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Rice Football 2023: UTSA Game Week Practice Report

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Rice football visits UTSA this weekend seeking to snap a losing streak. Here’s what we learned from the Owls at practice this week.

It’s mid-November and we’ve got a situation in the Rice football quarterback room. An unwanted, annual tradition has returned to South Main as the Owls prepare for the possibility of a game without quarterback JT Daniels at the helm.

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This week’s roundup focuses on what the Owls plan to do if Daniels is ruled out, what additional adjustments they’re having to make because of injuries and some closing thoughts on the importance of this matchup.

For those checking in for the first time, or those returning, a quick programming note. Special features like this are reserved for our subscribers. Have questions? You can get those answered in our monthly Q&As and get access to all practice notes, recruiting updates and features like this one when you subscribe on Patreon today.

The Plan at Quarterback

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Rice Football valiant comeback effort falls short against SMU

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Rice Football pushed another AAC heavyweight to the brink on Saturday, but came up short with a backup quarterback, falling to SMU at home.

Down to a true freshman backup quarterback for the entirety of the second half, Rice football hung around and had their chance to knock off SMU, one of the AAC’s three remaining teams to be unbeaten in league play. Chase Jenkins led multiple scoring drives but was picked off in the final minutes as the Owls fell on Homecoming night.

“It’s a win business. And the fun is in the winning and we all know that,” Rice football head coach Mike Bloomgren said in his comments after the game. “They’ve been trained in that way they understand that, but I told them it doesn’t change the fact that I’m incredibly proud of them and how they fought in the second half of this ballgame through a lot of adversity and gave them a chance to win against an incredibly talented football team. That’s something we never could have done in years past.”

Here are a few immediate reactions from the game:

Special teams show out

It’s been a bumpy road for the Rice football special teams this season. Following a particularly disastrous day against UConn, which featured a missed field goal and a muffed punt, head coach Mike Bloomgren delivered a rather confident defense of special teams coordinator Pete Alamar, promising better days.

“What I do know, is we have the best special teams coordinator I’ve ever been around in Pete Alamar and I trust him to fix it,” Bloomgren said that night. “I’ll certainly do everything I can to help him.”

The Owls haven’t kicked many field goals since then and the punting hasn’t been noticeably improved, but Saturday’s start was just about the best showing that phase of the football has had all season. In the span of a few minutes, the Rice special teams accomplished the following: snuffed out a fake punt, kicked a 50-yard punt and finally blocked an SMU punt and returned it for a touchdown.

Rice was never going to have a chance in this game if they didn’t find a way to compete on special teams. That unit gave the Owls a chance. Quinton Jackson added a 44-yard kickoff return. Tim Horn made a fourth quarter field goal. In just about every special teams phase, Rice had success.

Manufacturing an offense

In baseball, there’s a concept of manufacturing runs. When the bats aren’t swatting the ball all over the yard, managers resort to stealing bases, bunts, sac flies and everything else they can scheme up to find a way to get a run. The terminology carries with it the idea of stealing points when you’re not having a banner day on the offensive side.

Onlookers at Rice Stadium witnessed the football equivalent on Saturday night. The Rice offense totaled minus one yard in the first quarter. Quarterback JT Daniels was sacked three times before he registered his third completion of the night and the running game wasn’t working. The SMU defense was overwhelming the Rice line and the offense was stuck.

Yet somehow, Rice went into halftime with 21 points, trailing by just a field goal.

In what has to be one of the most impressive offensive performances we’ve seen at South Main this year, offensive coordinator Marques Tuisosopo was — as the kids say — in his bag. There were tight ends in motion, jet sweeps, reverses, lots of orbit motions and more importantly, extended drives that kept the SMU offense off the field.

If Rice kept everything vanilla, it felt as if the SMU front would have blown them off the field. They dialed up the creativity and pulled out almost every stop. Credit to all parties involved — coaches and players — for finding a way to make this game extremely competitive, starting quarterback or not.

Nights like tonight expose the quality of your scheme. When everything goes wrong, can you still move the ball? Rice was able to do that in very challenging circumstances against the best defense in the conference with a backup quarterback. There are no moral victories, but the coaching staff absolutely carried their weight on Saturday night.

Where’s JT?

So many Rice football seasons under Bloomgren have featured a familiar, painful narrative: quarterback injuries. Even after JT Daniels left the USF game with an ankle injury the Owls felt like they’d escaped the curse when their rugged signal caller returned the following week to play against UConn. The undeniable willpower of No. 18 made this season feel different.

And while the Owls’ season is not anywhere close to finished, watching Daniels view yet another game from the sidelines was a punch to the gut Rice fans had thought they’d put well behind them in the rearview mirror.

