The source for Rice sports news

  • Football
    • Recruiting
    • Offer Tracker
    • Roster
    • Schedule
    • NFL Owls
  • Premium
    • Patreon
    • Season Preview
    • Join / FAQ
  • Podcast
  • More
    • Store
    • News
    • Basketball
    • Baseball
    • About
    • Contact
  • Login

Rice Football: Bad bounces, poor results and rough goings

October 25, 2020 By Matthew Bartlett

Rice Football dropped its 2020 season opener to Middle Tennessee, proving once again that both bad luck and bad process can end in heartbreak.

Just once last season did Rice football allow a Conference USA opponent to score 34 points. UAB scored 35 in a soggy, rain-delayed contest at Legion Field. Rice reached that threshold themselves for the first time under Mike Bloomgren on Saturday night against Middle Tennessee. Entering the MTSU game, Rice was 3-0 under head coach Mike Bloomgren when scoring 30 points.

Given those two pieces of information, a big night from the Rice offense and a historically stingy Rice defense, one would have thought the odds would have favored the Owls. Nope.

“I think the statement the ball didn’t bounce our way is probably true,” Bloomgren said in his postgame comments. He’s right about that.

He’s also right about there being plenty of things Rice could have done differently to win the game.

As Bloomgren often says, football is a zero-sum game. You either win or you lose. On Saturday, Rice lost.

“Does it hurt more? Losing sucks. It hurts. It hurts bad.”

After they recover from oggling over the quadruple doinked field goal, the masses will debate the list of failures that went into the Owls’ 10th loss in their last 14 games. Context, something oft spared in the moment, does paint a more uncertain picture.

Rice went into the Middle Tennesse game without Naeem Smith, George Nyakwol, Tyrae Thornton, Andrew Bird or Jason White. With the exceptions of Tre’shon Devones and Treshawn Chamberlain, Rice fielded a secondary that did not see meaningful action at all last season. Three members — Sean Fresch, Miles McCord and Kirk Lockhart, were making their first career starts.

Middle Tennesse and Asher O’Hara thew all over that secondary.

Bloomgren is well aware of that problem, and vowed to work with defensive coordinator Brian Smith to make the necessary changes so that Rice can, in his words, “find a way to not have press conferences like this.”

The Rice defense has struggled through the air before. The 2018 unit fell victim to the home run ball again and again. Then last year, Nyakwol stepped up his game. Smith burst onto the scene. Devones emerged as a true cover corner. They found players to fix that problem. Passes seldom went over their heads last fall. Most of those solutions did not play on Saturday.

Tack on a poorly overthrown interception by Collins, a strip-sack returned for a touchdown and a muffed punt and you get a back-breaking loss from a program that entered the game with the second-longest active winning streak by an FBS team in Texas.

The three turnovers are roughly 2.5 times as many as the Owls averaged last year (1.3).

Team captain Blaze Alldredge took the burden on himself. ” I was raised on tough love so I just got to call it what it is,” he said, “the defense didn’t play well enough.”

Fellow captain Austin Trammell echoed it. “We gotta fix our mistakes.”

The conservative play calling in overtime is always going to draw criticism in losses. Deservedly so. But in many ways that bad bounce summed up a lot of things that went wrong on Saturday night, and ironically enough, fell on the foot of a player who had performed well on all of his attempts to that point.

Rice football did a lot right. They did a lot wrong. Sometimes things can just be weird. Just like 2020. How likely would it be for a team to lose their entire starting secondary, trail at halftime, make adjustments, throw for four touchdowns (the most by a Rice quarterback since 2016), convert a fourth-and-24 to force overtime and find yet another way to lose in heartbreaking fashion.

About as likely as a doink. doink. doink. doink.

Subscribe on Patreon for exclusive Rice football recruiting updates, practice notes and more.

Recent Posts
  • AAC Baseball sends UTSA, ECU to NCAA Tournament
  • Rice Athletics Roundup: May Subscriber Q&A
  • “So Many Things to Address”: Rice Baseball and David Pierce Embark on Crucial Offseason
  • Rice Baseball season ends with AAC Tournament loss to FAU

Filed Under: Archive, Football Tagged With: Austin Trammell, Blaze Alldredge, game recap, Mike Bloomgren, Mike Collins, Rice Football

Rice Football: Optimism abounds as Owls embrace fall camp

October 2, 2020 By Matthew Bartlett

Fall camp has begun and Rice Football is attacking the new challenge with vigor. Head coach Mike Bloomgren implores his team to seize the moment.

