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Rice Football Film Room 2019: Southern Miss review and Marshall preview

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This week’s edition of the Rice Football film room feature we take a look back at the Southern Miss game and preview the Marshall offense.

Welcome back to the Rice Football Film Room, y’all! As usual, this week we’ll be taking a deeper look at a couple plays, one from Rice’s previous game (another heartbreaker, this time to Southern Miss) and one that gives you an idea what to expect from the Owls’ upcoming opponent (Marshall, coming off a big win over WKU, getting them to a half-game from the C-USA East lead).

Southern Miss

Setup

This Rice football season has been demoralizing enough without me putting another sad breakdown into your lives, so let’s pick a happy one here, shall we?

Rice has the ball 1st and 10 at the Southern Miss 15-yard line, down 13-0 with about 6:04 left in the third. They’re in a three-wide shotgun look, though it’s technically 12 personnel because the widest receiver to the field side is TE Jordan Myers.

Southern Miss is in an even front with nickel personnel, and both safeties are about 6-7 yards deep. It looks like they could be in a Quarters or Cover six look (Cover 6 is Cover 2 on one side, usually the short side to bracket the X receiver, and Quarters/Cover 4 to the other), at least initially.

The Play

Marshall brings the house, blitzing the weakside linebacker and the boundary corner. The remaining DBs play man and it looks like the middle linebacker is spying Wiley Green.

With only five blockers to six defenders (Jaeger Bull runs a route from the inline TE spot), the Golden Eagles have the numbers advantage in the pass rush. The RB (I think it’s Charlie Booker) does an excellent job of picking up the inside blitzer (the backer), since the corner has farther to go. It’s Wiley’s job to get the ball out before the corner gets home.

The blitz has left the four remaining DBs in man. The strong safety follows Bull across the formation, leaving Austin Trammell isolated on the nickel, with the field corner covering Myers on a whip route (basically faking a slant before turning back into a short out route). Trammell runs a double move (a post corner), appearing to break his vertical route stem inside before turning back toward the corner of the end zone.

Trammell sells it well, but what really makes this play go is the chemistry between him and Green. I couldn’t isolate a frame that was clear enough to show it (I gotta start making some higher-quality gifs!), but watch that gif enough times and you’ll see that Green pump fakes *exactly* as Trammell is starting to fake his inside break. The DB bites, Trammell blows past him, and Green drops it in perfectly for a touchdown. You might normally like to see him lead the receiver a bit better, but in the end zone yards after the catch are moot, so I have no issues with Trammell having to slow up and turn around when he’s got that much cushion.

Marshall

The Marshall offense is going to be a challenge. While in some ways they are a fairly typical spread-to-run offense, they do so from a variety of personnel sets. In particular, they make extensive use of their tight ends, lining them up inline, wide, and at H-back, and using them as both blockers and receivers. Their top three tight ends rank first, second, and fifth on the team in catches and first, fourth and seventh in yards, with a combined seven of Marshall’s 12 receiving touchdowns. But they can also hit big plays over the top, with two WRs averaging at least 19 yards a catch on 9+ receptions.

Setup

It’s 1st and 10 Marshall from the 25, four minutes into the game, no score. The Herd are in a 4-wide look, but it’s actually 13 (!) personnel, because the boundary receiver and the two slot receivers are all tight ends (the aforementioned top three: from top to bottom of screen, Armani Levias, Devin Miller, and Xavier Gaines). WKU is in nickel personnel, showing a single-high look.

The Play

There’s nothing fancy about this play: in fact, it’s one I’ve broken down for Rice in this column before. It’s the Glance RPO—you can tell it’s not play action because the offensive line fires off the ball to run block. Marshall QB Isaiah Green is reading the inside DB, lined up about 8-9 yards off the line. If he doubles the receiver, Green hands it off. If he flows toward the line to play the run, Green throws the skinny post to a single-covered receiver.

Here, the DB seems to sort of slow play, presumably hoping to muddle Green’s read. But sometimes trying to play both options means you can’t actually play either, and when Green pulls to throw, the DB is left in the dust.

