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Rice Football: Undrafted free agent signings after 2020 NFL Draft

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The NFL Draft has come to a close and a new crop of Rice football pro hopefuls have signed with NFL teams as undrafted free agents.

Every college football player hopes to one day be an NFL Draft selection, but that’s not how every pro career begins. Conference USA had 10 players chosen. Alex Highsmith, an edge rusher from Charlotte was the first C-USA player taken. He came off the board in the third round.

Rice did not have any players chosen in the 2020 NFL Draft. This year’s crop of Rice football NFL hopefuls will attempt to make their marks as undrafted free agents. We’ll keep you updated as announcements come out. So far, these former Rice football players have signed with teams:

Nick Leverett, a starter for Rice on the offensive line last season after transferring from NC Central, has signed with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Leverett started all season for the Owls.

Myles Adams, the lone senior starter for the Rice football defense this past season, is heading to the Carolina Panthers. Adams had 42 tackles last season and one sack.

Justin Gooseberry, a one-year starter on the offensive line after transfering from Ouachita Baptist, has signed with the Atlanta Falcons.

Other notable signings

Former Auburn punter Arryn Siposs signed with the Detroit Lions. He’ll join Matt Wille and former Rice punter Jack Fox in a competition for the Lions’ punting job next season.

Rice Football recent NFL Draft history

The Owls’ streak of drafts without a selection has now stretched to five. Christian Covington, selected by the Houston Texans in the sixth round of the 2015 NFL Draft, was the last Owl chosen.

Covington’s selection marked the end of a nice run of selections for Rice. From 2009 to 2015 Rice had eight players chosen: Jarret Dillard (2009), James Casey (2009), Cheta Ozougwu (2011), Scott Solomon (2012), Vance McDonald (2013), Luke Wilson (2013), Phillip Gaines (2014), Christian Covington (2015). McDonald was the highest selection, going No. 55 overall to the San Francisco 49ers.

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Rice Football: 10 Takeaways from 2019 season

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The 2019 Rice Football season has come and gone. Spring ball will be here soon, but first a look back at what we learned about this team last season.

The 2019 college football season ended with purple and gold confetti falling from the rafters of the New Orleans Super Dome. Rice Football will host the defending champion LSU Tigers at NRG Stadium in 2020. Before we get there, a few observations about what we learned about the Owls this season and what might need to change moving forward.

The good

1. The Rice defense is the real deal

The Owls held eventual top-10 Baylor scoreless in the second half and jumped out to a 20-0 lead 0n North Texas, eventually beating the Mean Green on the back of some spectacular defensive plays. They shored up their most glaring deficiency, the long ball, and found a way to limit some of the most prolific passers in Conference USA. A year removed from finishing 11th in total defense against C-USA foes, Rice improved to sixth in 2019.

2. This team has star power

Not only has Mike Bloomgren retooled the roster with D1-caliber players, but he’s also added names that people outside of South Main will know. Players like Austin Trammell, Bradley Rozner, Blaze Alldredge and Treshawn Chamberlain are stars in Conference USA. All earned postseason honors of some sort, with Alldredge being named first-team All C-USA by the conference and Pro Football Focus. Better still, all are slated to return next season.

3. The Owls have hit on the vast majority of their transfer targets

With the exception of offensive lineman Andrew Mike, a transfer from Florida in Bloomgren’s first season, Rice has hit home run after home run in the Transfer Portal. They’ve gone three-for-three with JUCO additions (Alldredge, Rozner and Naeem Smith) and gotten game-winning production from graduate transfers across the offense. There should be more additions on this front in the coming weeks.

4. The 2020 schedule gets a lot easier

Rice football gets Army at home next season while swapping out a slate of three Power 5 opponents for LSU, an FCS school (Lamar) and Houston. It’s plausible the 2019 team could have won at least a couple of additional games against the 2020 schedule, and Rice returns the vast majority of their overall production.

5. Rice proved they can win with offense and with defense

Rice beat North Texas with suffocating defense, keeping one of Conference USA’s best quarterbacks out of the endzone. A week later they beat UTEP with offense, rallying from a halftime deficit to win on the road. As good as the defense was, this team wasn’t one-dimensional in their wins.

