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Rice Football 2024: Army Game Week Practice Report

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Rice football takes on Army this week with eyes on a bounce-back win. Here’s what we learned from the Owls at practice this week.

The Rice football offense is under the microscope this week after falling short against Houston last Saturday. Offensive coordinator Marques Tuiasosopo is confident in his unit, delivering a hopeful evaluation. “It was 60 minutes. It was a bad night. It’s not who we are,” he told The Roost this week. Here’s more on the offense, the quarterback, the injuries and additional reports from the practice field.

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Diagnosing Offensive Dysfunction is Rice Football Priority Number 1

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Rice football has issues on offense that need to be sorted out quickly. What’s wrong and how do the Owls believe they can fix it?

Through two games against FBS opponents, the Rice football offense has been a mess. The Owls were held to 274 yards against Sam Houston before managing a paltry 159 against Houston two weeks later, most of which came in garbage time with a backup quarterback attempting to avoid a shutout. It’s been about as bad as it’s looked.

Rice travels to Army this week and doesn’t have much time to lick their wounds. A solution is needed, pronto, and to achieve that, they must first diagnose the problem. Head coach Mike Bloomgren declined to point fingers at any one player, position group of staff member following their most recent blowout defeat, but he did offer a few theories to the Owls’ offensive woes which could realistically fall into one of four categories: protection, quarterback, receiving options, and scheme.

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Rice Football smothered in Bayou Bucket loss to Houston

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Rice Football fell behind early and never threatened to catch up, ceding the Bayou Bucket to Houston after a one-year sojourn at South Main.

It had been more than 20 years since Rice football had claimed the Bayou Bucket in successive seasons. That streak will continue for quite some time longer after Saturday’s loss at TDECU Stadium. There’s one game left in the series as things stand and Rice can’t wait for another shot to redeem themselves from a rough outing in their biggest rivalry matchup. Here are a few immediate reactions from the game:

Going Sideways

Notwithstanding their big day on the scoreboard against Texas Southern, the Rice football offense has struggled to move the ball north and south this season. They’ve largely been a horizontal offense utilizing their speed to the edges to outflank their opponents and slowly matriculate their way down the field. When you’re playing a less talented opponent, that works. When you’re playing a Big 12 team that is just as athletic as you are if not more so, it’s impossible. Rice found that out the hard way, early on.

The first three plays from scrimmage were a Dean Connors run off left tackle followed by a swing pass to Connors off the left side and then a flat out to Boden Groen. They gained seven yards and punted. EJ Warner was under a decent amount of pressure early but misfired on most of his shots down the field. Rice didn’t get any points from their offense until there were 68 seconds left in regulation.

Against FCS competition, Rice has scored 69 points. Against FBS foes the Owls have mustered just 21 in twice as many quarters.

If there was a weak link, it was hard to identify. Warner missed some receivers downfield, the protection regularly failed to give him time to work and the receivers did not generate nearly enough separation. There were moments when everything seemed to come together, but the passing game was flat and horizontal making it near impossible to sustain any meaningful drive.

Rice had one snap on the plus side of the 50 in the first half and seven such plays in the second half. They were 2-for-13 on third down. For an offense, it doesn’t get much worse than this.

The personnel is the personnel. The staff is the staff. They’ve got to figure something out, fast.

Defense staves off a massacre

In hindsight, leading the nation in sacks through two games should have been the clear indicator that this current iteration of Rice football would be led by its defense. A tough opening quarter, which included 35 total yards from the offense and a punt return score, would have been so much worse if the defense hadn’t picked up the slack.

Josh Pearcy added to that sack total on the opening drive, although that takedown probably could have been credited to a few Owls, which is a testament to just how dominant the front seven has been so far this season.

The defense was burned for a handful of chunk plays but largely limited the backbreaking Houston punches to a pair of long first-quarter runs by Re’Shaun Sanford and a screen touchdown following a special teams mistake. A 37-yard run up the gut by Donovan Smith was the cherry on top of a garbage time sundae.

Forced to carry the load for the totality of the game, the defense added three sacks to their total and did a reasonable job containing Houston quarterback Donovan Smith and the Cougars’ rushing attack, which tried its best to drain the clock as quickly as it could. It might not have been a great day from the defense as a whole, but this phase of the ball wasn’t the reason Rice lost on Saturday.

Special teams roulette

Many of the largest swings in this game came in the sometimes overlooked third phase of football. Houston’s second touchdown was a 75-yard punt return touchdown. A few series later, a muffed punt by Sean Fresch was followed by a 44-yard touchdown from the Cougars on the very next play.

The Owls’ punt return woes didn’t stop there. Tyson Thompson, Fresch’s replacement, was leveled on his first return, putting the ball on the deck. Fortunately, Rice recovered and was aided further by a targeting penalty on the Cougars. The Owls were only in need of being bailed out because Thompson failed to signal for a fair catch, perhaps hoping to make the most of a rare opportunity.