More: Previewing Rice Football vs Marshall

The point I wanted to make here is that, as you may have realized when I pointed out the personnel, that’s not a WR lined up at X and running that route. That’s six-four, two hundred and fifty-five pound tight end Armani Levias, who just casually blows by WKU cornerback Trae Meadows on a vertical route for a wide-open touchdown. Tight ends aren’t supposed to run like that! I mean, NFL tight ends maybe! Where did Doc Holliday find this dude! I call shenanigans!

So yeah, it’s not hard to see why Levias leads the team in catches, yards, and touchdowns. Marshall will run the ball first and foremost, and Isaiah Green has been inconsistent at QB—he’s completing less than 59 percent of his passes, with that dragging his yards per attempt down to a pedestrian 7.0—but they will absolutely hit some big plays if Rice isn’t prepared. You don’t have to be the most accurate QB in the world to be effective when you’ve got fleet-footed wide receivers and a 255-pound gazelle playing tight end for you.

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Rice Football: On offense, something’s gotta change

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It was another long Saturday for the Rice football defense, leading coach Mike Bloomgren to deliver an ultimatum: “Something will change.”

Rice football head coach Mike Bloomgren is as unflappable as they come. The second-year head coach came to South Main with a vision, one he’s determined to see through to reality. But there have been several C-USA sized bumps along the way.

“The Process”, as Bloomgren likes to refer to his big-picture plan, has been a mixed bag. The defense, which ranked dead last in Conference USA in scoring a year ago, just held the conference’s top quarterback to a little more than half his passing yardage totals and zero touchdowns.

Meanwhile, the offense has regressed from 18.9 points per game in 2018 to 15.9 points per game this season. Bloomgren isn’t blind to that reality, far from it. He faced the music following another close loss over the weekend, this time to Southern Miss.

“Something will change,” he said. “The status quo is not good enough, the way we’re doing things is not good enough.”

What that change looks like remains to be seen. Wiley Green has played himself out of the starting quarterback job, but former backup Tom Stewart is hurt, and could be sidelined for some time. That leaves Bloomgren with two options at quarterback: sophomore Evan Marshman and true freshman JoVoni Johnson.

As recently as last Tuesday’s weekly press conference, Bloomgren’s tune was definitive: “I don’t have a plan for either of those guys to be the quarterback of the football team.” Well, plans change.

Bloomgren didn’t spell out what adjustments he had in mind. He only offered this clarifying comment. “Nothing is simplistic for us right now, offensively. Nothing is easy for us, offensively,” he said. “We have to assess. We have to make some changes.”

It’s not as if Bloomgren and the offensive coaching staff haven’t been working to improve the offense all this time. The Owls averaged 268 yards per game against their four non-conference foes (Army, Wake Forest, Baylor and Texas). Their production rose to 337 yards per game in their first three C-USA games (Louisiana Tech, UAB and UTSA). On Saturday, they registered 139 total yards.

Eliminating turnovers is an obvious first step. The Owls’ minus-six turnover margin in conference games is the worst in C-USA. Beyond that, the “elephant in the room“, as Bloomgren called it, remains a loosely defined challenge. And that makes this weekend’s upcoming game against Marshall so intriguing.

It’s homecoming weekend and Rice football fans from far and wide will return to South Main to see their team. If Bloomgren can push the right buttons and revitalize an offensive attack that has fallen stale, he could restore confidence in a fanbase seeking reasons to keep the faith.

“I want to make sure I’m saying this too. There’s no panic in my face, in this team,” Bloomgren declared. If Saturday was “a frustrating day, in so many ways,” perhaps we do see the scale of change potent enough to turn things around on South Main. The defense sure would appreciate it.

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Rice Football: Stifling defense wasted as Owls fall to Southern Miss

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One of the most valiant efforts from the Rice football defense this season went for naught as the Owls fell at home to Southern Miss.

