

After having their last two games postponed, Southern Miss returned to the field without quarterback Jack Abraham, who did not make the trip with the team to face Liberty. The Flames dropped 56 points on the Golden Eagles, who fell to 1-4 entering Week 9.

Broadcast Info

Kickoff time | 2:00 PM CT
Venu | M.M. Roberts Stadium – Hattiesburg, MS
TV | ESPN3 (Streaming)
Radio | Sports Map 94.1 (FM) / Stretch Internet (Online)

Audio Preview

We’ll preview Rice football vs Southern Miss on Episode 58 of The Roost Podcast which will be released on Thursday. Find us on the podcast page or wherever you like to listen to podcasts. (And consider leaving us a 5-star review while you’re at it.)

Visual Preview

Last week we launched the debut episode of Inside the Hedges, a weekly live show with myself and former Rice football quarterback Taylor McHargue. Check it out Wednesday nights at 7:00 p.m. here or watch it at your leisure on the Rice Athletics Youtube page.

Join the Conversation

What are your keys to victory this week? What pitfalls must the Owls avoid? Did you like that third down call? Share your thoughts on the matchup on the forum and make sure you tune in Saturday for our live game blog keeping track of every score and key moment.

Sizing up the contenders

Rice is still reeling from their loss to Middle Tennessee, but they’re going to have to get-right quickly. Falling to 0-2 to start a season that began with so much promise would be doubly painful, especially with only six games on the docket to date. Rice needs a bounce back in the worst way.

Southern Miss played last week without their starting quarterback or their head coach. The recipe for disaster was there, and still the Golden Eagles made a game of it in the second half before Liberty pulled away. Battling COVID-19 issues and the challenges of a coaching change make this squad hard to size up, but the talent is certainly there on offense.

Series History

All Time | Southern Miss leads 6-4
Last Five | Southern Miss leads 5-0
Last Meeting | Home 2019, Southern Miss won 20-6

Rice Stat Notables

Passing | Collins – 18/35 (51.4 percent), 242 yards passing, 4 TD, 1 INT
Rushing | Otoviano – 20 carries, 84 yards (4.2 yards per carry)
Receiving | Trammell – 3 receptions, 76 yards (25.3 yards per reception), 2 TD | Myers – 6 receptions, 65 yards (10.8 yards per reception)
Tackles | Alldredge – 13, Lockhart – 12, Chamberlain – 9
Pass Breakups/Interceptions | Devones – 1 PBU

Southern Miss Stat Notables

Passing | Abraham – 85/132 (64.4), 1112 yards passing, 7 TD, 3 INT
Rushing | Gore – 46 carries, 208 yards (4.5 yards per carry), 1 TD
Receiving | Brownless – 17 receptions, 301 yards (17.7 yards per reception), 3 TD | T. Jones – 14 receptions, 299 yards (9.6 yards per reception), 2 TD
Tackles | Maples – 38, Shorts – 37, Hemby – 29
Pass Breakups/Interceptions | Brooks/Scott – 4 PBU, Barnes/Latham/Scott – 1 INT

Southern Miss X-Factor | Big-time quarterback play

Whether it’s Jack Abraham or Tate Whatley, Southern Miss is going all-offense this year under interim coach Scottie Walden. No matter who takes the snaps for Southern Miss, their ability to find holes in the Rice secondary will play a massive role in determining the outcome of this game.

Middle Tennessee’s Asher O’Hara’s success through the air was the difference against a young Rice secondary, but when those balls didn’t fall, Rice was able to get pressure and give themselves an opportunity to win the game late.

Fortunately for Southern Miss, they have a host of playmakers at their disposal on the edges. Freshman running back Frank Gore Jr. has played well to this point too. Southern Miss just needs to get the ball into the hands of their playmakers in space. If they can, they’ll expose mismatches in the Rice secondary.

Rice X-Factor | Eliminate self-inflicted mistakes

Rust was always going to be a factor for the Owls coming off a seven-week delay to start their season. The Owls had chances to beat Middle Tennessee at home last week, but three turnovers proved costly.

