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Conference USA Football 2019: Week 2 C-USA roundup

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Rice football couldn’t get past Wake Forest in their 2019 home opener. Much of the rest of Conference USA football didn’t fare much better in Week 2.

Team Week 2 Result Week 3
Charlotte at App St L, 41-56 vs UMass
FAU vs No. 18 UCF L, 48-14 at Ball St
FIU vs WKU L, 20-14 vs New Hampshire
LaTech vs Grambling W, 20-14 at Bowling Green
Marshall at No. 24 Boise St L, 14 -7 vs Ohio
MTSU vs Tennessee St W, 45-26 vs Duke
North Texas at SMU L, 49-27 at Cal
ODU at Virginia Tech L, 31-17 — OFF —
Rice vs Wake Forest L, 41-21 vs No. 9 Texas
Southern Miss at Mississippi St L, 38-15 at Troy
UAB at Akron W, 31-20 — OFF —
UTEP at Texas Tech L, 38-3 — OFF —
UTSA at Baylor L, 63-14 vs Army
WKU at FIU W, 20-14 vs Louisville

Notable Week 2 results

Scary stuff

Rice quarterback Wiley Green was down on the field for almost 15 minutes following a helmet-to-helmet collision with a Wake Forest defender on Friday night. He would leave the game and be transported to the hospital, where all post-injury testing came back negative. Rice would lose the game 41-21 with backup Tom Stewart accounting for a touchdown apiece through the air and on the ground in Green’s absence.

Sun not shining for Florida teams

Florida Atlantic and FIU were both projected to be among the upper echelon of C-USA East teams. Two weeks into the young season, both schools from the Sunshine State are 0-2. Florida Atlantic’s losses (Ohio State and UCF) have been more forgivable. It might be time to panic for FIU fans after dropping their first conference game to a Western Kentucky squad that fell to an FCS opponent in Week 1.

Isaiah still Green

Another C-USA East hopeful took a tumble in Week 2. The Marshall Thundering Herd went toe-to-toe with Boise State on the blue turf, including one final chance to tie the game midway through the fourth quarter. From midfield, sophomore quarterback Isaiah Green was picked off. Boise burned up the rest of the clock, winning 14-7. Once again, C-USA narrowly misses out on a signature win.

Week 3 storylines

Time for Fine?

North Texas quarterback Mason Fine has Heisman Trophy aspirations, but the Mean Green have a rigorous schedule and suffered their first loss in Week 2 against SMU. Keeping pace in C-USA is still in play, but any chances of fulfilling a New Year’s Six Bowl or more could fall away if North Texas misses on their marquee non-conference game. They trounced Arkansas on the road last year. Can they pull off another Power 5 upset against a stingy Cal team who knocked off Washington on Saturday night?

Give me a break

The quirky 2019 schedule has afforded teams two off weeks during the season instead of the traditional one. Old Dominion, UAB and UTEP each have their first off week in Week 3. All three of those teams enter their first respite with at least one win while UAB stands atop C-USA as the only 2-0 squad.

No rest for the weary

Most of C-USA suffered a loss in Week 2. Those losing teams won’t find much comfort from their schedules next weekend. Rice trades Wake Forest for a date with Texas. UTSA, who was rolled by Baylor, draws Army next. Southern Miss gets a feisty Troy team and Middle Tennessee trades Tennessee State for Duke. It could be another long weekend in C-USA.

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Rice Football: Meet Tom Stewart, the Owls’ presumptive new QB1

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For the second year under Mike Bloomgren, injuries have forced Rice football to make a change at quarterback. Meet Tom Stewart, the Owls’ tentative new QB1.

Mike Bloomgren watched with the same angst as the rest of the Rice Football team on Friday night as starting quarterback Wiley Green lay on the sideline. Green had been hit in an apparent head-to-head collision attempting to score the Owls’ first touchdown of the game. The team’s leader was down, but there was a lot of football still to be played.

So Bloomgren did what any coach would have done in that situation. He pulled the offense together, inserted the backup quarterback, and kept moving forward. This year that backup is Tom Stewart, a graduate transfer from Harvard who joined the Owls this summer.

Stewart battled. He led three touchdown drives against Wake Forest, with a fourth near-score turned away on the one-yard line. He wasn’t perfect — admitting he’d thrown too many balls low and short in his postgame comments — but he kept the Owls in the game in a trying time.

“First off, we had a lot of confidence in Tom,” Blomgren said. “This is not the first time Tom Stewart’s been in this situation. This is the world he’s lived in. Whether it’s him going into his sophomore year as a starter and getting banged up, or him going into his last year at Harvard.”