Rice football is one week into a fall camp experience unlike any other. The most noticeable change is the weather. The Owls have traded the swelter summer heat for the first cold front of the fall with their delayed start date.

Though the journey was bumpy, Rice still prepared as if football was on the horizon. “We’ve done more walkthroughs than any team I’ve ever been a part of,” Bloomgren said. Our kids have a good understanding of our schemes.”

That much has been evident on both sides of the ball. In some years, it takes freshmen some time to get up to speed. This time around, the youngsters look much more comfortable with the ball in their hands. Rather than being buried on the depth chart, these newcomers are making waves. That’s especially encouraging given the Owls don’t have a game scheduled for another three weeks.

“We’re in a good place. We’re as conditioned as we’ve ever been coming into camp,” Bloomgren said. “[The team has] about 100 zoom hours so we just need 10,000 reps on the field and that’s what we’re going to try to do in the next month.”

Podcast: Panic Meter — Assessing the Owls fall camp injury report 

Beyond counting minutes on the grass, Rice has objectives set to quantity the leap in preparedness from camp in year two to year three. On offense, coordinator Jerry Mack wants to see an increase in explosive plays. That theme began in spring practices, but carrying it over with new faces in camp is one of his priorities.

Defensive coordinator Brian Smith put turnovers at the top of his to-do list. “Communication has been so much better than it’s been in the past,” he said, crediting the group’s in-sync behavior as a building block toward that effort.

If Rice can do both of those things, the bizarre circumstances it took to reach this point in Bloomgren’s coaching tenure will have been well spent. Looking back at the past few weeks, Bloomgren was emphatic the team was moving in the right direction, saying “we’ve done all the right things to get prepared for this moment.” How he and this team uses the next several moments leading up to October 24 will determine the trajectory for this season. So far, the Owls are on the right track.

Subscribe on Patreon for exclusive Rice football recruiting updates, practice notes and more.

Recent Posts
  • AAC Baseball sends UTSA, ECU to NCAA Tournament
  • Rice Athletics Roundup: May Subscriber Q&A
  • “So Many Things to Address”: Rice Baseball and David Pierce Embark on Crucial Offseason
  • Rice Baseball season ends with AAC Tournament loss to FAU

Filed Under: Football, Archive Tagged With: Mike Bloomgren, practice notes, Rice Football

Rice Football 2019 Special Teams Player of the Year: Garrett Grammer

December 4, 2019 By Matthew Bartlett

Rice football linebacker Garrett Grammer isn’t the most well-known defender, but the former long snapper is this year’s Special Teams Player of the Year.

For the first two years of his collegiate career, the average Rice football fan didn’t know who Garrett Grammer was. Fans know the starting quarterback(s). They know the stars. The most devoted Owls could probably recite the depth chart two-deep on both sides of the ball. But you won’t find many jerseys bearing the number and surname of the team’s long snapper. Much less so, his backup. That’s where the journey of the 2019 Rice Football Special Team’s Player of the Year begins.

Supplanted by Campbell Riddle in 2018 at long snapper, Grammer found himself buried on a crowded depth chart. The coaching staff hadn’t even known Grammer could snap when he arrived on campus. Now the advantage that originally secured him playing time was gone — he’d been beaten out. Not one to mope or quit, he did the only thing he knew how to do. He worked.

Fast-forward to November 3, 2019.

Marshall led Rice 10-7 in the second quarter. The Owls’ offense had shown signs of life under freshman quarterback JoVoni Johnson, but the defense knew every drive mattered. Needing a spark, Marshall quarterback Isaiah Green tossed the ball to speedy wide receiver Willie Johnson on a reverse.

The trick caught some off guard. Grammer was ready. Now a linebacker, Grammer had risen through the ranks and become a trustworthy member of the front seven. Grammer, listed as the backup to starter Antonio Montero who led the team with 11 tackles that day, made the play.