The usually sure-handed Austin Trammell muffed a punt. Mike Collins’ erratic start included an interception thrown way beyond his wide receiver streaking down the field. A second half strip-sack that resulted in a walk-in touchdown for the Blue Raiders defense was equally jarring. And still, with all of those mistakes, Rice found a way to take a late lead.

There’s still a lot we don’t know about this team, but we do know that losing the turnover battle by two is going to be hard for any team to overcome. The Rice defense needs to create more opportunities themselves, but even if they don’t, the Rice offense and special teams can’t spot the other team extra possessions.

Injury Report (Subscribers only)

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Need More?

The Roost’s 2020 Rice Football Season Preview has four pages dedicated to every opponent the Owls face. There are depth charts, important new arrivals and depth chart breakdowns for every team in Conference USA. Better yet, it’s not just speculation, each profile was created with insight from local experts who cover those teams day in and day out. Pick up your copy today and get four pages and more than 1,000 words on every foe.

Pick ‘Em Contest

If you haven’t yet, make sure you submit your entry for The Roost’s weekly pick’em challenge. Choose an answer to each of the six questions below and submit them on the forum thread to enter.

  1. How many passing yards does the Rice defense allow?
    Over 274.5 / Over 274.5
  2. Which team commits the first turnover?
    Rice / Southern Miss (or neither)
  3. Who has the more total tackles for Rice on defense?
    Alldredge / Montero (or tie) 
  4. What will be the distance of the longest scoring play?
    Over 29.5 yards / Under 29.5 yards
  5. How many first downs will the Rice offense achieve?
    Over 19.5 / Under 19.5
  6. Who wins?
    Rice / Southern Miss

Final Thing

We knew this season was going to be hard to evaluate at its onset. After one game, it looks like Rice has taken a step forward on offense and a step back on defense, primarily because of the young secondary. Both sides of the ball will have things to improve against Southern Miss.

On offense, can Collins get locked in more quickly? Starting 2-of-10 and settling for early field goals allowed Middle Tennessee to hang around.

On defense, Rice has to eliminate the wide open receptions. Asher O’Hara had two uncontested touchdown heaves. You can live with mistakes here and there, but at a bare minimum, receivers shouldn’t be allowed free passage to the endzone.

If Rice can improve in both those areas, they’ll have a chance to win. They had a chance to win on an off night last weekend. We’ve seen enough of what this team can be. It’s time they put that finished product out on the field.

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Rice Football: Bad bounces, poor results and rough goings

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Rice Football dropped its 2020 season opener to Middle Tennessee, proving once again that both bad luck and bad process can end in heartbreak.

Just once last season did Rice football allow a Conference USA opponent to score 34 points. UAB scored 35 in a soggy, rain-delayed contest at Legion Field. Rice reached that threshold themselves for the first time under Mike Bloomgren on Saturday night against Middle Tennessee. Entering the MTSU game, Rice was 3-0 under head coach Mike Bloomgren when scoring 30 points.

Given those two pieces of information, a big night from the Rice offense and a historically stingy Rice defense, one would have thought the odds would have favored the Owls. Nope.

“I think the statement the ball didn’t bounce our way is probably true,” Bloomgren said in his postgame comments. He’s right about that.

He’s also right about there being plenty of things Rice could have done differently to win the game.

As Bloomgren often says, football is a zero-sum game. You either win or you lose. On Saturday, Rice lost.

“Does it hurt more? Losing sucks. It hurts. It hurts bad.”

After they recover from oggling over the quadruple doinked field goal, the masses will debate the list of failures that went into the Owls’ 10th loss in their last 14 games. Context, something oft spared in the moment, does paint a more uncertain picture.

Rice went into the Middle Tennesse game without Naeem Smith, George Nyakwol, Tyrae Thornton, Andrew Bird or Jason White. With the exceptions of Tre’shon Devones and Treshawn Chamberlain, Rice fielded a secondary that did not see meaningful action at all last season. Three members — Sean Fresch, Miles McCord and Kirk Lockhart, were making their first career starts.

Middle Tennesse and Asher O’Hara thew all over that secondary.

Bloomgren is well aware of that problem, and vowed to work with defensive coordinator Brian Smith to make the necessary changes so that Rice can, in his words, “find a way to not have press conferences like this.”