Unlike graduate transfer Shawn Stankavage who started for Rice much of last season, Stewart comes to Rice with 14 games of experience. He started his senior year, throwing for 1,614 yards and 14 touchdowns with two interceptions. On Friday, Stewart finished 19-of-30 with 185 passing yards and one touchdown. He also added a 10-yard rushing touchdown.

Rice Football, Tom Stewart
Stewart takes off for a 10-yard touchdown run, the first touchdown of his Rice football career

“It’s my first significant football since November 17th of last year.  So it’s been about 10 months since I’ve strapped the pads on and played someone else,” Stewart relayed following the loss, adding “I think I got confidence by the end of the game, that it’s the same game I’ve always been playing.”

Stewart’s team won that game. He threw for 312 yards and three touchdowns in the process.

The knock on Stewart when he transferred to Rice was never his ability; it only takes one look at his highlight film from Harvard to see his natural ability is evident. What Stewart lacked when he arrived, and has subsequently been working to master, is a complete understanding of the Rice football offense.

To call the Owls’ scheme complicated would be an understatement. As fall camp progressed, the staff could see Stewart thinking more and more as his play on the practice field grew inconsistent. He could make the throws, provided he knew where to go with the ball and who was supposed to be there to catch it.

“I think I got confidence by the end of the game, that it’s the same game I’ve always been playing.”Tom Stewart

That learning lag is what kept Stewart from ever truly having an edge in the battle for the starting quarterback job, putting him second to Green throughout camp. Now it’s real.

Stewart’s latest chance to work with the starting offense didn’t come with the benefit of a red no-contact jersey. He was sacked three times in what he called “a good learning experience… kind of getting thrown into the fire.”

It’s not going to be easy, though. If Green can’t go next week — his status is still very much so up in the air — Stewart’s first FBS start would come against a ranked Texas Longhorns squad at NRG Stadium. Wake Forest flashed plenty of speed and size on both sides of the ball. Texas is supposed to be even better.

Stewart says he’s appreciative of the chance to get his feet wet before he has to potentially play anyone else. He praised the athleticism of the Wake Forest defense, but said he kept coming back to something a former coach of his always used to say. “The essence of playing quarterback is finding the open guy and throwing it to him accurately. And if the guy’s open, it’s just like playing routes on air. You put the ball where you want and good things will happen.”

More: Takeaways from Owls’ Week 2 loss to Wake Forest

That’s easier said than done, but if the injury to Green proves to be anywhere near as serious as it looked, Stewart will get that very test. Friday’s game against the Demon Deacons will serve as Stewart’s reminder to himself, ” I was like, Oh, you know, we’re just playing football.”

There haven’t been any declarations from anyone on South Main yet, and there won’t be. Bloomgren and his staff are too seasoned to hand out free bulletin board material. But the Owls are ready to proceed with Stewart as their starter for the near future.

“We have a lot of confidence when a kid like that can get every rep. It’s gonna have tremendous value for him,” Bloomgren said, “We’ll see where it goes. But we’re going to keep coaching him and he’ll keep growing.”

Stewart is going to have to learn on the job. It won’t be easy, but the Owls have his back. 100 percent.

You can read more on Stewart and the rest of the Rice football quarterback room in The Roost’s 2019 Rice Football Season Preview
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Rice Football: Wiley Green knocked out, Owls fall to Wake Forest

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A week removed from a near-upset of Army on the road, Rice Football fell to Wake Forest in a hard-fought home opener, showing growth through adversity.

Through one quarter, Rice football was tied with Wake Forest 14-14. The Owls had withstood the Demon Deacon’s initial charge and rallied, showing more resilience than they had during coach Mike Bloomgren’s first season at South Main. The end result was not according to plan, but to their credit: Rice fought.

The moment generated from a strong Week 1 showing was tested, seeing mixed results. Here are a few immediate takeaways.

1. Green goes down

The speed of the game seemed to get to Wiley Green early. The redshirt freshman quarterback fumbled the ball on the Owls’ first offensive possession. His next turn on the field was much better. Green commanded the offense well, completing passes of 14- and 40-yards.

Green looked as good, if not better than we’ve ever seen him play. He drove the Owls down to the two-yard line before disaster struck. Green took a bootleg run toward the right pylon where he was hit helmet to helmet and went down hard and stayed down. Here’s the hit, for those who want to see. It’s rough.

