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Rice Football: 10 Takeaways from 2019 season

January 15, 2020 By Matthew Bartlett

The 2019 Rice Football season has come and gone. Spring ball will be here soon, but first a look back at what we learned about this team last season.

The 2019 college football season ended with purple and gold confetti falling from the rafters of the New Orleans Super Dome. Rice Football will host the defending champion LSU Tigers at NRG Stadium in 2020. Before we get there, a few observations about what we learned about the Owls this season and what might need to change moving forward.

The good

1. The Rice defense is the real deal

The Owls held eventual top-10 Baylor scoreless in the second half and jumped out to a 20-0 lead 0n North Texas, eventually beating the Mean Green on the back of some spectacular defensive plays. They shored up their most glaring deficiency, the long ball, and found a way to limit some of the most prolific passers in Conference USA. A year removed from finishing 11th in total defense against C-USA foes, Rice improved to sixth in 2019.

2. This team has star power

Not only has Mike Bloomgren retooled the roster with D1-caliber players, but he’s also added names that people outside of South Main will know. Players like Austin Trammell, Bradley Rozner, Blaze Alldredge and Treshawn Chamberlain are stars in Conference USA. All earned postseason honors of some sort, with Alldredge being named first-team All C-USA by the conference and Pro Football Focus. Better still, all are slated to return next season.

3. The Owls have hit on the vast majority of their transfer targets

With the exception of offensive lineman Andrew Mike, a transfer from Florida in Bloomgren’s first season, Rice has hit home run after home run in the Transfer Portal. They’ve gone three-for-three with JUCO additions (Alldredge, Rozner and Naeem Smith) and gotten game-winning production from graduate transfers across the offense. There should be more additions on this front in the coming weeks.

4. The 2020 schedule gets a lot easier

Rice football gets Army at home next season while swapping out a slate of three Power 5 opponents for LSU, an FCS school (Lamar) and Houston. It’s plausible the 2019 team could have won at least a couple of additional games against the 2020 schedule, and Rice returns the vast majority of their overall production.

5. Rice proved they can win with offense and with defense

Rice beat North Texas with suffocating defense, keeping one of Conference USA’s best quarterbacks out of the endzone. A week later they beat UTEP with offense, rallying from a halftime deficit to win on the road. As good as the defense was, this team wasn’t one-dimensional in their wins.

Areas of concern

6. Inconsistent quarterback play remains a problem
  1. Shawn Stankavage
  2. Jackson Tyner
  3. Evan Marshman
  4. Wiley Green
  5. Parker Towns
  6. Tom Stewart
  7. JoVoni Johnson

Throw in wildcat quarterback Juma Otoviano and you’ve got way too long of a list. Rice hasn’t managed to keep the same hands under center for an entire season yet since Mike Bloomgren arrived at South Main. Awful injury luck has been a component of the quarterback quandary, but poor play has been equally culpable. If Rice football is going to take the next step, finding ONE passer for 2020 is a must. They’ll have a few to choose from: Green, grad transfer Mike Collins and JUCO transfer TJ McMahon.

7. The rest of the receiving corps never broke out

Rice is never going to post numbers akin to the spread offenses that have become ubiquitous with today’s spread offenses. That said, the ratio of pass catching options skewed to an extreme this season. Only two Rice receivers (Bradley Rozner and Austin Trammell) caught at least 20 passes. August Pitre third with 17, less than 1.5 per game. Jake Bailey was limited to a part-time role. Zane Knipe wasn’t healthy. None of the pass catching tight ends we’d hope to see materialized into consistent options. Whoever plays quarterback will need more than two options in the passing game.

8. The offensive identity seems uncertain

The Rice offense that started the season 0-9 looked fairly foreign from the version that ended the season 0-3. A lot of the core concepts were there, but the influence of offensive coordinator Jerry Mack was undeniable. Mack said after the season they’d retain as much of that simplicity as possible, but Bloomgren was careful to note they weren’t going to throw out the playbook either. What that means for 2020 is anybody’s guess.

9. It’s hard to consistently hit on transfers

Last year Rice brought in seven transfers who were expected to compete for starting jobs. Each of them — Tom Stewart, Naeem Smith, Bradley Rozner, Brian Chaffin, Justin Gooseberry, Nick Leverett and Charlie Booker — either started or were important contributors. The hit rate was as close to 100 percent as could have been reasonably expected. Doing that well in the transfer market for two years in a row is really hard to do.