Areas of concern

6. Inconsistent quarterback play remains a problem
  1. Shawn Stankavage
  2. Jackson Tyner
  3. Evan Marshman
  4. Wiley Green
  5. Parker Towns
  6. Tom Stewart
  7. JoVoni Johnson

Throw in wildcat quarterback Juma Otoviano and you’ve got way too long of a list. Rice hasn’t managed to keep the same hands under center for an entire season yet since Mike Bloomgren arrived at South Main. Awful injury luck has been a component of the quarterback quandary, but poor play has been equally culpable. If Rice football is going to take the next step, finding ONE passer for 2020 is a must. They’ll have a few to choose from: Green, grad transfer Mike Collins and JUCO transfer TJ McMahon.

7. The rest of the receiving corps never broke out

Rice is never going to post numbers akin to the spread offenses that have become ubiquitous with today’s spread offenses. That said, the ratio of pass catching options skewed to an extreme this season. Only two Rice receivers (Bradley Rozner and Austin Trammell) caught at least 20 passes. August Pitre third with 17, less than 1.5 per game. Jake Bailey was limited to a part-time role. Zane Knipe wasn’t healthy. None of the pass catching tight ends we’d hope to see materialized into consistent options. Whoever plays quarterback will need more than two options in the passing game.

8. The offensive identity seems uncertain

The Rice offense that started the season 0-9 looked fairly foreign from the version that ended the season 0-3. A lot of the core concepts were there, but the influence of offensive coordinator Jerry Mack was undeniable. Mack said after the season they’d retain as much of that simplicity as possible, but Bloomgren was careful to note they weren’t going to throw out the playbook either. What that means for 2020 is anybody’s guess.

9. It’s hard to consistently hit on transfers

Last year Rice brought in seven transfers who were expected to compete for starting jobs. Each of them — Tom Stewart, Naeem Smith, Bradley Rozner, Brian Chaffin, Justin Gooseberry, Nick Leverett and Charlie Booker — either started or were important contributors. The hit rate was as close to 100 percent as could have been reasonably expected. Doing that well in the transfer market for two years in a row is really hard to do.

10. Expectations are rising

Two wins in Bloomgren’s first season was okay. Three wins, and the fashion in which they came, were proof the Owls were headed in the right direction. 2020 is when everything is supposed to come together. The staff expects to be in a bowl game next winter, and that’s probably the baseline for the trajectory this team has set through two seasons.

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Rice Football Film Room 2019: North Texas Review

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Rice Football is on a winning streak and the offense is starting to click. Take a look at some of the highlights in this week’s edition of the Film Room.

Hey y’all, welcome back to the Rice Football Film Room. Great to be celebrating another win, ain’t it? Rice’s defense put on a master class in this one, holding Mason Fine and the North Texas Mean Green offense to under 250 total yards and a mere 14 points. In celebration of that effort, we’ll highlight the early pick from Rice’s starting Swiss Army Knife . . . er, Viper Treshawn Chamberlain

You Had Me At A Glance

Setup

It’s UNT’s second offensive drive following a punt and a Rice field goal. So it’s 3-0 Owls, and Fine & Co. have the ball 1st and 10 at their own 25, less than five minutes into the game. They’re in a pretty standard 11 personnel shotgun look, with the TE lined up off the line and outside the LT at H-back.

Rice responds with a 3-3-5 look, with 3 linemen, Antonio Montero and Blaze Alldredge in the box, and Kenneth Orji playing the edge at off-ball strongside linebacker. Rice has two safeties: Chamberlain is lined up in the middle of the field about seven yards off the ball, and the other (I can’t see the number but I’m pretty sure it’s George Nyakwol) is deeper and just inside the numbers to the boundary.

The Play

Hey, we know this one, don’t we? It’s the Glance RPO, a play Rice has run to much success this season, usually to Brad Rozner. The single receiver runs a skinny post (or “glance”) route, and if the safety to that side stays deep (either to bracket him or bail into a deep zone), the quarterback throws. If he comes downhill to play the run, the quarterback hands it off. Nyakwol flows to the line at the run action, so Fine thinks he has an easy read, pulls the ball, and throws the glance.

The key here is some trickery by Rice DC Brian Smith and Chamberlain. Presnap, Fine and the UNT offense don’t see Chamberlain as likely to impact this play. He’s lined up to the strong side and fairly shallow, so they may expect him to move into the box to give Rice numbers against the run. He could also be bailing into a deep zone: perhaps to the middle of the field if Rice is in Cover 3, or maybe even all the way to a deep quarter in the wide side, if Rice is playing Cover 6 (Cover 2 to the short side and quarters/Cover 4 to the wide side).