The stadium went quiet. Green was down for about 15 minutes as his shoulder pads and helmet were removed. He was transported by a cart to an ambulance which took him to a nearby hospital. Green finished the game 3-for-5 passing for 69 yards, markedly better than his line against Army, 7-for-14 for 62 yards.

2. The offense responds, but can’t sustain

The concerns with Stewart were never talent based. The Harvard transfer has a big arm but wasn’t able to master the offense to the same level as Green, who had more than a year in the system under his belt. When Stewart took over the offense didn’t miss a beat.

Whatever coach Bloomgren told the team in the huddle worked. Trailing 14-0, Rice punched back. Aston Walter took in a 2-yard run on the first play after the resumption of play. The defense forced a three and out. Austin Trammell returned the punt 34 yard and newly inserted quarterback Tom Stewart tied it up with a 10-yard touchdown run.

The second half was a different story. Rice had three consecutive three and outs before Stewart engineered a 71-yard drive down to the 1-yard line. Wake Forest held on fourth and goal, turning Rice away with no points. Stewart would connect with Austin Trammell late in the fourth for his first touchdown pass with the Owls.

3. The good and bad from the Rice secondary

The truth is, the Rice defense matched up significantly better with the Army offense than they did with Wake Forest. The Demon Deacons’ ability to use tempo with speed on the edges put the Owls at a disadvantage. As quickly as Rice practiced the tempo, it took live action for the team to adjust. Losing starting corner Tyrae Thornton six minutes into the contest did not help.

Wake Forest was able to move the ball through the air, but the secondary held up much better than it had at any point last season. I counted three explosive plays through the air in which the Wake Forest pass catchers got behind the Rice defense

  1. 34-yard reception down the seam to tight end Jake Freudenthal in the second quarter
  2. 39-yard laser down the sideline to Scotty Washington in the third
  3. 59-yard touchdown to Washington in the third quarter

One touchdown and three deep shots against an offense that threw for 400 yards last weekend against Utah State is progress.

Wake Forest’s third score in the endzone summed up the difference between the two teams. Corner Andrew Bird matched wideout Scotty Washington stride for stride before quarterback Jamie Newman tossed the ball toward the endzone. Then the 6-foot-5, 225-pound Washington muscled out 6-foot-1, 171-pound Bird for the football.

4. Bend but don’t break

The tenacity and aggressiveness displayed by the Rice defense against Army was equally present against Wake Forest. The Demon Deacons found success through the air, but had trouble in the redzone. After two first-quarter scores the Rice defense settled in. Wake was held to short field goals, allowing Rice to hang around well into the second half.

Newman held the ball deep into plays before actioning the run-pass option type plays, but the Owls defense stayed home. Anthony Ekpe and Blaze Alldredge were effective, leading the team with nine and eight tackles, respectively. The safeties kept the plays in front of them.

Film Room: Evaluating the Owls’ fourth down stop against Army

Newman was able to complete passes and move the ball, but this game never got out of hand. When Rice lost on defense, they lost to superior athletes who made superior plays. That’s frustrating, but it’s not the end of the world.

Before Rice moves to contend on the national stage, they’re going to have take control of Conference USA. Losing a talent battle is going to happen when Rice plays some Power 5 opponents, but the Owls will be neck and neck with their CUSA peers.

5. Final thoughts

When the halftime whistle blew on Friday Rice trailed Wake Forest 24-14. Last season the Owls trailed 42-3 at the break. That year-over-year change would have been enough to prove the Owls had gotten better on both sides of the ball. And Rice was missing their starting left corner and their starting quarterback for the majority of that half.

Rice is tired of moral victories. The coaching staff has made that abundantly clear following their close loss to Army in Week 1. The box score didn’t paint the home team in a favorable light, but the evidences of change in the right direction are abundant.

The Owls’ non-conference slate was projected to be a grueling before the season began. No one would have batted an eye if Rice began the season 0-4. They’re not 0-4, they’re 0-2. And we’ve learned a lot about the potential this team has, hopefully avoiding any more injuries.

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The Roost Podcast | Episode 6 – 2019 Rice Football Army Recap, Wake Preview

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Carter and Matthew break down the Army game and look ahead to Rice Football’s Week 2 tilt with Wake Forest in Episode 6 of The Roost Podcast.

Prognosticating is (somewhat) over and the time to break down real football games is here. The podcast hits its weekly rhythm now, settling into a series of shows in which we break down the previous game and look ahead at the next opponent. If you want to look back at any prior shows, you can find those on our podcast page.