10. Expectations are rising

Two wins in Bloomgren’s first season was okay. Three wins, and the fashion in which they came, were proof the Owls were headed in the right direction. 2020 is when everything is supposed to come together. The staff expects to be in a bowl game next winter, and that’s probably the baseline for the trajectory this team has set through two seasons.

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Filed Under: Football, Archive, Featured Tagged With: August Pitre, Austin Trammell, Blaze Alldredge, Bradley Rozner, Brian Chaffin, Charlie Booker, Jake Bailey, Jovoni Johnson, Justin Gooseberry, Naeem Smith, Nick Leverett, Rice Football, TJ McMahon, Treshawn Chamberlain, Wiley Green, Zane Knipe

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

October 19, 2019 By Matthew Bartlett

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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Filed Under: Featured, Archive, Football Tagged With: August Pitre, Austin Trammell, Brian Chaffin, game recap, Garrett Grammer, Jovoni Johnson, Rice Football, Tom Stewart, Wiley Green

Rice Football Film Room: Breaking down Owls’ offense vs Wake Forest

September 11, 2019 By Carter

Rice Football dropped their first home contest to Wake Forest on Friday. Carter Spires takes us beyond the box score, unpacking the Owls’ offense and more.

Hey y’all, it’s Carter, and welcome back to the film room! This week we’re gonna be breaking down a couple of plays in the passing game. We’ll take a look at two plays from the Rice offense, breaking down the emergence of playmakers at wide receiver and quarterback. Then we’ll look at one for the Rice defense to highlight the growth in the secondary and show that sometimes great offense just beats great defense.

Play 1 | Wiley Green to Brad Rozner

Rice Football, Brad Rozner, Wiley Green

Setup

It’s Rice’s second drive of the game, 6:06 to go in the first quarter. Rice is down 14-0. It’s second and 10 from the Wake 44. Rice has 11 personnel (1 back 1 TE) on the field in a spread set with two wide receivers stacked to the field (the wide side of the field), and Wiley Green is in the shotgun with Aston Walter behind him and to his right.

Bradley Rozner is the “Z” receiver to the boundary (the short side of the field), which is the strong side here because the TE (can’t tell which one) is lined up on that side. Wake responds by showing a split safety look, with the corner playing off Rozner and “rover” (a hybrid OLB/S/nickel similar to Rice’s Viper) Luke Masterson playing the seam about 7 yards off the line of scrimmage.

More: 5 Takeaways from the Owls’ Week 2 game against Wake Forest

The rover is Green’s key on this play, which after a bit of back and forth with myself I’m fairly sure is an RPO (more on that in a bit). Rozner is going to run what’s called a glance route or skinny post—that is, he’ll stem his route vertically, then break toward the middle of the field at a shallow angle. If the rover bails at the snap (i.e., if Wake is playing Cover 2 to that side to bracket Rozner), Green will hand the ball off to Walter, because in that case, Rice has 6 blockers to Wake’s 6 defenders in the box.

If the rover flows downhill at the snap to play the run (based on the alignment of Wake’s front, I think he’s responsible for the strongside C-gap, between the tackle and the TE), then Wake has the numbers advantage in the run game and Rozner is in single coverage, so Green will pull the ball and throw it to him. Since there’s no middle-of-the-field safety in this coverage, a completed pass to Rozner here could mean a huge gain (and it does!)

The Play

On whether this is an RPO: the broadcast the color commentator identified it as such because LG Nick Leverett pulls at the snap, but that can sometimes be window dressing for a play-action pass. The rest of the OL doesn’t exactly fire downhill (look at Clay Servin). What sells me is that RT Justin Gooseberry, after a quick double team, climbs to the second level to block the linebacker, which he wouldn’t be doing if it were a called pass. So I’m fairly certain this is an RPO.

It’s a pretty easy read for Green. Masterson is creeping downhill even *before* the snap. He’s already taken a couple steps forward by the time Walter reaches the mesh point. As such, Green doesn’t even have to hesitate at the mesh point; he quickly pulls the ball and flips it to Rozner, who does a great job of breaking his route in time to box out the corner. He makes the catch, slips the corner’s tackle attempt, and makes it all the way inside the 5 on the play. First and goal, Owls.

