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Rice Football: 5 Observations on Owls’ Spring Roster

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The 2021 Rice Football spring roster has been released. From thoughts on newcomers to departing names, here are five initial observations.

There has been a lot of movement on the coaching staff, but that hasn’t been the only interesting development for the Owls in the past few days. The 2021 Rice Football spring roster was posted over the weekend. You can find the full list here, but we’ve gone a step further and broken down some things that stood out from the initial list.

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We’ll start with the most important note, with more observations to follow. We’ll also have all the latest updates on spring practice when it gets underway in March. From position battles to early depth chart projections, you won’t want to miss it. If you’re not a subscriber, now is a great time to jump on board.

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1. No Mike Collins

This shouldn’t come as a shock to those who have been following along this winter, but quarterback Mike Collins was not listed on the initial spring roster. We’ve still not had any clarification from head coach Mike Bloomgren as to what transpired last fall — hopefully, we get some answers when practices begin — but for now, it looks like Rice will be starting over at the quarterback position once again.

Collins was only expected to be a one-year solution when he was signed. He would have been out of eligibility entering 2021 had it not been for COVID-19 and revised eligibility standards.

As was the case last fall, the Owls will enter spring practice with their future quarterback on the roster. JoVoni Johnson and incoming grad transfer Jake Constantine will be the presumptive favorites to win the job for the upcoming season. It should be an interesting battle to watch this spring.

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Rice Football: First glimpse at probable 2021 returners

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Rice Football players have returned to campus for offseason activities, giving us our first clear indication of who intends to return for 2021.

Rice Football welcomed its players back to campus on Friday following the winter break. In a typical year, this wouldn’t be much in the way of an event, rather a mere formality. It is anything but in 2021, which still bears the marks of an unpredictable 2020 season.

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What makes this year so unique is the additional year of eligibility afforded to all players who otherwise would have finished their careers in December. Those who have moved on needn’t worry about the offseason conditioning programs or spring practice. That means, for the first time, we have a fuzzy list of who will most likely be on the roster in 2021.

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Rice Football: 10 Takeaways from 2020 season

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The 2020 Rice football season was filled with highs and lows. After time to reflect, what can we take away from the Owls’ five-game campaign?

From rocky beginnings to the National Championship Game, the 2020 season is finally in the books. Rice football participated in five games, experiencing the full range of emotions. There was the quadruple-doink and an upset for the ages.

For those that haven’t relive some of the highpoints in the season with The Roosties, an annual Rice football awards show from The Roost Podcast. You can also check out our 2020 Rice Football Team Superlatives, featuring more traditional awards like Team MVP, Offense and Defensive Player of the Year and more.

And with that, a few final thoughts on the 2020 season with some forward-thinking questions about how the Owls’ former season will impact the ones to come.

1. Rice proved they can score

Rice football played 24 games against FBS opponents in Bloomgren’s first two seasons at South Main. The Owl reached 30 points in just two of those contests. Those two occasions came in the midst of their three game winning streak that capped off the 2019 season. Rice opened 2020 with back-to-back 30-point performances. That marks five outings of 30 or more points in the Owls’ most recent eight games compared to zero in the first 21. That’s a pretty stark difference.

2. Rice has some weapons on offense

Part of the reason for further optimism with the offense is the playmakers Rice will return in 2020. Even if they do lose senior Austin Trammell, wideout Jake Bailey proved to be a chain mover and a big play threat this season. Andrew Mason showed sparks. Running backs Juma Otoviano and Khalan Griffin were both productive. And more talent is on the way, especially in the wide receiving corps.

3. This defense could be the best in C-USA

The 20-0 shutout on the road at Marshall will forever be etched among the best wins Rice has seen in this century. The list of accolades and firsts from that game was exhausting (in a good way), but the performance also served as an exclamation point on work Rice was already building. Rice finished third in scoring defense, fourth against the run, sixth against the pass and third in total defense this season. And they have lots of depth returning in 2021.

4. The Transfer Portal has been kind to the Owls

Hitting on more than half of your transfers is a fairly robust number. Rice has batted much closer to 1.000 in Bloomgren’s tenure than many might realize. Mike Collins was tremendous in his three games. Former JUCO addition Miles McCord was a crucial starter for the Rice secondary this year. Jovaun Woolford played well on the offensive line. Once more, Rice filled the holes they needed with talented additions from the portal.

5. Rice is close

Rice won by three scores in both of their wins in 2020. They lost by a touchdown or less in two contests and fell by 10 points in the other. A cruel field goal bounce separated the Owls from a 2-3 season and a possible bowl berth. The Owls’ only 10 point win in 2019 came in their season finale against UTEP. They lost by more than a touchdown five times in nine defeats. The wins are getting better and the losses are getting closer. A few better bounces and the record should come around, too.

