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Rice Football 2021: WKU presser quotes, updates and depth chart

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Rice football knows what’s at stake this week against Western Kentucky. Here’s what Mike Bloomgren had to say about the matchup, updates and depth chart notes.

Head coach Mike Bloomgren and a pair of players met with the media for their customary weekly availability. They discussed the tough loss to Charlotte and laid out expectations and their prep work for their game against Western Kentucky next week. We’ll include updates from Bloomgren and those players, then dig further into the details of the Rice football depth chart and what the team looks like on the field headed into the weekend.

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Rice football has found stability at the quarterback position after injuries and lineup adjustments. With that settled and no major injury updates looming, the lineup is starting to normalize. First, the quotes:

Press Conference Quotes

“I think for three and two-thirds quarters, we played about as well as we needed to. We certainly left some opportunities out there like you always do. We played good enough to win and we weren’t able to capitalize down the stretch and that’s really disappointing.” – Mike Bloomgren on the Charlotte loss

“We know [Western Kentucky] have a dominant offense. They have a great quarterback and they have been playing as good a defense as they have all year. They’re creating turnovers. They’re really playing solid in all three phases. They’re really good on special teams. They get after it on special teams. So, it’s going to be an unbelievable challenge for us.” – Mike Bloomgren on the Western Kentucky game

“I really think the past few weeks, it’s just been getting the five dudes together, gelling more as these five guys. And then also, it’s just a testament to our coaching. We’ve talked about it before. We have probably five or six elite level offensive line coaches just in this building. We’re really a product of our training when it comes to our coaching. And every week that we’ve gotten better, I would say as part of it is every week, our coaches have worked harder. So I think that’s a big testament to some of our recent successes.” – Guard Cole Garcia on the growth of the offensive line

“They’re going to throw the ball a lot. So we got to get back there. And [defensive line] coach [Cedric] Calhoun always says ‘put it on us’. The d-line is going to always give 100 percent effort and try and get some pressure on the QB to help on our DBs.” – Defensive end Miles Adams on Western Kentucky

Depth Chart

There are no changes to the official Rice football depth chart this week.

Rice Football

Secondary is on notice

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Rice Football 2021: Charlotte presser quotes, updates and depth chart

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Rice football plays Charlotte next in a battle of 2-2 C-USA foes. Here’s what Mike Bloomgren had to say about the matchup, injury updates and depth chart notes.

This is the first of a couple of updates coming this week as Rice football prepares to take on  Charlotte. We’ll include updates from head coach Mike Bloomgren’s midweek press conference, then dig further into the details on the depth chart and what the team looks like on the field headed into the weekend.

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Rice football will be forced to make a quarterback change once again. We’ll dive into the move from Wiley Green to Jake Constantine and how this impacts the Owls this week. First, the quotes:

Press Conference Quotes

“I was really proud of how the guys attacked it (in practice). Thought they were locked into the game plan. And I was disappointed to see it not fully translate on Saturday. There were parts of it that were good. They were individual players that were really good, but certainly thought we had opportunities in every phase that we could have played better and probably would have been able to win the game had we played better.” – Mike Bloomgren on the North Texas loss

“Obviously, Wiley [Green’s] injury on our first offensive drive of the game was tough. It was tough for everybody. It was tough for me. It was tough to see Wiley hurting. He’s one of our rocks and I don’t think there was anybody on our team who wasn’t rocked by his injury. It took us a little bit of time to get past that. We eventually did. We worked through it as a team and we started playing football again.

“An update on Wiley; he will be out this week. I did talk to him. He is in great spirits. His message to the team was to go do what we said we were going to do, which is go earn an opportunity to play in a bowl game. That’s what we’re going to try to do for him.” – Mike Bloomgren on Wiley Green

“Moving forward with Jake Constantine as our starter, I thought that, again, once he got settled in, he played some good really good football. He had a great me-to-you factor with Jake Bailey and I thought Jake made some tremendous plays for us. Staying alive and then making plays when the ball was in the air to keep some drives alive and to help us end up in the box. So that was great.” – Mike Bloomgren on Jake Constantine

Depth Chart

The Rice football depth chart has one minor tweak this week, and one rather large one:

Rice Football

Quarterback changes, again

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Rice Football 2021: North Texas presser quotes, updates and depth chart

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Rice football returns home to take on North Texas in Week 9. Here’s what Mike Bloomgren had to say about the matchup, injury updates and depth chart notes.