More: Previewing Rice Football vs UTEP in Week 14

But Chamberlain does neither of those things. Instead it looks like he’s playing a sort of Robber coverage, meaning that he sticks in the shallow middle of the field, reading the QB’s eyes and “robbing” any shorter crossing routes. This, I assume, was a look by Smith intended specifically to counter RPOs, which are often run out of these 11 personnel spread looks. Nyakwol moves to the box to play the run option, and Chamberlain is in place to cover the shallow crossing routes these plays involve (often slants), while also being able to fill late against a run to his side.

Fine actually does a really good job selling the run action, and you can see Chamberlain briefly biting on it before realizing that the QB still has the ball. But at that point, he knows exactly where the ball is going and makes a brilliant break on the ball to grab the pick.

I’ve mentioned on The Roost Podcast before how difficult it is for QBs to process in real time when a defense changes its look post-snap, particularly on quick-read plays like these. This time, it’s Rice that uses that to its advantage. The ensuing interception sets up a crucial early touchdown for the Owls.

Plenty of big plays

Here’s where I note that I wanted this to be an all-Chamberlain column and break down his game-sealing pass breakup, but I couldn’t find video of it anywhere. Disappointing!

I’d give you the big Rozner catch on Rice’s final drive, but it was more of the same of what we’ve seen lately: Stewart put a catchable ball in the area of a single-covered Rozner, who boxed out like a power forward and came down with the ball. Great play but nothing I haven’t shown you before, and the camera is zoomed so tight at the beginning you can’t even see the formation.

So! We’ll give Rice’s other Harvard grad transfer his props. Here’s Charlie Booker’s first Rice touchdown.

Let’s Hit the Book . . . er

Setup

It’s the very first play of the second quarter. Rice has the ball 1st and goal from the 8, up 10-0. They’re under center in 22 personnel, with Booker at RB, Brendan Suckley at FB, Jaeger Bull at inline TE to the right, Jordan Myers being the other TE to the left (I’d say at H-back but he’s so far outside the tackle he’s really more of a slotback), and Rozner as the lone receiver. UNT responds with a five-man front and a whopping ten total players in or very close to the box.

The Play

This is an ISO run, which I believe I’ve mentioned briefly before. The difference between ISO and most plays using a blocking back (“lead” plays) is that lead plays are designed for the blocker to hit the hole and block whomever he sees first (most of these are gap runs, like power or counter), whereas in ISO the blocker has a specific player he’s aiming to block right from the beginning (usually, and in this case, the middle linebacker). ISO is designed to go up the middle, through an A-gap (to either side of the center, i.e.).

This is excellently blocked to the playside, with true freshman walk-on center Isaac Klarkowski and RG Brian Chaffin double-teaming the nose while LG Nick Leverett does a brilliant job getting inside of his man and sealing him off to open the gap.

More: Isaac Klarkowski, the latest Rice Football walk-on success 

Suckley blasts the MIKE back four yards and to the opposite side of the field. The weakside ‘backer for UNT has actually done a nice job sifting through the wash and is in position to make the play, though; it kinda looks like Chaffin was going to come off the double on him, but he diagnoses the play too quickly for that to happen. But Booker does a nifty jump cut and slaps him aside as he bursts through the hole. From there it’s all green grass.

Boy it sure was nice to break down plays from two successive wins. Here’s hoping Rice Football can close the season with a third in El Paso this weekend.

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Rice Football Film Room 2019: Middle Tennessee Review

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Rice Football went 1-0 last week, topping Middle Tennessee behind a fantastic offensive performance, highlighted in this week’s film room.

Hey everybody, and welcome back to the Rice Football Film Room. Sure feels good to be coming off a win, doesn’t it? So in honor of Rice’s best offensive performance of the year (even if almost all of it was in the first half), we’ll focus on that side of the ball this week.

Rozner’s Rebounds

Setup

It’s late in the first quarter, with Rice holding a 3-0 lead. The Owls have the ball at the MTSU 30. They’re in the I-formation with 21 personnel (presumably—the camera angle is too tight to see the receiver to the top but I’m guessing it’s Trammell) with Brendan Suckley as the fullback. Aston Walter is the running back and Jaeger Bull is the inline tight end to the left.

MTSU is in a base 4-3 look with two deep safeties. The boundary corner (remember, the short side is the “boundary”, the wide side is the “field”) is showing press coverage on Bradley Rozner, who is the wide receiver to that side.