In a flash, Grammer exploded into the backfield and brought down Johnson for a loss of eight yards. Not only did the trick play not work. It backfired spectacularly.

“He’s probably the most underappreciated [line]backer we have,” said linebacker coach Scott Vestal. “If he goes in, I have no worries. It’s truly the same. The standard’s the same.”

That standard has been elevated significantly thanks to the shrewd defensive prowess of Grammer who has proven to have much more of a knack for the making plays than snuffing out a single reverse. A week prior to his moment against Marshall, Grammer laid waste to a fake punt attempt by UTSA.

Garrett Grammer, Rice Football
Garrett Grammer, Rice Football
Garrett Grammer, Rice Football
Garrett Grammer, Rice Football
Garrett Grammer, Rice Football

Two big plays in two weeks haven’t just turned the heads of the coaching staff. Grammer’s peers are keeping tabs as well. “Garrett Grammer is a guy that I know can play,” said linebacker Blaze Alldredge. “And when you watch on film, that play that he made [against UTSA], it’s almost like he had a psychic premonition that it was coming because everybody else is running the other way and this guy is triggering downhill ready to make a play.”

Whether it’s a premonition, good luck or a combination of all of the above, Grammer chalks it up to him just doing his job. In his eyes, he was just doing what he was supposed to do on both of those big plays. Find the ball carrier and bring him down.

“I just happened to the person that made the play,” he said, almost nonchalantly recalling the blocked punt. Although he did let on there was a slew of thoughts firing off in his head as he worked. “That played didn’t last very long, right? But there’s so much stuff going through my mind at that time,” things like “Man, if I miss this tackle.” Fortunately for Grammer and for the Owls, he didn’t.

In some ways, those two moments represent the apex of Grammer’s entire Rice football career. The unassuming, lunchpail tackler had his moment in the spotlight, enjoyed it, and went back to work. But his story won’t end there, regardless of whether or not anyone else tries to outsmart the Owls’ trick play sleuth.

Grammer’s primary path onto the field, special teams, will remain his focal point moving forward. With his way to a starting linebacker job blocked by Montero (83 tackles this season) and Alldredge (second nationally in tackles for a loss with 22), Grammer’s contributions will be geared a bit more toward the “behind the scenes”-type work.

Spotlight or not, if anyone knows where No. 46 is at all times, its Rice football head coach Mike Bloomgren. “He’s a guy that we rely on for a lot of things on our team. He is the special teams ace on our team. And we trust him with everything,” he said. That, in itself, would have been high praise, then Bloomgren continued, “I remember we had like one every year on our team with the [New York] Jets. At one time it was Larry Izzo, former Rice Owl.”

Izzo, whose single-season school-record 17 tackles for a loss was surpassed by Alldredge this season, had a lengthy NFL career. He made three Pro Bowls as a special teams ace and took home three Super Bowl rings. There could not be a higher compliment paid to a special teamer at Rice than simply to be mentioned in the same breath as the Owls’ legend.

Humble excellence. That’s pretty much Garrett Grammer in a nutshell. And that’s why this season, despite the string of defeats, has been so rewarding for many on this team. His efforts are the backbone of a team in the progress of pulling itself up by the bootstraps, of a collection of players working their butts off to earn a win, somehow, someway.

“When [Grammer] made that play in the UTSA game on the reverse on the fake punt our sideline couldn’t have erupted anymore,” Bloomgren recalled, “And part of it was because the result of the play, but part of it was because it was Garrett and our guys just love him and they love the way he works.”

For now, that work will be starting on every special teams unit the Owls employ. No matter the situation, the staff and his teammate know they can trust Grammer implicitly. Not only will he make the right play,  but he’ll commit every ounce of effort to each moment. That strain, that willingness to commit to the little things in hope of fulfilling his commission to do his “one-eleventh” as Rice players are wont to say, could set up another bigger moment. Like the thwarted reverse against Marshall. Or that blown-up punt against UTSA.

Fellow linebacker Antonio Montero echoed that sentiment. “[It was] probably the most joyous I’ve been this season, seeing [Grammer block the punt], because I know how hard Garrett works, how good of a play that was,” he said, smiling.” Coach Vestal said that he was up in the box jumping up and down going crazy because we know how much it means to [Grammer] and how much it means to the linebacker corps.”