Play 2 | Tom Stewart to August Pitre

Rice Football, Tom Stewart, August Pitre

Setup

2:16 left in the 1st quarter and Rice is down 14-7. They have it 2nd and 7 on the Wake 26 on Tom Stewart’s first full drive at QB. Rice is in 20 personnel (2 backs no TE), in another shotgun spread set. Rozner is the lone receiver to the boundary. August Pitre is wide to the field. Austin Trammell is in the slot, and Stewart is flanked by Nahshon Ellerbe (right) and FB Reagan Williams (left). Wake is again in their nickel personnel, showing a split safety look.

The Play

At the snap, the safety and both outside corners bail deep while the nickel back and linebackers drift into shallow zones. The TV camera is too zoomed in for us to tell exactly what happens, but since we later see the safety running towards Pitre from the middle of the field, it looks like they bailed into Cover 3 (in this case a very basic 3 deep/4 under pure zone coverage) from the split safety look.

Both Trammell and Pitre stem their routes vertical at the snap. Trammell breaks his off into a curl (a type of comeback route, often used to find holes in zone coverage) a couple of yards past the first down marker. He’s briefly open if Stewart fires the ball out right as he breaks his route, but it looks like Stewart wants Pitre all the way*.

It’s difficult to tell what route Pitre is running, again because of the camera, but it looks like he breaks his route inward just before disappearing from view. But by the time the ball reaches him, he’s breaking back toward the sideline, meaning this is some kind of double-move, either a post-corner or post-out.

More: Previewing the Owls’ Week 3 game against Texas

Either way, he finds some space under the outside corner’s deep third and above the nickel’s shallow zone. (The nickel might have been in a position to make the play, but he spent a long time lingering to make sure Reagan Williams wasn’t going to leak out of the pass protection and catch a checkdown underneath). Both are closing hard as the ball’s in the air though, so the window ends up being a tight one.

It’s a perfect play from both Stewart and Pitre. Stewart puts the ball high where only his guy can get it, and Pitre shows off his leaping ability to high point the ball and come down with it. First and goal, Rice. They’d tie the game on a zone-read keeper from Stewart the next play.

Play 3 | Jamie Newman to Scotty Washington

Rice Football

Setup

Sadly, I probably shouldn’t *only* show Rice’s best plays in this column. I want to highlight this particular Wake TD though, because it dovetails with what Matthew and I said on the pod this week. Several times against Wake, the Rice DBs were in position to make a play and were simply beat straight up by Jamie Newman’s pinpoint passing and the size and athleticism of his gargantuan receivers.

That’s frustrating, but it’s better than getting beat because you were out of position or couldn’t stick with your man in coverage. This play was bad for Rice, but it shows some promise for the Rice secondary (or for Andrew Bird, at least) in conference play.

Wake is in an 11 personnel shotgun spread set, with two receivers to the field, and the RB and H-back both lined up on the offense’s right. Rice is in their base defensive personnel, which we’ll call a nickel here, because Treshawn Chamberlain is most definitely lined up as a DB rather than a LB. They’re showing a five-man front with a Cover 1 man-under look in the secondary, with Chamberlain as the deep safety. They’re playing press-man on the outside receivers, as is preferred in DC Brian Smith’s scheme.

We’re mainly concerned with Andrew Bird, lined up as the boundary corner on Scotty Washington (who checks in at a whopping 6-foot-5, 225 pounds), but I do wanna highlight the versatility of these Rice defenders. The Viper role often has nickel DB/outside linebacker responsibilities, but Chamberlain is playing deep safety in Cover 1. Blaze Alldredge, the starting weakside (“Will”) linebacker, is lined up as a standup defensive end. George Nyakwol, the starting free safety, is basically playing linebacker. These guys can do it all!

The Play

At the snap, Rice sends all five defenders on the line. Antonio Montero and Nyakwol follow on a delayed blitz**. Unfortunately, none of Rice’s players on the front can beat their blocks in time to affect the throw. Newman gets the ball out fast enough that Montero and Nyakwol don’t have time to get home even though they have numbers to that side with both blitzing.

Meanwhile, Bird plays outside leverage at the snap, wanting to seal Washington off from the sideline since he’s got help to the middle of the field. Washington stutters the outside, getting a clean release. Bird does well to recover, staying engaged and in phase with the receiver throughout the route.

Both of them see the ball in flight when they’re at about the 5-yard line, and Bird even manages to negate Washington’s height advantage enough to get a hand in at the catch point. Unfortunately for him, Washington is not only four inches taller than he is, but 50 pounds heavier as well, and I’m guessing that a fair amount of those 50 pounds are muscle. Washington hangs on to the ball, and it’s a TD for Wake.

The Roost Podcast Ep 7 | Wake Forest recap and Texas Preview

It didn’t work this time, but in this play you can see exactly what Brian Smith wants this defense to be against the passing game. Physical man coverage on receivers paired with aggressive and hopefully confusing pressure from the front. If Jamie Newman were a little less accurate or a little less comfortable in a compressed pocket, or if Scotty Washington were even 2–3 inches shorter, this play goes as planned for Rice. As Rice’s players continue to develop in the scheme (and in the long term, as the staff continues to recruit players who fit it), they’ll get even better at executing.

So there you have it. We asked for some playmakers to step up for Rice in the passing game, and they did that against Wake. (I didn’t break down a play for Austin Trammell, but he was stellar as well). And while this weekend’s game against Texas is going to feature a similarly capable QB and even more enormous receivers, not many C-USA teams can replicate that. If Rice’s secondary maintains this level of play when they get to the conference games, the results will look a lot better.

Notes

*I’m not entirely familiar with this route combination (a hitch from the slot with a post-corner or post-out from the outside receiver), so I can’t tell you for certain what the read for the QB is. It seems to be the same basic principle as a smash concept (which is a corner route from the slot over an outside hitch)—that is, you put a high-low stress on the curl/flat defender. If he stays shallow to rob the underneath route, you throw the deep route. If he goes deeper into his zone to take away the vertical route, you throw to the underneath receiver.

**For Nyakwol this is probably a “green dog” blitz—i.e., he’s assigned to cover the RB in man, but if the back stays in pass pro, he blitzes.

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Filed Under: Featured, Archive, Football Tagged With: August Pitre, Austin Trammell, Bradley Rozner, film room, Rice Football, Tom Stewart, Wiley Green

Rice Football: New wide receivers hope to make their mark in 2019

August 22, 2019 By Matthew Bartlett

The Rice Football receiving corps is one of the biggest unknowns the Owls face entering 2019. Can the new faces rise to the challenge?

Nebulous might be the most appropriate word to describe the Rice football receiving corps entering the 2019 season.

There are a few things we do know. Austin Trammell will once again be the leader in the room and contend for the team leading in receptions. There will be a quarterback to get them the football.

But for every certainty, there are more questions. Who will fill the void left by Austin Walter and Aaron Cephus? Can the offense stretch the field and utilize the deep ball? How many players are trustworthy enough to be regular members of the rotation?

The answers to all of those questions lay in a collection of pass catchers who, outside of Trammell, have yet to play meaningful Division 1 football. Bradley Rozner, August Pitre III and Zane Knipe have practiced primarily with the first team during fall camp. That trio has combined for zero catches at Rice.

Rice Football

**Chart taken from 2019 Rice Football Season Preview**

But, and there’s a rather significant but, the lack of proven production doesn’t mean the outlook for 2019 is dismal, just uncertain.

Rozner led all Junior College players last season with 13 touchdown receptions. August Pitre might have the best vertical reach on the team, something Rice will utilize heavily in the redzone. As for Knipe, Bloomgren himself said the freshman “moves at a different speed than most humans.” Unproven, but intriguing.

Getting on the same page

Despite the growing pains the offense experienced during the spring and into fall camp, quarterback Wiley Green says he isn’t concerned with the wide receiver room at all. “You can just go across the board in the receiver room, and everybody stepped up,” Green relayed, “From a quarterback standpoint makes it really easy for us. We can spread the ball out wherever we want to.”

Green didn’t emerge as the starter until late last fall, meaning that unless a player was on the scout team last August, they had little time to work with Green and develop that rhythm. Pitre and Rozner were both with the team during the spring, gaining meaningful reps with Green prior to camp.

Rozner has benefited from that extra time as much, if not more so, than anyone else. When he left the JUCO ranks to come to Rice he was handed the additional challenge of learning a new offense. The Owls’ scheme is complex, with plenty of verbiage that at times sounds like a foreign language. Several months into his studies, things are beginning to come together.

“As an offense, we definitely improved from the spring,” Rozner expressed. “I think it’s easy to see that we’re definitely more physical up front and moving the ball down the field.”

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Not so secret weapons

The emergence of two talented freshmen has driven the uptick in offensive production. Jake Bailey was a highly regarded member of the 2019 recruiting class, the highest ranked player according to 247 Sports who had signed with Rice during the Mike Bloomgren era.

Zane Knipe might have had fewer accolades, but this high school track star was highly regarded by the staff during the recruiting process. Once he got to campus, those expectations were realized quickly.

Knipe started working with the first team on the very first day of fall camp. Bailey was mixed in over the next two weeks. Both players have speed and athleticism and the ability to kick things into an extra gear, turning 5-yard gains into big plays.

Rozner, who’s assumed one of the starting jobs on the outside, can’t believe how impactful the young duo has been thus far. “[Bailey is] so quick, the way he can get in and out of cuts and Zane [Knipe], he can just fly down the field so fast. They’re both insane.”

Then there are guys like Rhett Cardwell and Chris Boudreaux who have had their moments during camp. Each should be a reliable depth piece for the Owls in 2019.

None of those preseason reps will matter as much as the snaps each of these receivers will take this fall. For now, everyone will do their best to refine their craft and increase their understanding of the offense. Rice has options, but they’ll need answers when the time comes to take on Army on August 30.

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Rice Football: 5 Position battles to watch in fall camp

August 9, 2019 By Matthew Bartlett

Five position battles have been a focal point of Rice Football fall camp. Here’s where the Owls stand at those key spots after the first week of camp.

1. Wide receiver

The suspension of Aaron Cephus left Rice in a tough spot at the wide receiver position. Austin Trammell will push 100 targets, but the rest of the depth chart is going to be asked to step up. August Pitre and Brad Rozner started camp with the first team.

When the team goes to split squad practice, freshman Zane Knipe works with the veterans. Jake Bailey is with the second team at the moment, but he stands out as the best player at his position in that group.

Projected starters against Army as of today: Trammell, Rozner, Pitre

2. Offensive line

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Three grad transfers in the mix make the offensive line one of the most competitive races of camp. The only position that is definitively set in stone is left tackle, where Clay Servin returns as the team’s top starter. Nick Leverett, Brian Chaffin and Cole Garcia are fighting it out for the two interior guard spots with Shea Baker the presumptive favorite to stick at center.

Learn more about each of these challengers by reading their player profiles in our 2019 Rice Football Season Preview, on sale now.

The most competitive race will come at right tackle where Uzoma Osuji and Ouachita Baptist transfer Justin Gooseberry are dueling for the starting role.

Projected starters against Army as of today: From left to right – Servin, Leverett, Baker, Garcia, Gooseberry

3. Quarterback

Wiley Green has had the inside track on the starting job in 2019 since the end of last season. He performed reasonably well in the spring and has continued to progress through fall camp. But, just like last year, the Owls brought in a grad transfer at the position to push their incumbent starter.

Through the first week of camp, it’s looking like Tom Stewart is the real deal. It was never a given that Green would be the de facto starter against Army, but recent developments make me believe this competition is going to very real and quite contentious. Stewart’s progress, plus the arrival of Jovoni Johnson could see this race draw out til the final days of camp.

Projected starters against Army as of today: Green

4. Special Teams

While the rest of the aforementioned position battles project to be close, each of them features some sort of frontrunner rather by way of seniority or familiarity with the Owls’ schemes. Two of the most prominent special teams jobs are wide open.

Adam Nunez and Chris Barnes have both had strong fall camps at punter. Nunez was a multi-year starter at TCU; Barnes sat behind current-NFLer Jack Fox. There’s probably not a wrong answer here. The kicker spot features more uncertainty. Will Harrison has experience but wasn’t accurate this spring. Incoming freshman Zach Hoban has an impressive highlight reel, but he’s never produced at the college level.

Projected starters against Army as of today: Punter – Adam Nunez, Kicker – Zach Hoban

5. Corner

The emergence of Andrew Bird late last season was huge for the Owls’ secondary which lost several veterans this offseason. Back alongside Bird are D’Angelo Ellis and Tyrae Thornton, both of whom have had their ups and downs. One of the two is going to start opposite Bird out the gate. Who that will be remains to be seen. This is one of the spots where we could see freshmen emerge early to play meaningful snaps.

Projected starters against Army as of today: Bird, Ellis

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  • Rice Football Recruiting: WR Artis Cole commits to Owls

Filed Under: Football, Archive, Featured Tagged With: Adam Nunez, August Pitre, Austin Trammell, Bradley Rozner, Brian Chaffin, Chris Barnes, Clay Servin, Justin Gooseberry, Nick Leverett, practice notes, Rice Football, Shea Baker, Tom Stewart, Uzoma Osuji, Wiley Green, Zach Hoban

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