Rice football has found ways to be in games well into the fourth quarter. The means to take the next step, to close games out and celebrate with a win, continue to stay just out of reach. The Owls found themselves in a familiar place on Saturday. They left with a familiar result: a loss in a game the Owls probably could have won.

1. Offense sleepwalks through the first half

Rice broke its scoring ceiling midway through the third quarter against UTSA, reaching 24 points for the first time this season. From that point on, the Rice offense was held to one field goal and 121 yards over the next three quarters.

Scoring droughts are nothing new for this offense, but the Owls had been limited to three points in three quarters only one other time this season, the first three quarters in a blowout loss to Texas on Sept. 14.

A touchdown on the second drive on the third quarter turned a lackluster offensive showing into a one-score game. For all their warts, the Owls had managed to do just enough to hang around in the fourth quarter. The Owls couldn’t finish.

2. Quarterback play disappoints

A later injury during the week to Tom Stewart caught everyone off guard, forcing Wiley Green back into the starting role days after he’d been told he’d be the team’s backup going forward. There didn’t seem to be much in the way of rust, with Green doing all he could to avoid pressure and give his receivers opportunities down the field.

Green handled every snap with no fumbles. When he threw downfield, it was to spots where only his guys could make plays on the ball. He had a few big plays go for naught thanks to penalties (or the lack thereof on a first quarter deep shot to Brad Rozner). If the charge was to play smart and not turn the ball over, Green certainly achieved those expectations — right up til the biggest moment of the game.

More: Calvin Anderson joins The Roost Podcast

On first-and-goal from the 2-yard line, Green dropped back and was intercepted. That’s the third time this season a Rice quarterback has turned the ball over inside the 10-yard line. A touchdown in that situation would have tied the game, instead, the Owls walked away with no points in another crucial situation.

Green was benched immediately following the interception. Evan Marshman took over. That sets up a messy quarterback situation going forward. Who starts next week against Marshall? Stewart? Marshman? Green? Johnson? The lack of clarity 10 weeks into the season is agonizing.

3. Regaining some defensive swagger

A relatively positive defensive showing throughout nonconference play gave way to a somewhat inconsistent unit through the first three Conference USA games. The Owls played well on that side of the ball, but faltered in key moments, most notably in the final possessions against Louisiana Tech and UTSA.

Keeping Southern Miss out of the endzone was supposed to be a daunting task. The Eagles had scored 38, 47, 31, 45 and 30 points in games against non-SEC teams, scoring at least three touchdowns in each of those contests.

The defense started out strong, joining Alabama and Mississippi State as the only teams to hold Southern Miss to zero points in the first quarter this season. Southern Miss only managed 10 points at half and 20 at the end of regulation, 18.2 points fewer than their non-SEC season average (38.2).

Southern Miss had four redzone possessions, but only one touchdown. That came on a 2-yard carry by Kevin Perkins in the second quarter. The Rice defense is the reason this game remained winnable down the stretch.

4. Pass protection is still a problem

The infusion of graduation transfers into the Rice offensive line has rendered clear improvements from where the unit was at this point last season. The play up front has been better over the last few weeks, but their showing against Southern Miss was far from their best.

Rice quarterbacks were sacked eight times and forced to pay way too much attention to the pass rush. Scrambling became a necessity. The lack of clean pockets forced the quarterbacks to make most of their high-pressure throws on the move rather than with two feet on the ground.

The lack of impact plays in the running game put the Rice offense, once again, between a rock and a hard place. Rice struggled to run the ball and didn’t have the protection to make it through more than one or two reads in the passing game.

5. Another step backward

If Mike Bloomgren and company new before they game their defense would hold Southern Miss to 13 points through 59 minutes and stay even in the turnover battle they would have liked their chances. Sure enough, Rice was in this game to the very end. Again, the final score came up in favor of the Owls’ opponents.

Rice has done good things on both sides of the ball this season — we saw that again in this game — but they remain plagued by an inconsistent offense. Good teams will take all the lucky bounces they can get to push them over the edge. It sure feels like Rice needs those favorable bounces to have a chance at their first C-USA win this season.

