Next up for Rice football, a home game against Memphis. Here’s what head coach Scott Abell had to say about the matchup and a few depth chart notes.

Head coach Scott Abell and a set of players met with the media for their customary weekly availability. They recapped the UConn game and looked ahead at their upcoming matchup with Memphis.

The Roost Podcast: Rice Football vs UConn Game Recap

We touch on those items, then dig into the Rice football depth chart and what the team looks like heading into the weekend. First, the quotes:

Press Conference Quotes

I think it’s much needed when you play your best opponents. You want to go into your Saturdays against your best opponents with momentum and confidence, and that we have coming out of Saturday. And we’ll need that. This is a Top 25 team and we’ll need to play with confidence. We’ll need to carry over that momentum from last Saturday into this week. That’s going to be important. It also enables us to be able to grow. – Rice Football head coach Scott Abell on the confidence the program gained from the UConn win

They’re a complete football team. And for me, it starts in two areas. They run the ball really well and they defend the run really well. I think whenever you do that, you give your program a chance to win a lot of football games, and they’ve done that. They’re an established program. Coach Silverfield has done a fabulous job. He’s the a longstanding standing coach in our conference, and he’s won a ton of games. There’s a lot of 10 winning seasons around him. The formula of running the football, establishing a run game, defending the run. Once again, it’s not sexy out there when you talk about it, but it gives your program a chance to win a lot of football games and he’s done that. That’s what jumps off the tape to me. They’re very well-rounded. They good in every phase, but they do a great job of defending the run, and they do a really nice job of running the football. They can put points up, but they do a really nice job of running the football. – Rice Football head coach Scott Abell on what Memphis does well

They have designed runs for him. They have some read schemes for him as well, and he’ll take off in their passing game. And when they’ve done that, that’s probably to me when they’re most dangerous, because it forces you to get an extra hat to the game. If you’re gonna put your quarterback in a running situation, you gotta defend that a little bit different. They’re getting the running back involved in their blocking scheme somehow, someway. I think that’s a different challenge for our defense. – Rice Football head coach Scott Abell on Memphis QB Brendon Lewis

We’re going to have to be great tacklers. We’re going to have to be physical up front and we’re going to have to limit the big play. To me, that’s the key to [Friday]. How do we limit explosive plays? And can we control the football, can we control the tempo and the pace of this game? And I think they want to do the same. – Rice Football head coach Scott Abell on the keys to beating Memphis

I feel like this Rice team, they’re playing like we got something to prove. The schedule right now, we’re blessed with having four straight home games. We don’t got to go nowhere. This is where we live at, we eat at, we sleep at, we breathe. Just being here and just planting our flag in the middle of the field and saying, whoever comes, they gotta come through us. I feel like we’re taking that personal. We don’t want to let nobody walk into our house and just do whatever they want, take whatever they want. It’s really a big pride thing. You can just see it. Guys in the weight room, guys on the practice field, guys are going harder. We only get one shot. Especially at a great team like this, you only get one shot. No second chances. – Safety Plae Wyatt on the program’s mentality heading into the Memphis game

Full Press Conference

Depth Chart

Depth Chart Notes

There is only one change to the official two-deep this week: John Long has been added back to the depth chart. He’s been out the last couple of weeks and his reinsertion points towards him being available on Friday. We’ll dig into that, as well the status of others like Braylen Walker who missed the UConn game in this week’s practice report, available to those subscribed to our Starting Lineup Tier on Patreon, which should be out later this week.

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