In Episode 6, Carter and Matthew break down the heartbreaking one-score loss to Army, then jump ahead to the first home game of the 2019 Rice Football season. The Owls host Wake Forest on Sept. 6 at 7:00 p.m. at Rice Stadium. Get ready for the game by checking out the show.

Give a listen to Episode 6 below.

Episode 6 Notes

  • News and notes — Read more about Wake in our 2019 Rice Football Season Preview. Update on Week 1 of our season-long pick’em challenge on the forum. It’s not too late to jump in and join the fun.
  • Breaking down the Army game — Where does this game fit in the realm of “moral victories”? More importantly, we talk through which aspects of the Owls performance were encouraging and sustainable. What questions still remain for Week 2 and what solutions are there to some of the Owls early struggles?
  • Previewing the Wake Forest game — Wake is going to run a lot more plays and try to attack the Owls down the field. Can the same physicality Rice employed against Army translate to an opponent that is going to play this fast? What does the Rice offense need to adjust to keep pace?

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 Film Room: Breaking down the fourth down stop vs Army

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Dig deeper beyond the box score. Carter Spires breaks down a key defensive sequence for Rice Football in their Week 1 game against Army.

Hey y’all! For those that haven’t listened to The Roost Podcast yet (and you should!), I’m Carter Spires. I’m a Rice grad (B.S. Physics, 2013, Jones) and a huge college football fan. In addition to the podcast, I’ll be popping up here at The Roost to do a weekly review piece where I highlight a couple of important plays from the previous game.

My particular interest in covering football is in strategy and tactics: schemes, formations, play calls, decision-making, and the like. I want to know why a particular play turned out the way it did, in a more complete way than “X threw the ball to Y.”

Sometimes those answers are simple, but sometimes they’re not. So my goal in this column is to dive into a few plays a week and really try to break them down in detail, so that we can really understand what happened. A smarter football fan is a better football fan, I think, so hopefully I’ll get smarter in writing these and you’ll get smarter in reading them.

Sound good? Then let’s get started.

First Quarter (11:43) | 3rd-and-1

This week we’re looking into Rice’s close, heartbreaking Week 1 loss to Army in which the Owls’ defense held Army’s flexbone option offense to a mere 231 yards rushing (4.1 YPC) and 14 points. Most of those yards and all of those points came on just two drives.

While the result of the game wasn’t what Rice fans wanted, the stellar defensive effort (against an Army team that dropped 70 on our crosstown rival Houston Cougars their last time out) was enough to give hope that these Owls will be a lot tougher to score on than in recent years.

Let’s give credit where it’s due. Here’s a closer look at the defensive performance, highlighted by a sequence on Army’s first offensive drive, in which Rice made consecutive short-yardage stops on 3rd-and-1 and 4th-and-1 plays to force a turnover on downs.

Rice Football, Army, gif

The setup

Army is lined up in their standard flexbone formation—QB under center, fullback (or B-back, in the flexbone terminology) a couple of yards deep, two slotbacks (or A-backs) lined up outside each tight end, and two wide receivers split wide. In this down and distance, Army’s running a play called “zone dive”—a quick-hitting run play that’s a staple of their offensive scheme.

It looks a lot like the “inside veer” option which is the first component of the “triple option” often associated with this offense. However, instead of a true option play where a defender left unblocked and then read by the QB, zone dive is a called handoff to the B-back. Zone dive is such a fast-developing play that it’s almost impossible for the defense to prevent the B-back from gaining a yard or two.

More: 5 Takeaways from the Owls’ Week 1 game against Army

Rice responds with a defensive formation called the 46 front, often called the Bear front due to its association with the dominant defense of the 1985 Chicago Bears. The Bear front involves putting five men on the line of scrimmage, with an additional linebacker just off the line to the strong side.

It was once a base defensive formation for teams like those Bears, but because of it’s almost exclusively focused on stopping the run, it’s rare in football these days. Still, most defensive coordinators keep the Bear front in the playbook for short-yardage situations and for use against these flexbone offenses.

Here, Rice has Viper Treshawn Chamberlain lined up off the line at OLB. DEs Anthony Ekpe (top/offense’s left) and Kenneth Orji (bottom/offense’s right) lined up at 7-technique DE (in the C-gap between the tackle and slotback), DTs Elijah Garcia (top) and Myles Adams (bottom) lined up at 3-tech* (outside shoulder of the guard), and NT JaVante Hubbard lined up at 0-tech (head on with the center).

The linebackers and safeties are still playing their option responsibilities to prevent Army from catching Rice off-guard, but for the linemen, their assignment is clear: defeat your block(s) and tackle the back before he can get the first down.