This is the first of a couple of updates coming this week as Rice football prepares to take on North Texas. We’ll include updates from head coach Mike Bloomgren’s midweek press conference, then dig further into the details on the depth chart and what the team looks like on the field headed into the weekend.

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Rice football is riding high, on the arm of Wiley Green and reinforcements from a handful of younger faces that are becoming key cogs in the Owls’ program. The depth chart continues to evolve, hopefully for the better, showcasing the depth the Owls have built over the last several seasons. First, the quotes:

Press Conference Quotes

“I’m just so proud. You don’t have to talk about him being our Game One starter. You can talk about him being our Year One starter in this program. All of the peaks and valleys that we’ve gone through as a program with Wiley [Green] together. How we’ve come out the other side a little bit in this game. It meant the world to me. There’s nobody I would have rather seen that success and the fact that he was able to go out there, turn it loose and play the way he’s capable of playing in a green light manner meant everything to me. It really did. I said it after the game, he put on a quarterback clinic. That’s exactly what he did.” – Mike Bloomgren on Wiley Green

“What I see on film is a very good football team. I see a dangerous football team with skill all over the place. A team that’s played a great schedule (and) a really difficult schedule. I know that it’s going to take us preparing the way we did last week and even better for us to come out here and go 1-0 this week. That’s our challenge. Our challenge is real simple: prepare the way we know that we need to, go out there and practice in such a way and then find a way to still go green light on Saturday to give ourselves the best chance to win.” – Mike Bloomgren on North Texas

“I just feel like this is a team that is just very confident in what we’re doing right now. I know we look back two weeks ago and it’s a little different story but I think that really helped grow us into the team that we are today and hopefully we can continue that going into this next week. But again, that’s kind of what we’re really focused on. Not too worried about the past and just continuing to go 1-0 this week.” – Wiley Green on how this team has changed

“We talked about having this green light mentality and that is just not being hesitant — because you care so much about the team that you don’t want to mess up — but instead just giving absolutely everything you can every single play, having this green light mentality where you don’t worry about the last play but you worry about this one. I think that makes a big difference in our confidence.” – Wiley Green on the team’s ‘green light mentality’

“It was the best feeling, just coming together as a brotherhood. It was the best feeling ever. Of course, last week and the week before that we didn’t show really our full potential. But everything just came together, we clicked as a unit from start to finish. And hopefully we can do that next week against North Texas.” – Gabe Taylor on the win over UAB

Depth Chart

The Rice football depth chart continues to evolve, including a change at the most important position: quarterback.

Rice Football

Going Green

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Rice Football 2021: UAB presser quotes, injury updates and depth chart

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Rice football goes back on the road this week to take on UAB. Here’s what Mike Bloomgren had to say about the matchup, injury updates and depth chart notes.

This is the first of a couple of updates coming this week as Rice football prepares to take on UAB. We’ll include updates from head coach Mike Bloomgren’s midweek press conference, then dig further into the details on the depth chart and what the team looks like on the field headed into the weekend.

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Any hopes of a fully healthy Rice football team headed into the second half seem to have faded quickly. The Owls have several key players in doubt for the UAB game with injuries, causing changes across the depth chart. We’ll hit on those adjustments and discuss what Owls are most likely to go on Saturday. First, the quotes:

Press Conference Quotes

“I don’t think anybody associated with our program is happy about our performance versus UTSA. Unfortunately, that game didn’t go the way that we planned. We started slow in the first few drives, dug ourselves into a deep hole and we struggled to do much after that time. I’ve told our team that we have to do our jobs better and that starts with me, with everybody doing their one-eleventh. We have to stick together and we have to keep moving forward.