The Play

MTSU brings five rushers, with the weakside linebacker blitzing. Both backs stay in for Rice. So even with Bull running a stick route the Owls have numbers in pass protection and manage keep Tom Stewart clean.

Rozner stutter steps at the line, preventing the corner from jamming him and getting a clean outside release. From there, he runs a simple go route (or “fly route” or “streak” or whatever you prefer—football coaches have an annoyingly large number of terms for “run straight down the field toward the end zone”). With the free safety stepping up (I assume he has responsibility for one of the backs if they leak out on a delayed screen to his side), there’s no help over the top. Stewart just lofts the ball into the end zone.

More: Takeaways from Rice Football vs MTSU

From there it’s all on Bradley, who as always, does an excellent job of boxing out like a power forward and coming down with the ball. An MTSU fan watching this play might be screaming for a push-off, and Rozner does extend his arms a little bit to gain separation. But there’s enough contact both ways that I think it’s a good no-call.

We’ve talked a lot lately (here and on the podcast and in numerous other pieces on the site) about the ways Rice is modifying the offense to get more points. But they’re not going to abandon Bloomgren’s base principles entirely, and this play archetype (draw defenders into the box with heavy personnel, throw over the top to big/athletic receivers in single coverage) was working perfectly for the Owls on Saturday. The other two of Rozner’s TDs, while using different formations and personnel groups (the second, for instance, was out of a two-back shotgun spread set with three receivers), were just variations on the same principle.

Walter to the House

Setup

It’s late in the first half and Rice is now clinging to a three-point lead after MTSU clawed its way back from a 17-0 deficit. Rice has the ball 2nd-and-4 from about the MTSU 34. They’re in 22 personnel: Suckley and Walter are the backs again, and Bull and Jordan Myers are the TEs, both lined up inline to the right (Rozner is the single receiver, his feet visible way up at the top). MTSU responds with an appropriately loaded box, with nine guys within seven yards of the line of scrimmage and in or just outside the tackle box.

The Play

This looks like the power toss play that we’ve highlighted (both here and on the podcast) before, but it would more appropriately be called a toss sweep, I think. “Power” runs involve a backside guard pulling. The puller on this play is actually Brian Chaffin, who at RG is the frontside guard.

Some sweep plays involve pulling both guards, but LG Nick Leverett is instead sliding inside to take the 1-tech DT, who knifes into the space vacated by C Shea Baker (who climbs the second level right away). It’s a good job by Leverett, too; if he doesn’t get that block the 1-tech probably catches Walter in the backfield, but he manages to redirect the bull rush and shove him out of the play.

More: For the first time this season, Rice football found a way to finish

Anyway, the run is well-blocked to the playside, but with the strong safety charging hard Rice doesn’t have a numbers advantage, even with Suckley as a lead blocker and Chaffin on the kick-out block executing perfectly. Bull and Myers do a great job sealing the edge as well, which gives Walter two gaps he can work with. When the safety choose to plug the outermost gap (and gets caught in the wash of Suckley’s block), Walter showcases his excellent vision and cuts back inside, slipping between Suckley and Myers.

Now the free safety is in position to make the tackle, but Walter again shows off his vision and savvy. He’s got more green grass to the near side of the field, but he can see the FS has an angle on him to make the play that way. So he cuts back the other way through a tighter window, using the safety’s momentum against him and slipping free into the open field for the score. It’s not even a particularly violent cut—Aston doesn’t have the short-area explosiveness that, say, Juma Otoviano does—but he makes it at just the right time to catch the safety completely off-guard. It’s a really excellent piece of running.

Sealing the Win

Setup

Two minutes to go. Two MTSU timeouts. 3rd-and-11. A three-point lead and the offense has done almost nothing the whole second half. It’s big boy time, y’all.

Rice is in 12 personnel, a two-back shotgun look. Walter and Charlie Booker are to either side of Stewart. Rozner is wide to the boundary. Jaeger Bull is in the slot. Austin Trammell is split so wide to the field that you can only barely see him enter the play at the end of the gif. MTSU’s in a three-man front with two stand-up edge defenders, a single off-ball LB, and five DBs (two deep safeties).

The Play

Now here’s one we haven’t broken down before: it’s outside zone! And an uncommon variation, too: you don’t see a lot of two-back shotgun outside zone. Again, I’m not the person to break down the minutiae of blocking schemes, but essentially, in outside zone, the whole line flows one way toward the sideline and the running back follows, looking for a crease to cut through. Like I said, there’s usually not a second back, but here he acts as a lead blocker to help keep the playside edge defender from sealing the edge.

Here, the playside edge guy manages to get upfield pretty far before Clay Servin and Booker can seal him off, so right away Walter knows he’s going to have to cut the run inside. As it happens, the hole opens up (and it’s not a big one!) between Chaffin and RT Justin Gooseberry. Walter shows outstanding vision to see the crease developing—based on the angle of his head there it must have been at the very edges of his peripheral vision—and he stops on a dime and explodes upfield.

He’s into the secondary in a flash. Two MTSU DBs maybe have a chance of stopping him just short of the marker, but one is erased by a beautiful downfield block by Bull and the other simply doesn’t have the angle to counter Walter’s speed.

First down. MTSU does get the ball back, but even a backyard lateral play can’t save them, and Rice football gets its first win of the season!

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Rice Football Film Room: LA Tech review and UAB preview

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The Week 5 edition of the Rice Football film room centers on Rice’s overtime loss to Louisiana Tech and their upcoming Week 6 opponent, UAB.

Hey y’all, Carter here, and welcome back the Rice Football Film Room. This week, we’ll take a quick look back at the heartbreaker against Louisiana Tech, before moving on to a couple plays from UAB quarterback Tyler Johnston III to get an idea of what the Owls will face in my hometown of Birmingham this week.

LA Tech

How the Rice Offense Should Look!

Rice’s offense, unfortunately, couldn’t get the job done Saturday night despite a stellar effort from the defense. That seems to be a theme this season. Still, in the first two drives we saw an extended glimpse of what the staff wants this offense to look like, and they were extremely effective in executing on those drives. Let’s take a look at Aston Walter’s first touchdown run.

Rice Football

Setup

We’re less than five minutes into the first quarter, and Rice has marched the ball downfield to the LA Tech 16-yard line on its opening drive. The Owls are in 22 personnel, with both Jaeger Bull and Jordan Myers on the left side of the line, Wiley Green under center, and FB Brendan Suckley and Walter in the I formation. LA Tech has three down linemen, three more guys walked up to the line, and four other guys in or close to the box to match Rice’s heavy personnel.

The Play

It’s a power toss, with Suckley kicking out the edge defender and RG Shea Baker pulling to lead the way for Walter. The OL do their jobs well. LG Nick Leverett does get driven back, but he stays engaged long enough to keep his man from blowing up the play (it’s not how you start a block—it’s how you finish it!). Suckley seals his man outside, Bull drives his two yards deep, Myers redirects his inside, and the gap is there for Baker to lead Walter through.

Amusingly, the LB that would’ve been Baker’s responsibility gets caught in the wash, and he never ends up having to block anyone at all. Bull’s man eventually manages to disengage, but only after he’s several yards downfield. At that point, Walter has built up too much speed for him to make the tackle. It’s a touchdown for Rice.

Great run blocking doesn’t mean every defender gets pancaked, especially when there are as many bodies involved as there are on this play. A lot of times it’s just about everybody doing their job just long enough to give the ballcarrier a chance to make the play. If Rice’s linemen, fullbacks, and tight ends can have the level of execution play in and play out that they did on these first two drives, they’ll be tough for C-USA teams to stop.

UAB

UAB’s defense has led the way for them so far, with the Blazers in the top 15 in the country in both total and scoring defense thus far. Those measures aren’t opponent- or tempo-adjusted (UAB hasn’t played any Power 5 opponents so far as compared to Rice’s three), but it’s safe to say they’re playing well on that side of the ball. The offense has lagged behind some—RB Spencer Brown (19.5 carries a game) and QB Tyler Johnston III (10.5 carries a game) are averaging a combined 3.4 yards per carry.

The Blazers use that ground game to set up aggressive play-action shots from Johnston. They’re at the best when he’s executing those, as he did in their 35-3 victory over South Alabama, when he threw for 313 yards and 3 TDs. But if he’s not on his game, that aggression can backfire, as it did in his 4-INT performance in their 20-13 loss to WKU last week. Let’s take a look at a play from each game to show the good and the bad for Johnston.

You Win Some . . .