While so many of his teammates struggled, Rice punter Alex Bacchetta was a bright spot on Saturday night at TDECU Stadium. Bacchetta punted seven times in the first half and two more in the second. The Rice football program record is 12 punts in one contest, most recently achieved by Jack Fox in 2018.

Bacchetta had one bad boot, a 24-yard on his first touch of the game. The remainder of his kicks were booming blasts. He averaged 42.2 yards per punt, 44.2 yards apiece when excluding the first dud. He was superb, but special teams on a whole were way too erratic in the moments that mattered most.

Behind schedule

Beating Houston would have gotten the Owls to 2-1, par for the season according to oddsmakers, with a marquee win and a rivalry trophy retained. The loss, while not unexpected from a spread standpoint, officially puts Rice behind expectations with a road trip to Army looming.

Picked to finish in the middle of the AAC, presumably with another bowl trip in tow, it’s time to officially put all of those aspirations on hold. Rice could very well achieve both of those objectives, but the team that was talked about as a dark horse to contend for the AAC title quite frankly hasn’t shown up to play in this season. Beating an FCS squad is nice, but the remainder of the schedule is against FBS opponents, against which Rice is 0-2.

Maybe things would feel a bit more hopeful if Rice had found a way to not stub their toe in their opening game against Sam Houston, but right now this is a team with more questions than answers and there are still two more games to play before the first bye week of the season.

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Rice Football blasts Texas Southern in bounce-back win

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Rice Football took command early and never let up, eviscerating Texas Southern in one of the most dominant wins of the Mike Bloomgren era.

Rice football took the field on Saturday with a newfound sense of urgency following last week’s debacle against Sam Houston. In that game, the Owls were ineffective in all three phases and were summarily thumped on their own (brand new) turf. Head coach Mike Bloomgren was adamant that his players and staff would take the wake-up call for what it was. “We will respond,” he vowed. His team did just that. Here are a few immediate reactions from the game:

Physically dominant

Perhaps the most irksome aspect of the Owls’ Week 1 loss was the degree to which they looked outclassed on both lines of scrimmage. Although the defense tallied seven sacks, Sam Houston ran the ball effectively. On the other side, the Owls’ offensive line offered little support for EJ Warner, continually leaving their quarterback under fire and failing to keep defenders out of the backfield.

A completely different team showed up Saturday night against Texas Southern.

“More than anything, we just need to play another game. I would have played Jones Junior High or I would have played Alabama. We need to play somebody today,” Bloomgren said. “We just needed to get a chance to get our room back and play football and love this thing and we did that. That’s what I’m happy about. We got a chance to play this game.”

The offensive line bullied the Texas Southern front for four quarters, making running lanes for Dean Connors and providing Warner plenty of time to work through progressions and find the open man. Consider the first touchdown of the game (below) which features a well-executed fullback block, a nice block from long pulling from the right side allowing Connors to get a couple of yards past the line of scrimmage before contact. Then he finishes the play in the endzone.

It was the same story on defense. The difference in intensity was night and day, highlighted by a celebratory three-player sack on the final drive of the first quarter. Officially the sack was shared by Blaise Tita and Myron Morrison — NCAA rules limit sacks shared to two individuals — but the play capped off a first quarter in which the Rice defense held Texas Southern to six total yards on three successive three-and-out series.

The first series that didn’t end with three plays and a punt for Texas Southern came early in the second quarter. That drive stopped on the second play, a pick-six by Tyson Flowers. Rice needed 60 minutes to score twice against Sam Houston. They had 28 points on the board against Texas Southern in less than 20 minutes. Rice was the more physical team in this one and that was readily apparent on almost every snap.

The second half was more of the same. Prior to their final possession, Texas Southern had not crossed midfield and had three total first downs. They never threatened to score until the final drive when the Owls had emptied their bench, and even then, it was close. Meanwhile, the Rice offense continued to march up and down the field in the final minutes of regulation.

Those final minutes included a 12-minute fourth quarter, a stipulation permitted should both head coaches agree to it. Rice dominated to such a degree that the game was shortened in the college football equivalent of the mercy rule.

The Taji Atkins Show

At least one player refused to check out when the game entered its later stages. True freshman running back Taji Atkins made waves during the offseason and made his debut last week against Sam Houston. On Saturday against Texas Southern, he made his presence felt in a very real way. Atkins scored his first career touchdown on a five-yard plunge in the third quarter.

Atkins wasn’t going to settle for just one cameo, though. Minutes later he exploded through the line, found the corner and accelerated for a 33-yard score.

Atkins carried the ball 11 times for 91 yards, narrowly missing the century mark in just his second career game. Had the field been a few yards longer on that second score, he probably would have gotten there. It seems likely we’ll see a lot more of that from Atkins moving forward.