Rice Football, postseason survey

Areas of Concern

6. The offense wasn’t nearly as good without Mike Collins

The drop off in production was stark when Mike Collins was not on the field. When JoVoni Johnson and Wiley Green were taking snaps the same offense that averaged 30 points per game with Collins dropped to 14.5 offensive points per game without him. If Collins does not return in 2020, Rice is going to have to find a way to get better production out of the quarterback spot. The addition of another grad transfer quarterback certainly suggests that room may look different in 2021.

7. The running game hasn’t really broken out

Rice averaged 2.8 yards per carry this season, a fair deal below the 3.5 and 3.9 yards per carry they averaged in 2019 and 2018, respectively. For an offense as committed to moving the chains on the ground, coming in below three yards per carry should sound some alarms. That number is skewed to some degree, by a disastrous game against North Texas, but Rice didn’t run the ball particularly well against UAB either.

8. Rice saved all their turnovers for one game

The Rice defense picked off six passes in 12 games in 2019. They had five in one afternoon against Marshall in 2020. Beyond that, Rice only had one other interception in four additional games. They added three fumble recoveries. Turnovers are somewhat of a fluky stat, but Rice has consistently finished in the bottom half of the league in takeaways in recent years.

9. Too many special teams mistakes

Rice has been among the league leaders in special teams over the last three years. NFL Pro Bowler Jack Fox helped the Owls get there, but the rest of the coverage and return units have done their part even with him in the pros. The return units did not deliver this season. Rice fumbled three punts and had a return touchdown called back via penalty.

10. Uncertain 2021 roster makeup

2020 was circled as the year Rice would have all of their proverbial ducks in a row. Then the pandemic hit. Then the injuries came. Rice did the most with what they had, snatching a marquee win, but it wasn’t quite the season anyone expected. The senior class has another free year of eligibility, should they chose to exercise it. The unknown of who will (and won’t) be back, makes it hard to look to far into what rosters will look like in 2021.

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Rice Football 2020 Offensive Player of the Year: Mike Collins

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Mike Collins impressed in limited action, doing more than enough to be named our 2020 Rice Football Offensive Player of the Year.

Rice football did a lot of things well in the first two years under head coach Mike Bloomgren. Consistency at the quarterback position remained squarely on the “work in progress” side of the ledger. The Owls had gone through at least three quarterbacks in each season with no sure-fire answer heading into their 2020 campaign. Enter Mike Collins.

When he arrived on campus, Collins was a relative unknown. A grad transfer from TCU who played his high school ball in Connecticut, Collins was the Owls’ third graduate transfer at the position in three years under Bloomgren. His resume included a couple of Big 12 games and coaches were hopeful.

Collins tracked a step to two ahead of redshirt freshmen JoVoni Johnson through a shortened spring and delayed fall camp. He looked the part. Then, shortly after a day of practice in which he threw zero incompletions all afternoon, he was named the starter. There was a guarded optimism when the season began in earnest in late October against Middle Tennessee. Still, no one was certain what would happen when he took the field for the first time.

Mike Collins completed two of his first 10 passes in a Rice uniform. He threw his only interception as the Owls fell behind 7-6 early in their season opener. Then he settled down and transformed into the passer the coaching staff saw throughout camp. He led the Owls back from a fourth-quarter deficit, delivering a key fourth-down conversion and the go-ahead touchdown pass with seconds remaining.

When the dust settled, Collins had thrown for 242 yards and four touchdowns in his Rice debut. That marked the first time a Rice quarterback had thrown four touchdown passes in a game since Tyler Stehling did so against Prairie View in 2016. It was the first time any Owl had four touchdown passes in a season opener since Chase Clement threw six against SMU in 2008.

The heartbreaking loss was tough to swallow. Still, Collins displayed tremendous resolve when he returned to the field for practice the next week. “There’s so much that we can improve on, especially personally that I can improve on,” he said before his second start, a road game against Southern Miss.

Already in the company of some of the better Rice quarterbacks of the modern era, Collins didn’t slow down. He was spectacular against Southern Miss, completing 12-of-17 passes for 233 yards and another four touchdown passes.

His 10 passing touchdowns in three games were the most in the first three Conference USA games of any quarterback in school history. He was efficient, leading the offense to 30+ points in two of his three appearances, a scoring total the Owls had only reached twice in their previous 25 games. His final outing came on the road against North Texas. Rice would lose, but Collins would throw for 300 yards for his first time as an Owl.