Rice Football

Setup

It’s early in the first quarter against South Alabama (no score yet), and UAB has the ball 1st and 10 on their own 33. UAB’s in 12 personnel, with an inline TE to the boundary and an H-back, the RB, and two receivers to the field. USA’s in nickel personnel, showing a split safety look.

The Play

It’s a play-action rollout, cutting the field in half for Johnston. As the camera pans to Johnston, we lose sight of the receivers and DBs, but UAB looks to be running some form of the smash concept, with the outside receiver’s underneath route drawing the corner in to let the inside receiver Kendall Parham isolate on a safety with his corner route. This is exactly what happens, and Parham beats the safety cleanly. Johnston hits him over the top, and it’s a long touchdown for UAB.

Notice that Johnston hesitates a bit before throwing the ball once he finishes his rollout, but he drives the ball well enough that Parham only has to slow a little bit to catch it. The safety almost catches him afterwards, but Parham slips through his diving tackle attempt. It didn’t hurt Johnston here, but that hesitation can be costly for quarterbacks, as we’ll see in the next clip.

. . . You Lose Some

Rice football, film room

Setup

We’re about halfway through the 1st quarter of what will eventually be a tight loss for UAB. The Blazers have the ball 1st and 10 at about their own 38, up 3-0. They’re in 11 personnel, with two receivers to the field and a single receiver, the back, and an H-back to the boundary. WKU’s in nickel personnel with a split safety look.

The Play

It’s play action again, and Johnston is looking to hit the post route by the #2 receiver (the slot) to the field side. WKU drops into what looks to be Cover 4, commonly known as Quarters. It’s a 4-deep, 3-under look which is a very common way of defending spread offenses (which most college football offenses are now, of course) in today’s game. It’s predicated on having safeties who can read their keys quickly and flow downhill against the run, while also being athletic enough to play man on vertical routes by the inside receivers.

Here, the outside receivers release vertically, so the corners play man on them. The safeties read the releases of the No. 2 receivers (the slot and the H-back). If they go vertical up the seams, the safeties have them in man. The slot does so, so the free safety bails deep to stay over the top of his route. The H-back stays in to block, so the strong safety stays put and reads the QB. Meanwhile, the nickelback and the SAM (strongside) linebacker head to their zones in the flats. The MIKE, No. 36 Kyle Bailey, sinks back into the shallow middle (the “middle hook”) zone.

More: Why Intellectual Brutality remains a staple of the Rice offense

Johnston wants the slot receiver on the post route. Neither of the safeties have really bit on the play action and there are no, so he needs to throw it in front of the sinking free safety, but away from the strong safety, who’s read his eyes and is breaking hard underneath the route. Bailey, the MLB, takes a few steps forward on the run action, and I think that’s what keys Johnston to make the pass. Here’s what he sees as he reaches the end of his dropback.

Decision time

Rice Football, film room

The slot hasn’t made his cut yet, but the ball has to come out now. This is what we mean when we talk about throwing with anticipation. A great QB has to know when the ball needs to get to a receiver and trust that his guy will be there when it does. If Johnstown throws now and is accurate, the ball will get to his receiver right after he’s broken toward the middle of the field, with space to run away from the FS, who is still sinking to keep from getting beat. Neither the MIKE nor the SS will have time to get under the throw before it arrives.

But Johnston hesitates at the top of his drop, and that makes the difference. Bailey, who does a great job of recovering, has time to drop back into his zone and turn his eyes back to the QB in time to snag the ball.. Additionally, the SS has had time to break under the throw and probably would have made the pick if Bailey hadn’t. If Johnston releases the ball on time, he has space to fit this throw in. As it is, the receiver is essentially triple-covered by the time the ball arrives. It’s the first of four picks on the day for UAB’s QB.

More: Check out the game preview for Rice vs UAB

Now, I don’t mean to pick on Johnston here. Even very very talented QBs can take a long time to develop the skill to make anticipatory throws—Oklahoma QB Jalen Hurts, who’s putting up superhuman stats so far this year, struggled to get the ball out on time during his first two years at Alabama. And UAB’s offense has him making very aggressive throws, which means that his INT numbers are going to be higher than they would in a safer system.

My point though, is I think Rice football has a really good shot of nabbing their first interception (maybe more) on Saturday. If the Owls’ DBs can be in tight coverage as they have most of the year, UAB’s aggressive throws and Johnston’s slow trigger will give them some opportunities to turn the ball over and maybe spark some life into their offense as well.

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