Clean it up

The impressive showing was only marred, in part, but self-inflicted wounds. Those first two big plays by the special teams, Fresch’s return and the blocked punt, were both erased on penalties. Rice would be flagged eight times for 72 yards. Texas Southern’s only scoring drive was aided by a facemask penalty that put the Tigers in the redzone.

The Texas Southern offense only tallied 87 yards for the game and had 14 total yards before their final drive. Rice came ever so close to spotting their opponent more yards than their defense allowed.

Bloomgren, who is usually quick to pounce on penalties as a straightforward place for his team to get better, was largely dismissive of the calls in this game. “I’ll look forward to seeing those flags that were thrown, watching those players later tonight on the iPad because I’m not sure I completely understand what was called,” he said. If his assumptions are correct, perhaps that bodes well for the future.

It wasn’t just penalties, though. A fumbled snap almost erased a fourth down conversion in the first quarter. Fortunately this time Warner was able to scoop the ball up and slam it in the gut of Connors who plowed straight forward for the first down. Warner was less fortunate a few series later when he hung a ball out to Matt Sykes in a hook route that was intercepted, his third pick of the young season.

When you’re playing an FCS team that entered the game as more than a four-touchdown underdog, you can make mistakes like those.

To be fair, if those were the only mistakes the Owls made in any given game, they’d still be set up for a favorable result, but the best result here is to use those shortcomings as additional growth opportunities. If this is what Rice football can be when they’re good, not great, what does a perfect performance look like? What caliber of opponent can the Owls take down when everything is clicking like it’s supposed to? Next weekend against Houston will afford them an opportunity to test that out.

One for the record books

The kind of thumping Rice football put on Texas Southern was as impressive as it felt. The Owls registered a long list of “firsts since” on Saturday night. Although they won’t be able to add their first shutout since 2020 to the ledger, they did rack up a long list of superlatives. For example,

Rice football’s 69 points were the most scored by the Owls since scoring 77 against North Texas in 2008 and the third most scored in program history.

Rice football held Texas Southern to 49 passing yards, the lowest total for an opponent since holding Army to nine in 2017.

Rice football held Texas Southern to 38 rushing yards, the lowest total for an opponent since holding UTEP to 17 in 2017.

It was the first 300+ yard rushing game for Rice football since 2021.

As for individual accolades, Tyson Flowers and Marcus Williams each registered their first career interceptions. Taji Atkins had his first career touchdown then added another. Enoch Gota made his first two field goals. Backup quarterback Drew Devillier made his Rice debut as did a few others. The starters were out of the game by the midpoint of the third quarter. That’s how this kind of game is supposed to go.

The gaudy numbers aren’t going to the Owls’ heads just yet. Safety Tyson Flowers, who helped contribute to the beatdown, offered a levelheaded assessment of where this team stands right now.

“You want to shut out, right? But at the end of the day we won the game and regardless of them scoring at the end, regardless of us not having the shut out, there’s still plays that we need to improve on all throughout the game,” he said. “That was by no means a flawless game whether we got the shut out or not. There’s stuff that we’re gonna find when we watch the film that we need to correct if we want to continue to have the season that we want to have.”

Exhale and reload

For the casual football fan, this was a snoozer that wasn’t worth turning into beyond a few highlight plays that found their way onto social media. For a Rice football team that entered the season with the expectations they did to win in the way they did, this was expected. To see it transpire a week removed from the Sam Houston State fiasco was essential. More than anything, it sets up a crucial opportunity one week from now against Houston.

The Bayou Bucket currently resides inside the walls of the Brian Patterson Center at South Main. Players, staff and media walk past it daily. It’s become a fixture in the team meeting room. And nobody wants it to leave. Houston — 0-2 after losing to Oklahoma on Saturday night — looks more vulnerable than ever in its humble beginnings under new head coach Willie Fritz.

We’ll get to next week next week, but it’s impossible not to envision how the optics of this season could change with a 2-1 start. The oddsmakers projected Rice to be 2-1 at this point in the year, but nobody would have tabbed that potential sequence of results. This team has always been a bit unpredictable under Bloomgren’s leadership. Why not lean into that chaos and keep the Bucket for at least one more year?

“I’d like to celebrate this one before we talk about Houston anymore, if you don’t mind,” Bloomgren chided after the game. “All jokes aside, I know this team is going to be excited for next week. I think this is going to make us hungrier than ever.”

Taking care of business against Texas Southern might just give this team the boost they need to do just that.

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Special teams shows out

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Rice Football 2024: TXSO Game Week Practice Report

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Rice football looks to bounce back this week against Texas Southern. What adjustments can be made? Here’s what we learned from the Owls at practice this week.

Last week was a rude awakening for Rice football. The entire locker room was put on notice as head coach Mike Bloomgren called for leaders to step up and hold this program regain its football before Texas Southern arrived on campus this coming Saturday. Who suits up, and who will miss this matchup only further adds to the rising stakes in this Week 2 contest.

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Following the Leaders

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