The road ahead isn’t any easier. Marshall comes to town next weekend before Rice has their second off weekend of the year. If the Owls are going to turn things around and eclipse their C-USA win total from last season, they’re going to have to find a way to generate their own luck. Because right now, the sum total of the parts hasn’t found a way to get over the hump.

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Rice Football: Familiar problems doom Owls to familiar results

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Rice football is hurting after a seventh consecutive loss put hopes of a second-year resurgence for Mike Bloomgren’s squad on life support.

No confetti fell from the rafters following a victory formation kneel down by UTSA quarterback Lowell Narcisse. Instead, muted applause rose from a sparse crowd, one of the worst in program history. Hours after fans had posted videos of themselves burning tickets, UTSA won. A team in a rough spot had dealt a crushing blow to a team that finds itself in increasingly dire straights.

That’s what made Saturday’s loss feel like such a gut punch. Rice needed to win. Instead, their deficiencies proved too much to overcome and players and staff were left stunned.

“No idea. I don’t know.”

“We just invent ways to lose.”

“We did things to shoot ourselves in the foot.”

Rice football players and staff were despondent in a locker room head coach Mike Bloomgren called “a morbid place right now” following an inexcusable loss to UTSA. Morbid sums up the outlook on a 2019 season which looked anything but a few short weeks ago.

The Owls exhibited failures against the Roadrunners that cannot be ignored. From snapping the football to managing timeouts, this team did too many things wrong — and still had a fourth quarter lead and one final drive to secure their first win. They came up short.

It’s hard to boil down the loss to a single item. As Bloomgren himself said after the game, “we all own this.” Still, three things stood out. Three things that have plagued the Owls all season and the duration of Bloomgren’s tenure at South Main. If Rice football wants to turn things around, these issues need to be addressed.

1. Quarterback play

Last year the Owls oscillated between grad transfer Shawn Stankavage, Evan Marshman, Jackson Tyner (very briefly) and eventual 2019 starter Wiley Green. That collective threw 16 interceptions and 13 touchdown passes.

Another grad transfer, Harvard’s Tom Stewart, was added to the fold this year. Stewart has proven himself to be a hard-nosed runner, but his decision making in high leverage situations has been woeful. An endzone interception against Louisiana Tech and back-to-back sacks to end any hopes of a Rice comeback on the Owls’ final drive against UTSA

Stewart was only in the game because starter Wiley Green had been benched. The redshirt freshmen did not see the field again after committing his third turnover of the day, a backbreaking pick-six on the first play of the second half.

True freshmen Jovoni Johnson saw his first action of the season against UTSA. He was one of three quarterbacks that took a snap on the Owls’ opening drive. Even if done with the best intentions, a tri-headed quarterback attack is far from the level of consistency desired from the most important position on the offense.

2. Inexplicable Turnovers

Sometimes defenses make plays. The Owls have had their moments on that side of the ball, too. But each of the turnovers Rice committed against UTSA were self-inflicted wounds.

Green had been consistent with the football through the air, but he had multiple hair raising moments in the first half including a pass thrown into the waiting hands of a UTSA defender which was dropped. The pick-six, his first turnover through the air this year, might have been forgivable had it not been for two of the most costly turnovers of the 2019 season to that point — both fumbled snaps by Green.

A game removed from a fumbled snap in the rain against UAB, Green’s snap struggles continued. Safety Naeem Smith had just made a heads up playing, snaring a tipped UTSA pass for an interception at the goal line. Rice took over in need of three feet for a touchdown. Green fumbled the snap, returning the ball to the Roadrunners. After a three and out, Green turned it over on a fumble snap again on the subsequent drive.

Rice was +1 in turnover margin in nonconference play, giving the ball away twice in four games. They’ve turned the ball over nine times in three conference games and have fallen to a -5 margin on the season.