Chase Jenkins took the first snap of the third quarter while Daniels was nowhere to be found on the Owls’ sideline. He would later emerge from the Brian Patterson Center and walk down to the field with a ball camp on his head and no helmet in sight. That sight — Daniels alone on the sideline as the offense took the field — was absolutely crushing.

Bloomgren revealed he wasn’t aware Daniels was in any danger of missing time when he entered the locker room at halftime. Daniels was then taken away by team doctors and examined where it was then revealed he did not remember his final drive or the score of the game.

The game could have been over at that point, but Jenkins wasn’t going to roll over. Jenkins finished 10-for-16 with 85 yards passing. He ran the ball four times for 21 yards, including a long of 14 yards. He led multiple scoring drives against an elite SMU defense. You couldn’t have asked for much more from a true freshman backup quarterback who started the season working with the scout team.

Playing on fumes

The secondary entered the game without Marcus Williams or Jojo Jean available. Sean Fresch and Gabe Taylor each spent time on the turf during the game, with Taylor unable to finish the game and Fresch willing the defense to hold together. When logic dictated the defense should be out of gas, they delivered their best moments of the entire game.

Following a touchdown drive by the Mustangs to start the second half, the Rice defense limited SMU to just six points for the remainder of the contest, much of which came when SMU starting quarterback Preston Stone was still in the game.

Bloomgren acknowledged the effort. “The way those guys fought, that’s what it comes down to,” he said. Those guys just fought together and for each other. That’s a beautiful thing. That’s really cool.”

Margin

Earlier in the season, Rice football head coach Mike Bloomgren talked about margin. He talked about this team being talented enough to win games, even when they weren’t having their best day. After Saturday’s result, Rice has itself wrestling with a new kind of margin, the kind that ties directly to bowl eligibility.

Sitting at 4-5, below .500 for the first time this season, Rice now must win two of its final three games to secure six wins and clinch bowl eligibility. They had back-to-back “quality losses” but that doesn’t matter on the final ledger. If they didn’t already, the Owls officially have their backs up against the wall.

When asked whether the team was feeling that pressure, Bloomgren remained resolute. “We talked about UTSA. You know how we’re going to take this,” he said. It’s going to be one [game] at a time. It’s not going to be about margin. It’s not going to be about anything.”

“They all can see big picture. They’re smart kids; they go to Rice, but for us, we’re going to talk about the things that matter and preparing the right way. And what a big win it would be next week in the Alamodome if we can have a great week of practice and find a way to get that thing done.”

Rice has three games left: at UTSA, at Charlotte, vs FAU. They’ve played some really good football in recent weeks, but they’re running out of time to cash in on positive performances that come without a win on the final scoreboard.

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Rice Football rally falls short against Tulane

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Rice Football came up short against defending AAC champs Tulane, spotting their visitors a 20-point halftime lead from which they couldn’t recover.

Despite being double-digit underdogs at kickoff, nobody was happy when Rice football fell by just two points to Tulane at home on Saturday. The Owls rallied from a massive deficit, only to give Tulane the ball with 8:10 remaining and essentially not see it again. Here are a few immediate reactions from the game:

The Green Wave won in the trenches

On both sides of the ball, Tulane was better up front. If you want to boil the game down to a single-sentence synopsis, that might be it. The Green Wave offense got an incredible push off the ball, opening up running lanes and giving quarterback Michael Pratt time with the football. The Owls hit him, but often the blows came too late and Pratt found his man downfield anyway.

Look no further than Tulane’s final possession in this game. They took over with 8:10 on the clock in the fourth quarter and did not give Rice the ball back until four seconds remained and the result was all but decided.

Spotty tackling only compounded those efforts. Safeties Plae Wyatt (12) and Jojo Jean (11) led the team in tackles. That typically only happens when the seven men in front of them fail to get the runner down before he reaches the second level.

The Rice offensive line was similarly maligned. Quarterback JT Daniels was able to turn lemons into lemonade as he often does, but there’s no denying his job was made much more difficult this week and it contributed to some of the Owls’ early offensive scuffles.

Still searching for consistency

What separates teams like Tulane from the rest of the conference is their consistency. On good days and bad days, on good plays and bad plays, this team has demonstrated a remarkable ability to be ready for action. That was demonstrated on the very first snap of the game when running back Makhi Hughes rumbled for 43 yards up the gut. Then on the first snap of their second drive, a 38-yard completion.

On the other side of the ball, Rice had its moments but did not demonstrate that same level of consistency. Three-and-outs sandwiched a seven-play, 82-yard touchdown earlier in the game. Pass interference penalties — one apiece from the offense and the defense — hampered each side of the ball.