The Rice defense has struggled through the air before. The 2018 unit fell victim to the home run ball again and again. Then last year, Nyakwol stepped up his game. Smith burst onto the scene. Devones emerged as a true cover corner. They found players to fix that problem. Passes seldom went over their heads last fall. Most of those solutions did not play on Saturday.

Tack on a poorly overthrown interception by Collins, a strip-sack returned for a touchdown and a muffed punt and you get a back-breaking loss from a program that entered the game with the second-longest active winning streak by an FBS team in Texas.

The three turnovers are roughly 2.5 times as many as the Owls averaged last year (1.3).

Team captain Blaze Alldredge took the burden on himself. ” I was raised on tough love so I just got to call it what it is,” he said, “the defense didn’t play well enough.”

Fellow captain Austin Trammell echoed it. “We gotta fix our mistakes.”

The conservative play calling in overtime is always going to draw criticism in losses. Deservedly so. But in many ways that bad bounce summed up a lot of things that went wrong on Saturday night, and ironically enough, fell on the foot of a player who had performed well on all of his attempts to that point.

Rice football did a lot right. They did a lot wrong. Sometimes things can just be weird. Just like 2020. How likely would it be for a team to lose their entire starting secondary, trail at halftime, make adjustments, throw for four touchdowns (the most by a Rice quarterback since 2016), convert a fourth-and-24 to force overtime and find yet another way to lose in heartbreaking fashion.

About as likely as a doink. doink. doink. doink.

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Conference USA Football 2020: Week 8 C-USA Roundup

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Conference USA Football was back in action this weekend. Here’s the latest from the teams on the gridiron in Week 8.

Team Week 8 Result Week 9
Charlotte vs UTEP W, 38-28 at Duke
FAU at Marshall L, 20-9 vs UTSA
FIU Jacksonville St L, 19-10 vs Marshall
LA Tech at UTSA L, 27-26 vs UAB
Marshall vs FAU W, 20-9 at FIU
MTSU at Rice W, 40-34 OT — OFF —
North Texas — OFF —  — at UTEP
Rice vs MTSU L, 40-34 OT at Southern Miss
Southern Miss at Liberty L, 56-35 vs Rice
UAB vs Louisianna L, 24-20 at Louisiana Tech
UTEP at Charlotte L, 38-38 vs North Texas
UTSA vs LA Tech W, 27-26 at FAU
WKU vs Chattanooga W, 13-10 at BYU

Notable Week 8 results – Standings

This

Rice, the final Conference USA team that had yet to play a game, began their season on Saturday. The game was close throughout but will always be remembered for this excruciating finish.

And then there was one

Marshall proved too much for a shorthanded FAU team to handle as the Thundering Herd stayed undefeated, the only remaining C-USA team to hold such a distinction. Brendan Knox was dominant. Grant Wells was strong. The defense was suffocating. All in all, Marshall has deservedly entered the driver’s seat in the race for the conference crown.

Non-conference woes

Jacksonville State is a solid FCS program, but the ease with which they took care of FIU on Friday night was concerning. UAB blew a fourth-quarter lead against Louisiana. Liberty crushed a Jack Abraham-less Southern Miss squad. Western Kentucky escaped with a three-point win over Chattanooga. Yikes. At least WKU found a way to win. Not so much luck for the other squads in non-conference matchups.

Week 9 storylines

Doubling down on Louisiana State

UAB started off strong, but could find themselves playing from behind if they run into trouble on the road at Louisiana Tech next week. The Bulldogs have been up and down this season, but they’re going to score.

Not the best in the West

North Texas, UTEP and Rice sit at the bottom of the West division standings through Week 8. It’s hard to know exactly where to place the Owls after their bizarre opener, but a larger sample size of the Mean Green and Miners could make next week’s game a battle between squads seeking to avoid the bottom spot.

Third time’s the charm

BYU will look for the C-USA trifecta next week when they host Western Kentucky at LaVell Edwards Stadium. The Cougars defeated each of their first two Conference USA foes this year, downing Louisiana Tech 45-14 and UTSA 27-20. The Hilltoppers will have their work cut out for them. BYU is 6-0 on the season.

Rice Football Opponent Scouting Report

A weekly update on who the Owls will be playing this season including updates on key storylines, injuries and more.

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