Even with the 1-2 start, everything seemed to be looking up for the Owls, particularly on offense. Then Collins did not return to the field. An undisclosed injury forced Rice to finish the 2020 campaign without their breakthrough star signal caller. JoVoni Johnson would come off the bench an defeat No. 15 Marshall on the road, but the offense never clicked the same way it did when Collins and senior receiver Austin Trammell were both healthy.

No matter where Collins goes from here, his impact on Rice football was significant. He delivered a blueprint for this offense, one that’s had its share of highs and lows. He proved the ceiling for this passing attack is higher than it had been in previous years. That with the right skill set and understanding, a potent offensive attack was possible within this scheme.

Where the Owls turn now, or rather to whom, will forever be seen through the lens of Collins’ accomplishments. Should he chose to do so, Collins would be eligible to return to Rice for the 2021 season. Further clarity on the Owls’ senior class will develop in the coming weeks. No matter what happens next, his three-game 2020 stint will be revered.

Collins ends 2020 as one of two quarterbacks in the nation to throw for 10 touchdowns with one or fewer interceptions. That’s not bad company for an offense that prides itself on pounding the rock.

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Putting an imperfect 2020 Rice football season into perspective

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The 2020 Rice Football season has come to an end. Putting the up-and-down campaign into perspective will be an ongoing task.

With 49 seconds to play in the fourth quarter, Rice football trailed UAB 21-16. Third-string quarterback Wiley Green lined up alongside third-string running back Ari Broussard, dropped back and threw to Jake Bailey. First down. Three plays later Green found Bailey again. First down. Then, on fourth-and-18, Green uncorked a Hail Mary pass which was intercepted on the 2-yard line. Game over.

“I guess I need to be more prayerful,” head coach Mike Bloomgren said after the game. He was speaking more broadly about the unfortunate injury luck his team had suffered at key positions this season, but his whistful “what if” hung in the air. Just like that last-second pass from the arm of Green.

Green, the backup to the backup quarterback, targeting a tight end in the endzone from 50 yards out was, in many ways, a fitting final play of the Owls’ bizarre 2020 season. Rice almost had to throw it to a tight end because they had run out of wide receivers.

Bradley Rozner had been injured and opted out before the season. Transfer Christian McStravick never played a down for the Owls. Neither did Zane Knipe. August Pitre caught one pass in the season opener before suffering an injury. Austin Trammell, who set multiple school records when he exploded for five touchdowns and 219 yards in the Owls’ first two games, didn’t suit up in this game either.

Rice was down to Jake Bailey, who had missed practice time during the week with an injury, and freshman Andrew Mason. Converted running back Kobie Campbell, who hadn’t touched the ball this season, was targeted twice.

“We had multiple weeks where we had a practice with one scholarship wide receiver healthy,” Bloomgren admitted, “We just love this game, and we said ‘we’re going to play’.”

Takeaways: Rice Football falls to UAB

At quarterback, Mike Collins was missing his second straight game. Backup JoVoni Johnson had been injured a few drives earlier. And that doesn’t take into account the secondary which had made do all season with players coming in and out of the lineup or the continued absence of lead running back Juma Otaviano.

Bloomgren isn’t one to make excuses, and he acknowledged Rice wasn’t the only team who had to deal with adversity this year. Their opponent on Saturday had more than a dozen key players missing (but they did have their quarterback, something that proved fateful for the Owls). Still, the Owls’ headman did say this: “We’re all better with our ones.”

Instead, that last-second heave fell into the hands of a defensive back and a year of highs and lows came to an unpleasant end. Rice was in the running for a bowl bid with a win. The loss ended the Owls’ season sooner than anyone hoped it would finish.

“We know nothing’s perfect in 2020,” Bloomgren affirmed.

Before he stepped off the stand and began the first steps of the Owls’ sudden offseason, he posed one more “what if”.

“We lost today by one score… we had a double-overtime game. We got to find a way to win those things, and that’s the difference. Think about how different we feel about our season right now, and how jubilant everybody would be if we’d won one or two of those games.”

Rice didn’t win those games. Their final 2020 record will forever be inked at 2-3. But Bloomgren’s hypothetical isn’t too farfetched. It might even have more merit than initially meets the eye. Rice beat the C-USA East champ and was one third-string-quarterback Hail Mary from beating the top team in the West.

A few more favorable bounces wouldn’t have helped the teams Rice defeated. Those victories both came by three scores. But one more bounce, or a prayer, in those losses might very well have been enough. It wasn’t perfect, but in 2020, nothing was.

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