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Rice Football 2022: UTSA presser quotes and depth chart

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Rice football hosts UTSA this week. Here’s what Mike Bloomgren had to say about the matchup at hand and a few depth chart notes.

Head coach Mike Bloomgren and a pair of players met with the media for their customary weekly availability. They recapped the WKU loss and looked at the week ahead, detailing what they’re expecting to see when UTSA takes the field.

More: Rice Football – Blue and Gray Preview Show

We touch on those items, then dig into the Rice football depth chart and what the team looks like heading into the weekend. First, the quotes:

Press Conference Quotes

“What a great team to have on our schedule with only being three hours apart. They have been the class of conferences, certainly last year they elevated their team, they beat a Big Ten team. They scare everybody they play and they haven’t lost a conference game this year. This is a really, really good football team and I think we all can acknowledge that. But I also think it’s really cool anytime you play a team in Texas where a lot of our guys went to high school together and played against each other and have those backstories that make rivalries what they are. I’m glad this one will continue, and like I said, aside from the days we play each other, I think the world of Jeff Traylor and consider him a friend.” – Mike Bloomgren on UTSA

“You know, some people say it’s already secured, but I don’t want to think like that. I want to say that we’ve got to go earn this thing. We’ve got to win these next two games and put ourselves in the position we want to be in. You know me, I always talk process and progress, but I wanted it to be a little more than incremental progress, right? I wanted to take a bigger jump. I wanted to earn that bowl game and I want to play for a conference title. I thought those were things that if we played well on 12 Saturdays, we would have a chance to do, and we played well on some Saturdays, but we didn’t on others, so we don’t have that opportunity anymore.” – Mike Bloomgren on potentially reaching a bowl game

“I don’t know that I can give you a straight answer on that right now. What I can tell you is Shawqi [Itraish] came in and finished out the game and he took a lot of reps with the ones yesterday and did a really nice job. TJ [McMahon] was at practice and did all the things in drill work which is probably more than I expected. He’s still hurting and I have no idea exactly what the future looks like in that position. We’re taking it day by day. I heard Sean McDermott when asked about Josh Allen said it was hour by hour. We’re not quite there yet, but we’re day by day and whomever the trainers say is in a position where they’re clear and ready to perform, they’re going to go out there and do it.” – Mike Bloomgren on the plan at quarterback

“Just really buckling down on the offense, knowing kills, knowing when not to kill, reading defenses, all that type of stuff, just learning our playbook that much better really helped me out there, really helped my growth… I think my biggest strength is my ability to stay in the pocket and take some of those hits but deliver the ball down the field at the same time, and deliver it accurately.” – Quarterback Shawqi Itraish on how he feels his game has improved this year 

“Those guys are special, they’ve done a lot for this program. Those guys are my leaders. I look up to them, all my class does, all the classes below them do. That’d be very special to us, to go get this sixth win and make history with these guys that we love so much and admire so much.”- Defensive tackle Blake Boenisch on winning for the senior class on Senior Day

“Practice is practice. We get tons better from practice and I always say perfect practice this perfect play. But a game is just a whole different atmosphere. Everything’s happening so much more fast, everything’s more physical. I just feel games is a better opportunity to learn more stuff like that at a faster speed. And that’s more you can do in practice.” – Defensive tackle Blake Boenisch on what he’s taking away from his first career start

Depth Chart

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Depth Chart Notes

For the first time in several weeks, Wiley Green finds his name on the depth chart. Green has been back at practice for more than a week, but as of now his availability for Saturday is unknown. Catch a full detailed breakdown of the quarterback situation later in the week in our practice notes (available to our subscribers).

Additional changes this week include the addition of Uriah West to the depth chart, a formality given his assigned role as the short-yardage specialist. The team has also listed Isaac Klarkowski as the starting center this week — he started last week.

On defense, Chike Anigbogu has replaced Marcus Williams as the backup to Treshawn Chamberlain at Viper.  After serving in an expanded role over the last several weeks, Daveon Hook earned an or designation behind George Nyakwol at free safety. At corner, Lamont Narcisse is listed as a starter opposite Sean Fresch, who missed the Western Kentucky game.


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Rice Football 2022: WKU presser quotes and depth chart

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Rice football visits Western Kentucky this week. Here’s what Mike Bloomgren had to say about the matchup at hand and a few depth chart notes.

Head coach Mike Bloomgren and a pair of players met with the media for their customary weekly availability. They recapped the UTEP win and looked at the week ahead, detailing what they’re expecting to see when Western Kentucky takes the field.

More: Rice Football – Blue and Gray Preview Show

We touch on those items, then dig into the Rice football depth chart and what the team looks like heading into the weekend. First, the quotes:

Press Conference Quotes

“It was pretty cool for our team to get that win; to have the response that we needed and to do the things that we needed to do on a short week and make sure that we were prepared for that game on Thursday night. Our guys had to be pros. They had to take every walkthrough like it was a game rep and I’m really proud of the fact that they did that. After watching the film, I think we’re doing a lot of good things for the team. There’s no doubt about that.” – Mike Bloomgren on the UTEP win

“When you talk about Austin Reed, you talk about a winner. He’s a guy who won a Division II national title at West Florida. He’s doing a great job. This offense looks a little different with him in there. His willingness to run and the fact that he really is a duel threat, so I think he brings a lot to the table. They’re moving the sticks at a great rate and they’re putting the ball in the box. Against a conference opponent, they scored 73 points. That’s pretty crazy in 2022.” – Mike Bloomgren on WKU quarterback Austin Reed

“The bottom line for our defense right now is that on first and second down, I think we’re doing some really productive things. But, there’s still too many times where we get someone in third-and-long and we’re allowing them to move the sticks. That’s something that we’re continuing to work on. You look back at the last two games; to have a third-and-14 and a third-and-16 and they’re converted on the ground, that’s not what we want. We want to still rally and make those plays. In each of those examples, you either had somebody miss an assignment or get a hand on the ball carrier where it would have been well short of the first down marker and we didn’t make the play. We just have to continue to trust and believe in what Coach Smith is presenting and we have to make the plays that are there for us and we’ll be just fine. ” – Mike Bloomgren on adjustments needed for the Rice defense

“We’re resilient team and we can we can play through anything. We practice hard. The things that we go through in practice, the things we went through in the summer, it all comes into play now. When you got a tough game, a tight game, when it’s close you got to look to the guy next to you to make a play. And I think we’re capable of doing that and obviously you saw it on Thursday. Players are gonna make plays. That’s what we do.” – Defensive lineman Quent Titre on what he’s learned about this team 

“I’m fine with it. I thrive in that siatuon, all the pressure. When you’re up against the corner and you know you need somebody to make that play, that’s my favorite situation because that’s when you shine. That’s when everybody sees it. I like being in that position, I think that’s a fun position to be in.” – Wide receiver Isaiah Esdale on his role in the offense 

Depth Chart

Depth Chart Notes

The only changes to the depth chart this week appear to be procedural. The offensive line is now listed as they started the game against UTEP, with Isaac Klarkowksi returning to center and Shea Baker sliding over to left guard in place of John Hughes. The only other adjustment is the removal of Ari Broussard, who has missed the past two games with injuries. It’ll be Juma Otoviano and Cameron Montgomery atop the depth chart this week as expected.

Punt return is the other change. Luke McCaffrey was given a shot last week, but he fumbled. The next man up will be Isaiah Esdale. The WVU transfer has worked at punt return throughout the season, but hasn’t been tasked with the assignment in a game just yet. That could change on Saturday.

Some questions remain as to the availability of others currently listed on the depth chart that did not play in prior weeks, namely safety George Nyakwol and receiver Cedric Patterson. We’ll have more updates on both players and their projected availability in our practice notes later in the week (available to our subscribers).


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“If they forgot about him, shame on them”: Rice football wideout Bradley Rozner is back with a bang

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Bradley Rozner took a winding route to get to where he is right now, once again delivering game-winning moments for Rice football.

There was 3:20 left in regulation and Rice football was facing third and long from their own 14-yard line with a six-point lead. The North Texas Mean Green led by quarterback Mason Fine had gotten hot on offense, marching through the Rice defense with relative ease over the last two quarters. That left head coach Mike Bloomgren had a decision to make.

Bloomgren could easily have opted to play it safe and run the ball. That would have taken more time off the clock and forced North Texas to go the length of the field, again. Or, he could roll the dice. On that particular Saturday afternoon, with the game hanging in the balance, Bloomgren put his trust in the arms of Bradley Rozner.

A former JUCO wide receiver, Rozner was coming off an eight-catch, 130-yard, three-touchdown game against Middle Tennessee the week prior that propelled the Owls to their first win of the 2019 season. He had just 35 yards on four catches against North Texas on Saturday, a quiet outing by his standards. But Bloomgren believed in No. 2.

Quarterback Tom Stewart dropped back to pass and surprised everyone with a deep bomb to Rozner, who exploded past the defense and hauled in the 35-yard shot. The Owls would run out the clock on the ground shortly after, winning the game.

If there had ever been any doubt, Rozner had arrived. Then things took a turn. Rozner would play the season finale next week against UTSA, then, over the span of the next 1,000 days, Rozner would play in just one quarter. After missing the 2020 season with injuries, Rozner would play the first quarter of the Owls’ 2021 season opener against Arkansas before being shut down again,

By no fault of his own, the focal point of the Rice football offense had disappeared.

“The middle chapters of this thing weren’t real cool,” Bloomgren said when looking back at Rozner’s career at South Main thus far. “They were real rocky with a kid that had to go through a lot of challenges to get back to this point.”

What point is that? Another game-winning moment from Rozner that brought back memories of that game-sealing grab against North Texas almost three years ago.

This time Rice had the ball in a tie game against UTEP at the 23-yard line, 30 seconds remaining and no timeouts. The Owls had plenty of time to hand the ball off again, spike it and attempt at 40 or so yard field goal to win the game. But Bloomgren hadn’t forgotten the playmaker he had lined up on the far side of the field.

Instead of taking the conservative route, Bloomgren dialed up another deep shot. Quarterback TJ McMahon took the snap, dropped back and delivered a dart to the pylon, finding Rozner with his hands fully extended for the game-sealing score. Number two had done it again, this time with a career-best 140 receiving yards in the process.

When asked about the gutsy call after the game, Bloomgren beamed. It’s kind of like [we] dare people to cover him one on one. That’s a heck of a weapon to have your X-receiver.”

Rozner’s explanation made the herculean grab sound remarkably commonplace. “I saw the safety kind of creeping over my way but he wasn’t far enough over,” he recounted. “I just gave the corner and inside move and TJ [McMahon] put the ball up there and I just made the play.”

More: Rice Football rallies past UTEP, game recap

Just making plays has become the norm for Rozner once again. Since returning to the field this season, Rozner has topped 100 receiving yards five times in nine games, the most of any player in Conference USA. His nine career 100-yard games are the most since Jarrett Dillard (12) and James Casey (10), who played their final season at Rice in 2018.

Dillard and Casey are among the all-time greats to catch passes at South Main. Rozner is starting to force his way into that conversation.

For Rozner, though, he’s just trying to win football games and his coach continues to put him in positions to do just that. “It’s huge,” Rozner said of the trust Bloomren continues to display in him. “When you’re able to go to your coach and you know you can tell him, ‘Hey, I got this.’ And they give it to you and it all works out.”

Things just keep working out for Rozner, who once again is back at the center of the Owls’ offensive success. Almost as if he never left.

“If they forgot about him, shame on them,” Bloomgren said. “He’s reminding them right now.”


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Rice Football 2022: UTEP presser quotes and depth chart

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Rice football hosts UTEP this week. Here’s what Mike Bloomgren had to say about the matchup at hand and a few depth chart notes.

Head coach Mike Bloomgren and a pair of players met with the media for their customary weekly availability. They recapped the Charlotte loss and looked at the week ahead, detailing what they’re expecting to see when UTEP takes the field.

More: Rice Football – Blue and Gray Preview Show

We touch on those items, then dig into the Rice football depth chart and what the team looks like heading into the weekend. First, the quotes:

Press Conference Quotes

“Obviously, we’re coming off a disappointing loss on Saturday versus Charlotte. My hat’s off to their staff and players for coming together and playing the way they did. They played their butts off. Unfortunately, the game didn’t go the way we planned. I thought we got outcoached. I thought we got outplayed and out-physicalled, which are things that we never want to be a part of. I told our team that we’ve got to stay together and we’ve got to move forward. One of the bonuses of a Thursday night game is that you don’t have time to sulk. We were back to meetings and practice last night. The time for licking your wounds is behind us. It’s in the rearview mirror as we move forward.” – Mike Bloomgren on the Charlotte loss

“This game will be a battle. I don’t have any doubt about that. I know how Dana (Dimel) coaches. I know the toughness that he instills in his team and I expect it to be a very, very physical game like it always is between these two teams. You look at them on offense, they are going to run the ball. They are going to run the ball. They are going to run the ball, and then they are going to play-action pass. On defense, I think their defensive coordinator, Bradley Dale Peveto, does a great job.” – Mike Bloomgren on UTEP  

“Kids are so resilient. It’s not that they’re not hurting, it’s just that, when you’ve got to do a med check at 10 a.m., yesterday, and then you’ve got to do a lift at 3:30, then you’ve got dinner at 5:15 and then you have meetings, nobody had time. As coaches we started watching film at 6 p.m. We put the Charlotte game largely to bed. Then we came in at 8 a.m. and we put the plan together all day yesterday. So coaches really didn’t have time to breathe, sleep or pout. That’s probably a good thing because that was not our best performance.”” – Mike Bloomgren on the short week

“Its been like two and a half, three months since I’ve been able to be on the football field so just having the opportunity to practice today is huge for me, huge to be with the guys again, because it’s different when you’re in lockdown compared to when you’re on the field practicing, being in that environment. So I’m really excited to be back and being able to catch footballs. ” – Wide receiver Cedric Patterson on returning to practice 

“It’s definitely not our brand of football and we were even saying during the game that we need to fix this. I feel like everyhting that was on thing is fixable, and that’s the good thing behind it, it’s nothing that we can’t do or nothing that is beyond what we’re capabable of. We just gotta make that necessary change. We’ve got to understand that last week probably wasnt our best perfomrance, but it’s not our last performance. We know that we’ve done better and we can do better.” – Rush end Joshua Pearcy on the defensive effort against Charlotte

Depth Chart

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Depth Chart Notes

There is only one singular change on the depth chart this week, but it’s a significant one. Wide receiver Cedric Patterson, who has been out with an injury suffered early in fall camp, is back on the two-deep.

Patterson was available to take questions from the media on Monday and is expected to be back on the practice field this week, trending towards playing on Saturday. Technically listed as the No. 2 X receiver behind Bradley Rozner, we’ll have more on where Patterson lines up and how he might be used in our practice notes later in the week (available to our subscribers).


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“There’s actually a book”: How analytics is changing Rice Football

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Rice football has amped up its aggressive decision-making this season. Leaning on analytics and going by “the book” has served them well.

Analytics is a hot-button topic in the world of football today. From the NFL to the college game, everyone has an opinion on what the “computers” say to do in any given situation. Those estimations have made it into broadcasts beyond any individual commentator advising, “You gotta go for it here,” as the teams trot onto the field.

“There’s actually a book,” Rice football head coach Mike Bloomgren explained, going on to detail how he approaches such situations in live games. “Whether it’s going for it [on fourth down] or going for two, there are options the book gives you, and there’s sometimes it makes a lot of sense to me. I appreciate the mathematical data behind it because it makes me feel better about my gut decision.”

As the discussion around the subject grows, Bloomgren maintains that he’s kept the same philosophy on analytics. “I haven’t had a proverbial shift in terms of my beliefs,” he said. The caveat? “Where our team is has allowed me to do some of the things I want to do, maybe that’s a better way to say it.”

Bloomgren’s aggressive decision-making is intertwined with the team’s success this season. There are examples in every game the Owls’ have played, win or lose, but their most recent outing contained one pivotal moment that summed up where this team and its coach stand on rolling the dice.

More: TJ McMahon providing stability for Rice football at QB (Premium)

Let’s set the scene. It’s fourth-and-one from the UAB 2-yard line. Rice is trailing 27-24 with just over nine minutes remaining in the contest. The Owls’ ultra-successful short-yardage offense was just stonewalled on third-and-one on the previous play.

Bloomgren has a decision here: Kick the gimme field goal and tie the game. Go for it and risk no points at all.

Given how well the defense had played, an argument for either side would have been plausible. Still, it wouldn’t have surprised many watching on to see the Owls take the sure-fire points, tie the game and hope for one more shot with the ball following a defensive stop. It doesn’t seem like too much of a stretch to suggest Rice teams of the recent past would have probably opted for that approach. This one didn’t. Bloomgren didn’t. He chose the aggressive option.

Rice ran the ball again, converting on fourth down to move the chains. Following a false start penalty, quarterback TJ McMahon hit Dean Connors in the flat for the go-ahead touchdown which made the score 28-24. Rice would win by that exact margin.

Bloomgren did say “the book” would have recommended going for it all the way up until fourth and four. In that scenario, one in which the Owls’ short-yardage offense wouldn’t have been a real option, Bloomgren conceded he might have taken the points. But when it comes to those high-percentage plays that require physicality in the trenches, Bloomgren was unwavering.

“It’s who we are,” Bloomgren said when asked about the decision. “We’re gonna win games on fourth and one on both sides of the ball. It’s what we’re built on. It’s what we’re built for. I would have been cheating kids if we hadn’t gone for it.”

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As Bloomgren joked earlier in the week, “When it works you made the right call.” But even if it hadn’t succeeded, UAB would have taken over from their own one-yard line and been forced to go the full length of the field to score. Those odds aren’t very good in a neutral situation, much less so on the road against a Rice defense that had started to lock things down.

And thus weighs the delicate decision that decides the fate of real games. Art versus science. Numbers versus gut. Rice football versus everyone.

And that might be the real truth that describes the Owls’ newfound appetite for risk this season. Bloomgren says he’s “tried to be aggressive for our team in games that we needed it” and added that he’s become “more comfortable with that mindset right now.”

“I think our defense is so good,” he elaborated. “We have some much trust in our quarterback and everybody to make it work that its easier to go with what the book says.”

If appearances are indicative of reality to any degree, Rice football has embraced “the book” more than they ever have before. They have the best team they’ve had in a long time and are 3-2 for the first time since the won the season they won the Conference USA Championship in 2013. Leave it to the scholars to dust off history and reinvigorate it. The 2022 Owls hope to ride that inspiration to an equally compelling season.


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