Our coaches are going to coach them on anything that is correctable on the film. I’ve asked the players to remember the lessons, but not relive the game. I don’t want them ever to feel that way again. I want to do everything in my power, everything in our program to make sure we never feel that way again. We certainly don’t want to relive it.” – Mike Bloomgre on the UTSA loss

“I think in college football, it has to be that mindset. It has to be next man up. But, in some cases, we’ve got the next, next man up and that is harder. I’ve tried to look at it in totality, especially on the defensive side of the ball. We returned 10 starters and we were excited about those guys. We knew they were going to be awesome…

One thing that’s really different is you look at UTSA, they’re an older team. They have great players and they had everybody starting that they planned on starting Day One of the football season. That’s nice. Some people get that reality. We have not been fortunate enough to get that reality here. Of the 10 starters that we thought were returning, five of them didn’t play against UTSA. That’s tough. It’s not excuses, it’s just reality. ” – Mike Bloomgren on team depth and injuries 

“We know the process works. The process is prove, tried and true. But, there’s a couple of things we tweaked. It’s to the point of doing the same thing and expecting different results, but it is frustrating for everybody in this program because we practiced really well last week. But, we didn’t play like we wanted to.

So, we’re going to continue to practice the right way, we’re going to continue to install the schemes the right way and prepare these guys the right way and we’re going to do everything in our power to tweak our ability to do it on game day the way that we practiced.” – Mike Bloomgren on potential adjustments to the team’s process 

“It’s wonderful. I’ve always tried to preach to my coaches and prove that I have the ability, not only to be that down hill, run-through-people’s-soul type of back, but also be able to catch the ball, be able to block and be a total and complete back.” – Ari Broussard on his expanded role in the offense

“Special teams is where I kind of began, it’s kind of where I made a name for myself. It’s kind of how I expanded my role in the offense through special teams and doing well there. And because of the success I had there, they thought that it’d be better to include me in our offense more. It’s fun, going down there and doing what I can, anything I can to help the team, whether that be special teams or offense.” – Ari Broussard on the importance of his role on special teams

“Every day we just look each other in the eyes and we tell each other, ‘what do we need to do to get better?’. That’s all we tell each other every day. We’re going to do this certain thing to get better and all we want to do is go forward. We can’t worry about the past. Everything that’s happened before now, it doesn’t matter. It’s about each week going 1-0 and trying to get to that conference championship.” – Desmyn Baker on how the team is responding this week

Depth Chart

The Rice football depth chart is cycling through names lately, with injuries causing upheaval at several key spots.

Rice Football

Quarterback

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Rice Football 2021: UTSA presser quotes, injury updates and depth chart

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Rice football returns to action this weekend against UTSA. Here’s what Mike Bloomgren had to say about it, injury updates and practice notes.

This is the first of a couple of updates coming this week as Rice football prepares to take on UTSA. We’ll include updates from head coach Mike Bloomgren’s midweek press conference, then dig further into the details on the depth chart and what the team looks like on the field headed into the weekend.

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The depth chart looks a decent amount different from where things left off against Southern Miss. There are a variety of reasons for that, and a couple of notable injury updates that coincide with some of those changes. This update will focus on those, with some more in-depth practice notes coming later in the week. First, the quotes:

Press Conference Quotes

“It was a great week because we were able to get healthier. Nobody is healthy in Week 7 of the season. But, we got some guys back and they looked great. We also got some young guys some work…. So I would say it was a very good bye week. We got exactly what we needed out of it.” – Mike Bloomgren on the bye week

“I don’t know that our conference has seen a defense like this since maybe 2018 UAB. It is just a dominant group out there. It’s an old, veteran group. I think nine of their 11 starters are seniors or super seniors. They are a very good group. They’re very well-coached.” – Mike Bloomgren on the UTSA defense

“I think, with a win like this, people will really start to wake up and understand Rice is here to play. We didn’t ahve the best start to the season, but like we said whenever we started out first confernece game against Southern Miss, it’s a new season… our goals are still attainable.” – Jordan Myers on the significance of the UTSA game

“I got to rest my legs a bit and heal up some minor bruises. It was good to get off your feet for a couple days, but I’m excited to be back in this building and back to work. It got a little boring over the weekend, just not playing in the games, watching games on tv. I want to be out there right now, playing.” – Elijah Garcia on the significance of the UTSA game

Depth Chart

The Rice football depth chart looks slightly different after the bye week. Here’s how the two-deep the Owls will trot out against UTSA on Saturday.

Rice Football

Pitre poised for return

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