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Rice Football 2022 Season Preview: Offensive Line

July 18, 2022 By Matthew Bartlett

As part of our 2022 Rice Football Preseason Preview series, next we’ll examine the offensive line position and discuss the Owls’ plans for that group.

The Rice football offensive line has been a carousel of injuries and moving parts for much of the last four seasons. This time around, the Owls seem to have a starting five established before the beginning of fall camp featuring a core that has a good amount of playing experience alongside each other. Will that make a difference when the games begin? Here’s our 2022 Offensive Line Preview.

Rice Football Preseason Preview: Check out the rest of the series here.

This piece is part of our 2022 Rice Football Season Preview. Get access to it, as well as all other preview posts such as positional breakdowns, depth chart and schedule analysis and more when you subscribe on Patreon today. New subscribers get our Conference USA Football Season Preview for FREE! 

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Rice Football 2022 Spring Practice Notebook 3: Scrimmage 1

March 27, 2022 By Matthew Bartlett

The first scrimmage of 2022 Rice Football spring practice is complete. Here are a few individual standouts and some big picture takeaways.

Defense won the day on the first scrimmage of the spring. The back-and-forth battle of the two sides of the ball was weighted heavily toward that side of the ball for the entirety of the season as Rice football donned pads to engage in one of their most highly anticipated sessions of the spring. This update breaks down some individual standouts on both sides of the ball and their ramifications on the team thus far.

Get Caught Up

  • Rice Football Spring Notebook 1 – Introductions
  • Rice Football Spring Notebook 2 – Depth Chart
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Defense, Defense, Defense

It was no surprise that coach Bloomgren’s initial remarks following the first scrimmage of the spring focused on his defense which had allowed just one touchdown to the offense over the course of two hours and roughly nine complete drives.

“I thought the defense had a great day,” Bloomgren said, going out of his way to heap praise on Ikenna Enechukwu and the Owls’ defensive line, which seemed to live in the backfield from the opening whistle.

The defense tallied six sacks during those nine drives and added three additional sacks on a set of nine third-down drills. The offense didn’t have an explosive run of 10 yards until Dean Connors burst through the line on a 10-yard carry on Drive 7.

There were no turnovers forced, but the defense was dominant nonetheless. In total, the offense managed three scoring drives: two field goal attempts and one touchdown, which came on a tight end screen to Gavin Reinwald on the final drive.

Quarterbacks

There wasn’t a lot to write home about at the quarterback position during Saturday’s scrimmage. Neither Wiley Green nor TJ McMahon made many egregious mistakes, but they didn’t do much else noteworthy either.

Green hit Andrew Mason on a ~50-yard bomb to set up the offense’s lone touchdown of the day, but there really weren’t any other truly explosive plays in the passing game. McMahon had the Luke McCaffrey sprinting well past the last defender on what should have been a bomb touchdown, but he overthrew his man and missed the opportunity.

Green finished 7-of-10 for 90 yards and one touchdown.
McMahon was 9-of-15 for 87 yards and no touchdowns.

Bloomgren noted that he was “happy with all of them,” but stressed they’d had better offensive performances this spring and that this team needed “to figure out how to do it against our defense when they’re amped up on a scrimmage day.”

Receivers and running backs

The wide receiver room quickly became one of the most intriguing positions to follow this spring with the departure of Jake Bailey to the Transfer Portal and the news Bradley Rozner would not be participating in practices quite yet. Those items, coupled with the previous departure of August Pitre in December, left Rice football with a wide-open depth chart, at least for the time being.

Luke McCaffery makes sense in the slot long term, but he worked outside, leaving room for Kobie Campbell on the interior in most of the first team packages. Campbell had flashed with his quickness but had a key drop that stalled the offense’s first drive of the game and forced them to settle for a field goal.

Cedric Patterson led all receivers with four catches for 61 yards. Mason had the aforementioned long connection. No other pass catcher tallied more than 27 yards during the scrimmage.

That bland showing extended to the backfield as well. Rice running backs averaged 3.7 yards per carry, with the bulk of that coming from an 11-rush, 34-yard stat line from Ari Broussard. Bloomgren noted that Broussard “ran hard”, but that was about it.

The Owls’ headman did single out Connors as one of the winners of the day. The JUCO transfer averaged 5.3 yards per carry, far and away the best of any ball carrier on the team, ending with a 4-carry, 21-yard line. From the naked eye, he appeared to have the most explosiveness and looks to be a real contender for an extended run this coming season.

And then there were three

Rice football was already thin at the corner position this spring and had a few additional players sit out on Saturday, leaving then with three healthy corners: Sean Fresch, Jordan Dunbar and Jojo Jean. None of the Owls’ other boundary men suited up, leaving that trio to cover nearly 100 defensive snaps. Not only did they make it through the day, they flourished.

Jean, a redshirt freshman from the 2021 signing class, did not see action at all last fall. Still, I noted at least three occasions during the scrimmage in which he made a significant play, including an endzone pass break up on an underthrown ball from TJ McMahon. It was a throw that could have been a touchdown if it had been better placed, but Jean adjusted and made McMahon pay for the misfire, batting it away.