 3. Passive pass rush

UTSA quarterback Lowell Narcisse took over after starter Frank Harris was lost for the season in their fourth game. In three games of meaningful action, Narcisse completed less than 45 percent of his passes, threw for an average of 88 yards and had more interceptions (two) than touchdown passes (one).

Against Rice, Narcisse completed 65.5 percent of his passes, throwing for 212 yards and two touchdowns with one interception (which was more so the fault of his receiver than himself). Narcisse’s success came thanks in large part to a clean pocket and plenty of time to throw the football.

Rice registered a Conference USA worst 1.3 sacks per game last season, tallying 17 in 13 games. Through seven games in 2019, the Owls have maintained that dismal pace with eight sacks in seven games, a rate of 1.1 sacks per game.

The secondary hasn’t been lights out, but they’ve kept opposing pass catchers in front of them. No longer are the Owls’ opponents scoring 60+ yard touchdowns in bunches, but they are finding space in the defense, understandable when they can take all the time they need to scan the field.

Now what?

Improvement was promised following a 2-11 “Year Zero” in 2018. If Rice football is to fulfill those expectations, they need to win three of their remaining five games. After what feels like an incalculable number of close calls, that task seems more daunting now than ever before.

The good news, if there is any, is many of the Owls’ shortcomings have been their own doing. If Rice can clean up their mistakes, they’ll have a chance to win down the stretch. No Conference USA opponent is an insurmountable juggernaut.

Bloomgren sounded heartbroken during a gloomy postgame press conference, but the characteristic fire that is ever apparent in his eyes was still there. “Don’t worry about me,” he said. “My battery will wake up tomorrow and we’ll go.”

More: Takeaways from Owls’ road loss to UTSA

Where the Owls go from here could be the most pivotal moment of Bloomgren’s young head coaching career. As he sees it, “We’ve made progress; we want to make the progress that matters. We want to get one in the left column. And we’re going to keep working towards that.”

“I want to work now. I want to get better, as much improved as we can between now and next Saturday when we play Southern Miss.”

It’s going to be an uphill battle. Bloomgren won’t quit. And if he can keep his team with him in this low, low point, Rice football should have nowhere to go but up from here.

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Rice Football: Fourth quarter lead disappears as Owls lose to UTSA

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Rice football played a back-and-forth game with UTSA that came down to the wire. For the seventh time this season, the Owls couldn’t find a way to win.

The Owls knew winning on the road wasn’t going to be easy. UTSA fought from start to finish, taking the lead with a little more than four minutes to play. With Tom Stewart at the controls, the Owls drove the length of the field and came up just short. Here are a few immediate takeaways from another heartbreaking result for Rice football.

1. Making the off week count

Bloomgren said one of the main focuses of the off week was converting third and medium, specifically third and four-to-six yards. Last year the Owls were stuck in too many third and long situations. This year the team had improved their down and distance metrics, but their conversion rate was still lacking.

Rice had their first opportunity to prove their mettle in that scenario on the first drive of the game. Quarterback Wiley Green hit trustworthy slot receiver Austin Trammell on a quick slant and moved the chains. That drive finished in three points. After failing to score on the opening drive in their first four games, Rice has now scored on their first possession in three consecutive games.

Rice converted a season-best 64% (9-of-14) third downs against UTSA, going 3-for-4 on third downs of four-to-six yards. Outside of self-inflicted wounds, Rice controlled the clock and moved the ball on offense as well as they have all season.

2. Big play Brad

You won’t find many junior college players suiting up for Rice football. The academic rigors separating South Main from those institutions represent a sizable gulf which few will successfully traverse. Making it to campus doesn’t guarantee success either. Checkered is the track record of JUCO transfers across the nation. Some pan out, some don’t.

It’s safe to say Brad Rozner has been well worth the investment.

The nation’s leading touchdown man at the JUCO level in 2018 has been a yardage machine for Rice football this season. Concerns over his slender build and questions of his ability to play physical have been put aside. All he does is make plays.

Rozner drew six pass interference flags against UAB. Rather than play the ball, the Blazers elected to tackle the playmaker before he had the chance to make a play. UTSA was less fortunate. Green targeted Rozner downfield throughout Saturday’s game. The first big gain was wiped out by a penalty flag, but the next went for 55-yards, the longest completion for the Owls this season. Green would find Pitre in the endzone later on that drive, putting Rice up 10-7 at the halftime whistle.

Who else, but Rozner again to open up the second half scoring for the Owls? He muscled the ball away from a defender in the endzone for a 19-yard grab which put him past the century mark for the game. He finished with nine catches for 138 yards, leading the team in both statistics.

3. Plenty of things to clean up

Neither UTSA or Rice had scored more than three touchdowns in any game this season. There was a high likelihood that a score in the high 20’s or low 3o’s would be enough to win this game. Rice had their opportunity to carve off a big chunk of that total on their first drive, but had to settle for a field goal after August Pitre was unable to haul in an endzone target from Green. The ball bounced off his fingertips and Rice settled for three instead of seven.

The next offensive drive didn’t go quite as smoothly. Rice burned a timeout at the start of the second quarter before the Owls had run any offensive plays. Two plays later Jovoni Johnson, who had been inserted at quarterback, failed to get the snap off in time and Rice was flagged for delay of game.

But the most painful error came following that challenging drive. After punting the ball back to UTSA, fortune smiled on the Owls for a brief moment. Naeem Smith snagged a deflected Lowell Narcisse pass and gave the Rice offense the ball at the UTSA goal line. A bad exchange between center Brian Chaffin and Green turned the ball right back over to UTSA two plays later. That was the first of two fumbled snap turnovers for Rice in the second quarter.

Green committed his third turnover on the first play of the second half, throwing right into the arms of a UTSA defender who returned it for a UTSA touchdown.

4. Boom goes the offense and the special teams

Explosive plays weren’t something the Rice offense had proven particularly adept at generated this season. In their first six games, Rice tallied 14 plays of 20 or more yards, an average of 2.3 per game. Rice had five 20-yard plays against UTSA — and that’s excluding a 40-yard bomb to Rozner called back by penalty, Rozner’s 19-yard touchdown reception and another 19 yard catch by Rozner in the third quarter.

When Rice was able to sustain drives, the big plays were a regular occurrence. So much so that two of the offenses near the bottom of the conference ended up having a shootout in San Antonio.

Chris Barnes was a weapon in the punting game, downing two punts inside the five-yard line including a 66-yard missile.

The biggest play of all is credited to reserve linebacker Garrett Grammer. Behind Blaze Alldredge and Antonio Montero on a crowded depth chart, Grammer sees most of his playing time on special teams. Late in the third quarter with UTSA backed up on their own 25-yard line, the Roadrunners attempted a fake punt. The ball carrier never gained a yard thanks to Grammer, who snuffed out the fake and brought him down for a nine-yard loss. The offense scored two plays later.

5. Regression stings

Patience can only be preached for so long without results. Saturday night’s road contest against UTSA — a game in which Rice football was favored by 5.5 points at kickoff — marks the lowest point of the 2019 season. One could argue this 0-7 start is the most disappointing moment of the Mike Bloomgren era. This team has looked better than their 0-7 record but at some point, you are what your record says you are. And the Owls’ record says this program isn’t where it expected to be.

No man will take this disappointing result harder than Bloomgren. It was he who declared a loss in this game a sign that things the Owls were not making the progress he expected. He will be the one that has to look in the mirror and decipher why this team hasn’t found a way to finish.

Bloomgren has never made excuses; he’s never pointed fingers. He won’t start now. But he will show up to work on Monday ready to play Southern Miss. The inefficiencies and problems put on display against UTSA will lead to discussions and adjustments in the weeks to come. This coaching staff and this team won’t quit.

One game isn’t reason to dismiss weeks of positive signs, but it’s undeniable this team hasn’t lived up to expectations in 2019. And they’re running out of games to prove they can. Every game from this point onward just became that much more important.

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