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Rice Football: Most impressive freshman performances of fall camp

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The 2020 Rice football freshman class has impressed throughout fall camp. This weekend they’ll have their first opportunities to do it in a collegiate game.

Rice football has wrapped up fall camp. They’ll take the field on Saturday against Middle Tennessee. Players like Austin Trammell and Blaze Alldredge have been as impressive as ever in practices, but neither of those performances comes as much of a surprise.

Beyond assessing such proven commodities, this time of year is sometimes better spent looking for who might be the next wave of playmakers on the rise.

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Here are a few freshmen who’ve impressed me and earned accolades directly from the coaching staff during camp. They’ll see varying degrees of involvement this weekend, but each guy has the potential to be an important piece on this roster in the weeks and years to come.

RB Khalan Griffin

Last fall Khalan Griffin suffered a lower-body injury that prematurely ended his senior season. He arrived at South Main buried on the depth chart behind the likes of Juma Otoviano, Jawan King, Cam Montgomery and Ari Broussard. Injuries opened the door for him to get some time with the first team offense. He kicked that door down … and then kept running.

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Rice Football 2020: Owls get multiple starters back to practice this week

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Rice football has been hit hard by injuries prior to their season opener. Several of those players were back at practice this week.

Rice football is less than two weeks away from their first game of the 2020 season. The Owls remain on track to host Middle Tennessee on Oct. 24, with no fans. If you haven’t yet, check out some of the virtual offerings Rice has put together for the game. There should be a few more things in store this week.

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Perhaps the most notable happening in prior Rice football practices was the number of players who weren’t on the field. The injury bug hit Rice hard during fall camp. It’s already cost them the entire seasons of Cam Montgomery and Bradley Rozner. The Owls’ are still a ways from being fully healthy, but this week brought with it much more encouraging news.

First, Rice football is COVID-19 free after reporting one positive test on Oct. 3. They do not have any players unavailable because of positive tests or contact tracing right now. In non-COVID related news, we’ve seen a turn for the better with several key players who were on the field this week after missing time earlier in camp.

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What’s coming next?

I’ve got a few breakout freshmen that I’ll be sharing soon. It’s probably safe to say a few of them could play important roles this fall, especially if the Owls enter the season banged up. I have some more depth chart updates that I’ll work to have finalized following the third and final scrimmage on Saturday. Stay tuned for another update then, the last before we get to game week against Middle Tennessee.

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Rice Football 2020 Practice Notes: Quarterbacks, specialists and injuries

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Rice football is nearly halfway through fall camp. The quarterback situation is clearing up but the running back depth chart is heating up.

On Monday, Rice football had its first practice following Scrimmage No. 1. That extra session, combined with time to break down the scrimmage film, gave head coach Mike Bloomgren a better feel for where the team stands as the midpoint of fall camp approaches.

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The quarterback situation is starting to crystalize, but Khalan Griffin is making the running back depth chart extremely hard to parse out. I’ve got more notes on both position battles, how the special teams situation is looking right now and an update on injuries including three players that I haven’t seen take the field for the Owls this fall.

Timetable for a QB1 decision

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Rice Football: Khalan Griffin shines, offense sparks in first fall scrimmage

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The first full scrimmage of the 2020 Rice Football fall camp is in the books. Khalan Griffin stole the show, but he wasn’t the only meaningful takeaway on Saturday.

It was a busy week at South Main. A few housekeeping items, first. The Rice football online roster is updated to match the newest version from fall camp. I try to be diligent with tagging players in stories and updates, so if you’re ever looking to see what I’ve written about Blaze Alldredge, Mike Collins or anyone else, head on over their and click on their name for a list of everything I’ve tagged them in. The Rice football schedule has been updated as well. If you haven’t yet, you can pick up the Season Preview here.

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If you’re on the fence about subscribing, I put some meat into these write ups. This one is a little more than 1,100 words and includes some notes on the Rice football injury situation and improvements on the offensive side of the football. Though the first week and a half of camp, those two trends have been front and center.

COVID Update

Rice has one player test positive who was unable to practice today. Contact tracing protocols left the Owls without four additional players. Of the 106 players on the roster, that’s a .09% positivity rate.

Offense looking up

Expectations for the Rice defense are much higher than the offense entering camp. Assuming health, the Owls should have one of the better defensive units in the conference. As it was last season, the defense started fall camp ahead of the offense, but I did see a few things during the scrimmage today that make me believe the offense has taken some meaningful steps.

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Rice Football: Optimism abounds as Owls embrace fall camp

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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.

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