How it happened

At the snap, the left A-back goes in motion to show Army’s triple option look. But this isn’t an option play. Army QB Kelvin Hopkins opens up the right and no Rice players on that side of the line are left unblocked (the right A-back is on Orji, the tackle is climbing to the second level, and the RG is [trying] to block Myles Adams). So Hopkins isn’t reading anyone, which is the hallmark of a true option play; therefore, this is a called dive play to the B-back.

To the left side of the offense, Ekpe is left unblocked. The idea here is that he won’t get there in time to make the tackle until the ballcarrier is past him. The offensive tackle moves inside to cut block** Garcia, who is brought to the ground but does well to keep moving and stay involved with the play. The left guard and center combine to double-team the 264-pound Hubbard, who stands his ground against the center but (understandably) loses his balance when the 310-pound LG Jaxson Deaton plows into his side.

To the right side, the right tackle appears to quickly try to double team the 3-tech (more on him in a second) before climbing to the second level (he loses his balance and falls, but Blaze Alldredge has “scraped” outside of him by then so he likely wouldn’t have made that block anyway).

The Owls’ defense executes

Our key players here for Rice are Myles Adams and Kenneth Orji. On zone dive, the fullback is reading the block of the playside guard. If he drives his man outside, the back hits the A-gap between guard and center. If the guard drives his man straight back or inside, the back hits the B-gap between guard and tackle.

At the snap, Adams gets his outside shoulder into the guard’s inside shoulder, clogging the A-gap. The slotback tries to block Orji and does a pretty good job pushing him back, but Orji manages to maintain inside position, squeezing the gap. So by the time the back gets the ball, there’s nowhere for him to go. He takes a step, hesitates, and by then Myles Adams has fully beaten the guard’s block. Adams makes first contact, stopping the back’s momentum, and then a whole host of Rice defenders arrives to finish the play off for no gain. Now it’s 4th and 1.

First Quarter (10:04) | 4th-and-1

Rice Football, Army, gif

The setup

On this play, Hopkins does a reverse pivot once he has the snap, which makes the play look like it’s going to be “rocket toss” to the motioning A-back. It’s actually just another zone dive, this time to the left side. Nothing fancy. Again, Army is hoping that the quick-hitting action of this play will allow them to grind out a yard before Rice can manage the tackle.

Rice is lined up in the Bear front. Army blocks the same: the backside end (Orji) is unblocked. The A-back blocks the playside end (Ekpe). There’s a cut block on the backside 3-tech (Adams) and a double team on the nose (Hubbard).

This time, though, it looks like the playside guard and tackle actually manage an effective double team on the playside 3-tech (Garcia). Treshawn Chamberlain is unblocked and doesn’t bite on the motion by the backside A-back, but I think Army’s hope was that even if he didn’t he wouldn’t be there in time to make the play. And he may not have been, if not for Anthony Ekpe and Myles Adams.

How it happened

Adams, who I hope this sequence has proved will be one of Rice’s most disruptive linemen all season, is so quick off the snap that the backside tackle has no chance of cutting him—in fact he lands behind Adams’ heels. Check this frame: Adams has already crossed the line of scrimmage by the time the handoff is made. He may have managed to make the tackle himself even if no one else had managed to beat their blocks.

Rice Football, Army, Myles Adams

Ekpe, meanwhile, has driven through the attempted block of the slotback. Even though he’s falling down as he does it, he drives to the fullback’s feet and totally arrests his momentum. He can’t wrap up, but his efforts slows the fullback enough. Adams and Chamberlain arrive to make the tackle, followed by another swarm of Owls (a parliament, perhaps?), and it’s Rice ball.

This was a really crucial effort from Ekpe and Adams here. The playside linemen, playing 3-on-2 against Hubbard and Garcia, have cleared out enough space that any extra bit of momentum for the fullback might have allowed him to fall forward for the first down.

Well, that was a lot to say about just two plays! Hopefully it was all enlightening and that it got you excited all over again about the level of intensity this Rice defense brought in the opener. It’ll be a totally different challenge this Friday against Wake Forest. I’ll be back next week to run through some film from that game with y’all.

Notes

*They might be lined up in a 2-technique, head-on with the guards, but it’s hard to tell based on the angle of the camera. Either is an option in the Bear front.

**A common tactic for option offenses, in which the offensive player goes low to “cut” out the legs of a defender; not to be confused with an illegal chop block, which is when a blocker goes at the legs of a defender who is already engaged with another blocker.

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