“I kinda was just the guy in the right spot at the right time,” Grammer chuckled with a modest grin.

Grammer made his first career start this season against North Texas. He finished the year with 15 tackles and 2.5 tackles for a loss, none bigger than his fourth down punt stop. Rice football hopes he’ll keep his penchant for consistency going into 2020. It might just result in the one play that matters, leading to the one result both Grammer and his teammates most desire: victory.

Subscribe on Patreon for exclusive Rice football recruiting updates, practice notes and more.

Recent Posts
  • AAC Baseball sends UTSA, ECU to NCAA Tournament
  • Rice Athletics Roundup: May Subscriber Q&A
  • “So Many Things to Address”: Rice Baseball and David Pierce Embark on Crucial Offseason
  • Rice Baseball season ends with AAC Tournament loss to FAU

Filed Under: Featured, Archive, Football Tagged With: Antonio Montero, Blaze Alldredge, Garrett Grammer, Mike Bloomgren, Rice Football

Rice Football: Owls hope to ride momentum into 2020

December 2, 2019 By Matthew Bartlett

Rice football ended 2019 on a high note with a win over UTEP, setting the stage for what many expect to be a breakthrough 2020 season.

If you had walked into the Rice football locker room on Saturday evening, you’d have seen the full range of emotions. As players celebrated their third consecutive victory there were seniors who shed tears, arms draped around underclassmen while they processed the end of their own college careers.

Mike Bloomgren stood in the middle of it all. Elated by what this team had accomplished, all the while knowing when the wheels touched down in Houston early Sunday morning it would be time to get right back to work. They broke down the tape and had a full staff meeting, all before hosting a recruiting visit later that night. As the calendar turns to December, it’s still all hands on deck as they try to finalize the majority of the 2020 Rice Football recruiting class.

But before he could get to that tomorrow, Bloomgren stopped to process the here and now.

“That’s really what [this win] is all about,” Bloomgren said. “It’s about a group of men that made a decision. They made a decision to win their last three games and to do everything they could for each other to ensure that that happened. Today is the culmination of that. It’s the culmination of our 2019 season. It’s the start of something really cool too.”

The magnitude of what this team accomplished was sizable. No Rice team had won three-straight to close out a season since the 2013 squad that won the Conference USA championship.

More: Takeaways from Rice Football vs UTEP

And for the most part, they’re coming back. The defense will lose starting tackle Myles Adams. The offense will have to replace three grad transfer offensive lineman and quarterback Tom Stewart. The answer at quarterback might have been solved in the second half when JoVoni Johnson took over and scored his first two career touchdowns. If Rice can recruit and develop depth on the offensive line, they could bring back a fully stocked cupboard on both sides of the football next season.

Building from a strong base, the 2020 Rice football team is full of players who refuse to succumb to the status quo. “[We] just want to keep going. keep growing, continue to be better and continue to help our team be better,” team captain Austin Trammell said after the game. Junior linebacker Blaze Alldredge echoed those words, hoping the team could “carry this momentum into the offseason and develop into even better players for next year.”

Momentum, talent and a desire to be better from top to bottom. The makings of something special are being assembled on South Main. Year three of the Mike Bloomgren era is already off to a great start.

But first, it’s time to celebrate. “I’m proud to be their coach, I know that much,” Bloomgren said, content to enjoy the present before the future arrives. After all, the process demands it.

Subscribe on Patreon for exclusive Rice football recruiting updates, practice notes and more.

Recent Posts
  • AAC Baseball sends UTSA, ECU to NCAA Tournament
  • Rice Athletics Roundup: May Subscriber Q&A
  • “So Many Things to Address”: Rice Baseball and David Pierce Embark on Crucial Offseason
  • Rice Baseball season ends with AAC Tournament loss to FAU

Filed Under: Archive, Football Tagged With: Austin Trammell, Blaze Alldredge, Mike Bloomgren, Rice Football

Rice Football 2019: Week 14 UTEP Press Conference quotes

November 26, 2019 By Matthew Bartlett

Rice football head coach Mike Bloomgren discussed the Owls’ Senior Day win over North Texas and the upcoming game against UTEP in Week 14.