When Tulane did show some signs of mortality via a missed chip-shot field goal, Rice responded with a dropped pass on third down and another three-and-out. Rice had their final drive of the first half stall out near midfield, giving the ball back to Tulane with 16 seconds to go on their side of the field. Somehow, the Green Wave ended that drive with points, putting Rice further into the hole.

The high points were there — let’s be honest, this touchdown catch from Daniels to Luke McCaffrey was mesmerizing:

Gabe Taylor’s 72-yard interception return was fantastic, too. Yes, there were fireworks. But they weren’t nearly consistent enough to be described as a cohesive performance. And when you don’t play a full 60 minutes of football, it’s hard to beat the teams that do.

“They got it done. We didn’t,” head coach Mike Bloomgren said postgame. “I thought it was a great game and we’ve got a lot to learn and grow from.”

Get rid of the second quarter lull

The Rice offense has been fantastic this season. They’ve scored in every conceivable fashion and kept this team in almost every game, but it’s been choppy at times. The first scripted drive? No problem. Rice entered Saturday outscoring their opponents 90-13 in the first quarter.  The second quarter, though, has been their kryptonite.

Rice has scored 28 points against FBS teams in the second quarter of games so far this season, an average of 4.7 points per game in that quarter. In every other quarter, Rice has tallied 173 total points, equating to 9.6 points per quarter, more than twice as productive. Why the disparity?

Truthfully, the Owls have been their own worst enemies. Dropped passes and penalties have ended drives and the defense has struggled to get them more frequent opportunities. A three-and-out might mean Daniels and company are standing on the sideline for twenty minutes as they wait for another opportunity.

Rice had two drives in the first quarter. It’s hard to score when you don’t have the ball. And it probably doesn’t help when the mountain you have to climb keeps getting higher and your opponent adds to their point total every time you leave the field.

Another missed opportunity

Now in year six, Rice Football head coach Mike Bloomgren has won some big games with the Owls. The first shocker came in 2020 when Rice upset N0. 15 Marshall on the road in shutout fashion. Then there was the Bayou Bucket victory over Houston at Historic Rice Stadium just a few weeks ago.

Knocking off Tulane on Saturday might have topped them all, but those dreams seemed all but dead by the halftime whistle.

Tulane won the AAC last year, went to the Cotton Bowl and dispatched a USC team that dismissed Rice fairly quickly in their opening game. Tulane entered this game as No. 22 team in the country. Rice hadn’t beaten a ranked team at home since 1997. That streak persists after Saturday’s deflating result.

“We just had to get off the field one more time. My hats off to them. I thought they did a great job,” Bloomgren acknowledged. “We’ve got to find a way to make one or two more plays if we want to beat a championship team.”

In some ways, the result is more agonizing when you consider how close the final margin was. A two-point game against the best this conference has to offer. And they won’t have time to lick their wounds. SMU comes to town next weekend fresh off a 69-10 shellacking of Tulsa.

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Field position failures

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Rice Football 2023: Tulane Game Week Practice Report

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Rice football heads home this weekend for a massive game against AAC frontrunner Tulane. Here’s what we learned from practice this week.

It was back to business as usual for Rice football on the practice field this week. The Owls came out firing early in the week, looking crisp on both sides of the ball as they prepare for one of their toughest challenges yet: a ranked Tulane team visiting Rice Stadium this weekend. Before kickoff, Rice had a few things to iron out on the practice field.

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This week’s roundup focuses on some of the successes Rice football unearthed against Tulsa and how they plan to keep those good things going, plus some special teams and injury updates and a few nuggets on offensive playmakers who could be on the rise.

For those checking in for the first time, or those returning, a quick programming note. Special features like this are reserved for our subscribers. Have questions? You can get those answered in our monthly Q&As and get access to all practice notes, recruiting updates and features like this one when you subscribe on Patreon today.

Take it away

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Rice Football 2023: Tulsa Game Week Practice Report

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Rice football is off the bye and headed to Tulsa for a prime-time conference game. Here’s what we learned from practice this week.

Following two weeks of prep, Rice football is on its way north to play Tulsa in what has the makings of a pivotal AAC game for both squads. The Owls got started on their game plan last week and added the finishing touches over the last several days, including some hotly contested special teams battles and some potential playing time risers over the last several practices.

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This week’s roundup focuses on those potential changes over the bye week, what the Owls might do differently from a personnel standpoint and as always, a few injury notes, both good and bad.

For those checking in for the first time, or those returning, a quick programming note. Special features like this are reserved for our subscribers. Have questions? You can get those answered in our monthly Q&As and get access to all practice notes, recruiting updates and features like this one when you subscribe on Patreon today.

Bye week adjustments

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