It’s not clear how long Rice football will be this thin at the corner spot and whether or not they’ll get back anyone else in the near future. If not, this is a tremendous opportunity for Jean.

Odds and Ends

  • Rice football has to replace longtime long snapper, Campbell Riddle. It appears that the job will be filled by Tommy Tholen a JUCO transfer who committed to the Owls last spring.
  • Here’s how the offensive line lined up for the most part on Saturday, from left to right. First team: Clay Servin, Braedon Nutter, Isaac Klarkowski, Shea Baker, Ethan Onianwa. Second team: Trey Phillippi, Faee Pepe, Issac Klarkowski, John Long, Mike Leone.
  • Safety Josh Williams is a name that keeps popping up. He had a sack in the scrimmage and has made a few big plays throughout the spring. The staff really likes the up-and-coming redshirt freshman.

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Filed Under: Featured, Football, Premium, Reserve Tagged With: Andrew Mason, Ari Broussard, Braedon Nutter, Cedric Patterson, Clay Servin, Dean Connors, Ethan Onianwa, Faee Pepe, Gavin Reinwald, Ikenna Enechukwu, Isaac Klarkowski, Issac Klarkowski, John Long, Jonathan Jean, Jordan Dunbar, Joshua Williams, Kobie Campbell, Luke McCaffrey, Mike Leone, practice notes, Rice Football, Sean Fresch, Shea Baker, spring practice, TJ McMahon, Tommy Tholen, Trey Phillippi, Wiley Green

Rice Football 2022 Spring Practice Notebook 2: Depth Chart

March 21, 2022 By Matthew Bartlett

The first Rice football depth chart of the spring has been released featuring several shakeups across the board at a variety of positions.

So the saying goes, a depth chart is worth the price of the paper it’s printed on. If that’s how we feel about these prescribed lineups in the regular season, we ought to put much less stock in their scribbles in the spring. It’s with that important caveat I share the first Rice football depth chart of the spring.

More: Rice Football Spring Notebook 1 – Introductions

There are a few things we can glean from these tiered position groupings, starting with who isn’t listed on the roster and venturing to the host of new faces that are cracking a Rice two-deep for the first time in their careers. And that’s before reinforcements show up in the form of graduate transfers this summer. With that in mind, here are five important takeaways from the Rice football spring depth chart.

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  • Fast start not enough as Rice Baseball falls to Texas A&M for third time
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  • Furious comeback falls short as Rice Basketball falls to SUU
  • Rice Baseball grinds out hard-fought sweep at UAB

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Rice Football: What I’m watching in Spring Practices — Patreon Q&A

February 28, 2022 By Matthew Bartlett

Rice football kicks off spring practice soon. This month’s Patreon Q&A focuses on what I’ll be following closely during these sessions.

In season or not, Rice football frequently appears as a focal point in these Q&A posts. Our February Q&A follows suit, focusing on the upcoming weeks of spring practices and which items I’ll personally be keeping a close eye on as the weeks progress. Practices are currently slated to start sometime in early March.

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Recent Posts
  • Fast start not enough as Rice Baseball falls to Texas A&M for third time
  • Rice Women’s Basketball’s WNIT run blocked by stingy Oregon defense
  • Furious comeback falls short as Rice Basketball falls to SUU
  • Rice Baseball grinds out hard-fought sweep at UAB

Filed Under: Featured, Football, Premium Tagged With: Blake Boenisch, Bradley Rozner, Braedon Nutter, Brandt Peterson, Cedric Patterson, Cole Garcia, Conor Hunt, Derek Ferraro, Elroyal Morris, Enoch Gota, Ethan Onianwa, Faee Pepe, Isaac Klarkowski, Isaiah Esdale, Jake Bailey, John Long, Jovoni Johnson, Luke McCaffrey, Mike Bloomgren, Mike Leone, Naeem Smith, Regan Riddle, Rice Football, Sam Crawford, Tim Horn, TJ McMahon, Trey Phillippi, Wiley Green

Rice Football 2021: Offensive changes before Texas Southern game

September 22, 2021 By Matthew Bartlett

Rice football has turned its focus to Texas Southern, including a few personnel changes on offense, both planned and unplanned.

Once again, the starting lineup for the Rice football offense will look different the next time it takes the field. There’s likely to be an adjustment at the quarterback spot, one we’ll cover in greater detail in the subsequent update, but there were also some notable adjustments on the offensive line and the pass-catching options.

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Unplanned offensive line shakeup

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Recent Posts
  • Fast start not enough as Rice Baseball falls to Texas A&M for third time
  • Rice Women’s Basketball’s WNIT run blocked by stingy Oregon defense
  • Furious comeback falls short as Rice Basketball falls to SUU
  • Rice Baseball grinds out hard-fought sweep at UAB

Filed Under: Archive, Football, Premium Tagged With: Braedon Nutter, Cam Montgomery, Christian VanSickle, Cole Garcia, Collin Riccitelli, Isaac Klarkowski, Jake Bailey, Jayden Folmar, Jovoni Johnson, Mike Leone, practice notes, Rice Football, Robert French, Shea Baker

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