More: Rice Football game preview for Week 14 vs UTEP

Defensive tackle Myles Adams and wide receiver Bradley Rozner joined Rice football head coach Mike Bloomgren at the podium on Tuesday. The trio discussed their second-straight win, which came last Saturday over North Texas, and previewed their upcoming season finale against UTEP.

From Mike Bloomgren

On the win over North Texas…

“Saturday’s win was a really big deal for our team. It was just huge and as we continue to build the culture around this program, it takes wins like we had on Saturday to continue to advance it. To continue to build the confidence in these coaches and this program. So, I’m really happy that we were able to do that. We talked all week about starting fast. As we always say, start fast, stay focused and finish strong. I thought for the most part, we did that in all three phases. We didn’t get the production that we wanted out of the offense in the second half. But we had a really good first half.”

On the impact a third-straight win would have on the program…

“The last thing we looked at when we challenged them in the bye week to win the last three [games] and to really get some momentum going. For the seniors to leave their mark and end with a winning streak, something that hasn’t happened here since 2014. To leave this place better than they found it for the seniors.

For the people who are coming back, it sets the tone for the offseason. It’s going to be a grind. It’s going to be a grind every day with Hans Straub. So why not go into it with a three-game winning streak and all of the optimism in the world for the 2020 season? Not to look ahead at all but the reality is that anytime you win your last game, everything feels better. You have momentum in recruiting. There’s some great graduate transfer targets that we’re after right now. Every little bit helps. So that’s what we can control. We can control going 1-0 this week by preparing like crazy.”

On injuries and the plan at quarterback this week…

“Good news from an injury standpoint — everybody who played in the last game is still available in this one. Nobody has been ruled out and JoVoni [Johnson] and Juma [Otoviano] have not been ruled out either so we could have both of them available as well. Tom Stewart will be the starting quarterback.”

On true freshman walk-on center Isaac Klarkowski…

“At the very least, he’s going to be a backup in our program. He has earned our trust. I don’t see any time where we would ever say that we don’t trust Issac. The news came at 11:30 on Friday morning that we may not have Shea Baker available. It would be a game-time decision… We were really low on options. We got to a point where we all thought that (Issac) was our best one because of how smart he is, how well he’s done in the crossover work in the scrimmages in the bye week. By the end of practice on Friday, I looked at Coach (Jerry) Mack and said that I’ll be able to sleep tonight. I know he’s going to do fine.”

From DT Myles Adams

On the team’s mindset entering their finale against UTEP…

“I’m not focusing on the fact that this is the last game, I’m just focusing on the fact that we need to not try to take the foot off the gas because what we’ve been preaching the last two weeks is going all gas, no breaks. Just because it’s the end of the season [it doesn’t mean] we need to step up our efforts at all. We’ve been putting in work this whole season. It’s just that we got two wins in the last two weeks. So I’m preaching to the young guys to just stay focused.”

From WR Bradley Rozner

On the team’s mindset entering their finale against UTEP…

“The challenge is to finish strong. Obviously we need to stay focused. We really haven’t done much. All we’ve done really is win two games, so what this game really means is [we can be] headed into the offseason with the right mindset, that we can win games, that we can have a winning streak and this program really can be successful.”

Subscribe on Patreon for exclusive Rice football recruiting updates, practice notes and more.

Recent Posts
  • AAC Baseball sends UTSA, ECU to NCAA Tournament
  • Rice Athletics Roundup: May Subscriber Q&A
  • “So Many Things to Address”: Rice Baseball and David Pierce Embark on Crucial Offseason
  • Rice Baseball season ends with AAC Tournament loss to FAU

Filed Under: Archive, Football Tagged With: Bradley Rozner, Mike Bloomgren, Myles Adams, Rice Football

  • « Previous Page
  • 1
  • …
  • 8
  • 9
  • 10
  • 11
  • 12
  • …
  • 17
  • Next Page »
  1. Item 1
  2. Item 2
  3. Item 3
  4. Item 4
  5. Item 5
  • Jack Ben-Shoshan, Rice Baseball
  • Rice Football
  • Rice Baseball, David Pierce
  • Rice Football
  • “He’s a Bulldog”: Parker Smith’s Journey to Rice Baseball Ace
Become a patron at Patreon!
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter