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2018 North Texas Mean Green Season Preview

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Rice football seems to always find themselves in a shootout when they play North Texas. Will 2018 be any different when the Owls face the Mean Green?

Seth Littrell and the air raid offense have done wonders for the North Texas Mean Green. The team parted ways with former coach Dan McCarney midway through the 2015 season, falling to 1-11 before Littrell took over in 2016. After going 5-8 during his first season, Littrell continued the upswing with a 9-5 finish in 2017.

North Texas was the West representative in the Conference USA Championship Game last season. They fell to Florida Atlantic for the second time that season, ending the campaign 7-2 in conference play with both losses coming at the hands of Lane Kiffin’s Owls.

Their game against the Rice Owls turned out quite differently. Although Rice was able to slow down the Mean Green’s high-powered offense they didn’t have enough firepower of their own to catch up North Texas won at 30-14 at Rice Stadium. They’ll host the Owls in 2018.

Offense

North Texas returns their most important piece of their offense in 2018, junior quarterback Mason Fine. The 5-foot-11 passer amassed 4,052 passing yards, second-most in the conference to Mike White of Western Kentucky in 2017.  Fine led CUSA in passing touchdowns with 31. He’ll have the proverbial green light to open up the passing lanes once more this season and will have the benefit of several familiar targets.

The Mean Green return five of their top six pass catchers from last season, losing senior Turner Smiley (35 receptions, 623 yards and five touchdowns) to graduation. Smiley will be missed, but Michael Lawrence (62 rec., 819 yd, four TD), Jalen Guyton (49 rec., 775 yd, nine TD) and Rico Bussey Jr. (47 rec., 677 yd, seven TD)  are more than enough weapons to make Fine comfortable in the pocket.

All that’s left is to find a running back. Replacing Jeffrey Wilson will be the biggest challenge this offense faces next season. He toted the rock 188 times for the Mean Green in 2017, racking up 1,215 yards and 16 touchdowns. Nick Smith, now a sophomore, saw meaningful action as a freshman but wasn’t nearly as effective as Smith, averaging 1.5 less yards per carry and scoring 10 fewer touchdowns on 50 fewer carries.

Defense

The defense is what has kept North Texas from breaking through. In seven meetings with the Mean Green from 2008 to 2017 the Owls have averaged 36 points per game. It wasn’t just Rice that has gotten the best of the North Texas defense. They’ve finished in the bottom three in CUSA in scoring defense twice in the past three seasons, becoming equally susceptible to the run and the pass in 2017. North Texas surrendered 431.4 yards per game last season, 12th worst in CUSA.

Hoping to right the decline in 2018 will be a collection of upperclassmen in the defensive backfield. Corner Kemon Hall led the unit with eight passes defended last season, also registering one interception and 73 tackles. That’s an elevated number of tackles for a corner, but that speaks to gaps in the front seven that let his opponents get to the second-level so quickly.

Up front North Texas will build around 2019 NFL Draft prospect E.J. Ejiya. The 6-foot-3, 223-pound outside linebacker should be the Mean Green’s biggest playmaker once again in 2018. Ejiya is coming off a career season in which he registered 108 tackles, 12 tackles for a loss and seven sacks. A strong year for him would go a long way to easing the pressure on the secondary, but he’ll need some help. Look for fellow linebacker Brandon Garner to take some pressure off Ejiya, opening up holes for his teammate to get into the offensive backfield.

Schedule

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37 Days: Redzone defense can only get better in 2018

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Rice football needs to bulk up their defensive front, especially in the redzone. Few units have as much room for improvement in 2018 as the Owls.

There are few events more emotionally draining than watching your opponent march down the field, enter the redzone, and punch the ball into the endzone from close range. Forcing a field goal, although not the best outcome available to the defense, is at least a small victory. Rice needs to force a few more field goals in 2018 if they want to find a way to stay competitive for four full quarters.

Rice football allowed 37 redzone touchdowns in 2017. In 49 opportunities they held their opponents to a field goal nine times and came away with a paltry three stops. Their opponent’s scored on 93.9 percent of their red zone opportunities. Only 12 defenses in college football allowed their opponents points on 90 percent of their red zone chances.

Even the best defenses can’t keep their opponents from reaching the redzone entirely. Teams like Wisconsin, Alabama and Miami earned their stripes by clamping down in the final 20 yards, forcing field goals and creating turnovers. The Owls’ 75.5 percent opponent touchdown rate needs to creep back towards 60 percent, roughly the average mark for an FBS defense last season.

To make those improvements the Owls are going to have to get more physical. Head strength and conditioning coach Hans Straub will be instrumental in making inroads in that area. He joins the Owls from Stanford where he worked as the Director of Olympic Sports Performance. Straub has been in the strength and condition world for more than a decade, and the opportunity to see that experience pay off is at hand.

Better conditioning and smarter football should be enough to get the Owls back to the middle of the pack. They’re not going to turn into a lockdown defense overnight, but they’ll be headed in the right direction in 2018 with significant headway expected down the line.

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38 Days: Offensive help for the Owls is on the way

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Rice football needs a jolt on offense in 2018. Head coach Mike Bloomgren has the experience and the know-how to make that happen.

There weren’t many teams worse on the offensive side of the ball than Rice in 2017. The Owls finished six spots above the worse scoring offense in the FBS, UTEP. Coincidentally, the Miners were the only team the Owls were able to beat last year. If Rice has their eyes on making strides in the win column they’ll need the offense to improve drastically.

Mike Bloomgren is the man for the job.

Bloomgren joins the Owls after five years as the offensive coordinator at Stanford. The difference between the Rice offense and the Stanford offense over that time was seismic. Beyond the obvious talent gap, the Cardinal frequently ran the ball effectively and put up points. They weren’t perfect, but they finished inside the top 50 in the nation three times in Bloomgren’s five years calling the shots. Rice, although they did boast a stronger offense in 2014, consistently lagged behind.

Team/Yr   Rice   Stanford
2013 62 45
2014 66 79
2015 87 18
2016 93 82
2017 125 38
Average 86.6 52.4

The low points for Stanford are noteworthy; even Bloomgren’s squads weren’t perfect. However, the upside should give fans hope. Stanford has the No. 38 offense in the nation last season. Rice hasn’t finished that high in the offensive rankings since Chase Clement took Conference USA by storm in 2008. Clement is walking through the door any time soon.

What Bloomgren did at Stanford can be replicated. He built around a strong running game with a quarterback that was able to methodically move the ball down the field. When quarterback K.J. Costello took over from Keller Chryst midway through the season the offense got even better. A little bit of mobility combined with top-level football IQ is all Bloomgren needs to build upon. Whichever quarterback he chooses, the Rice offense is in good hands.

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39 Days: Sustaining drives a key to finding offensive success

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Rice football has a decent amount of success on third down last season, but a tick up in those situations needs to be a focal point entering 2018.

Unless your offense consistently finds a way to take the top of the defense, converting on third down is a key piece of any offensive gameplan. Every coach will have a variety of plays and formations at his disposal for the sole purpose of gaining those three, seven or even 15 necessary yards and moving the chains. Offenses that can’t consistently convert on third down have to rely on chunk plays to avoid the down entirely.

Rice converted on 39 percent of their third down conversions last season. The Owls were just behind the national average of 40 percent conversions. While that’s a step up from their defensive stop rate on third down it still leaves room for improvement.

The teams that consistently turned third downs into first down predominantly were successful running the football, and not just when they had to. 10 of the top 16 third down offenses ranked inside the top 25 in rushing. Teams that run the ball frequently and with success often put themselves into a manageable down and distance. They also have the practice and the poise to get the two yards they need by handing the ball off to a trustworthy running back and letting him lower his shoulder and plow through the line.

Building up the offensive line has already been one of head coach Mike Bloomgren’s focal points. He signed four offensive lineman in the 2018 class. He’s already begun building his 2019 class around guard Regan Riddle and tight end Jack Bradley.

The ability to get the tough yards will define success. It will make the arrival of the physical brutality meant to coincide with newfound culture of the intellectual brutality which is already beginning to bleed into this program’s DNA. Whether it’s on the ground behind the revamped offensive line or through the air, converting on third down is a must.

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40 Days: Owls must find ways to get stops and force punts

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Rice football fielded few punts last season, partly because of their inability to hold on third down. Will that change in 2018?

The Owls forced a grand total of 40 punts in 2017. If that number seems a bit low, it is. There was only one FBS team that forced fewer punts than Rice last season, Oregon State, who not-so-coincidentally also went 1-11.

This goes all the way back to the basic fundamentals of football. Run the ball and play defense. Last season Rice wasn’t fundamentally sound, and it showed. The Owls finished 90th in the nation in total defense and a miserable 125th in third-down defense. Opponents converted a staggering 48.6 percent of their attempts. The national average on third down was 38.6 percent, putting the Owls in the red by a sizable margin.

If you can’t get off the field, you can’t get your offense onto it. The defensive woes bled through to an offense that ranked 125th in the nation in scoring. And the problem compounded on itself. It’s a vicious cycle. The only way to fix it? Find a way to get stops on defense.

The best teams in the nation, as far as forcing punts go, average just north of seven punt attempts against per game. Combine that with a couple of turnovers, maybe the end of a half and you’re approaching 10 possession in which your opponent doesn’t score and you get the ball. The math adds up rather quickly, and sooner or later those numbers translate into wins.

Rice football has a laundry list of items that need to be changed as the program continues to progress under head coach Mike Bloomgren. A switch isn’t going to flip overnight; it’s going to be a process. One of those stepping stones, which could make a huge difference for the psyche of this team early on, is getting off the field on third down.

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