A new Rice football quarterback debuted and a host of pass catchers made their marks. Here’s what we learned from that side of the ball during spring practices.
EJ Warner looked the part in his first-ever snaps in a Rice football uniform, but he wasn’t the only standout from the offense this spring. Without the veteran hands of Luke McCaffrey to lean on, new faces stepped up and some veterans reestablished themselves as potential options moving forward. Who made the biggest strides on this side of the ball this spring?
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It’s EJ Warner SZN
Bloomgren opened his press conference following the Rice football spring game with praise for Joshua Pearcy who, in Bloomgren’s own words, had “made me a believer”. In an open-ended follow-up question, I asked him who else had “made him a believer” this spring.
Without missing a beat, Bloomgren said “The easy one, the low-hanging fruit,” was quarterback EJ Warner.
“He came into a very, very complicated offense and was able to execute it at a very high level. There’s not a lot of ‘can’t get out of the huddle’, calling plays wrong, forgetting motions, things like that. He’s out there like he’s been in an offense like this forever,” Bloomgren said. “His comfort and ability to come in and execute, the touch that he has, the ability to get balls pushed really quickly in his progression because of his pre-snap reads, I just think he’s done some really cool things.”
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Those all seem like well-meaning platitudes given to a new transfer quarterback, but if you remember back to late last season, the specific details Bloomgren mentioned here are important.
AJ Padgett, with whom Warner is competing for the starting job, struggled with those very things. Bloomgren noted instances when he called the wrong play and had issues in the huddle despite being a veteran in this system. Meanwhile Warner, in the span of a few weeks, appears to have mastered those crucial operational functions.
When asked to name a starter, Bloomgren deflected but made his current position clear. “I’m glad we don’t have to decide it today,” he said, before adding on his own volition, “but there’s certainly times this spring where you felt EJ really had the upper hand really because of the command, his ability to control the passes and throw the ball where he wants it with pretty good precision.”
A starter might not be named for some time, but it’s abundantly clear EJ Warner has positioned himself to be QB1 when Rice football takes the field against Sam Houston in Week 1.
Raising the floor
Bloomgren has a favorite saying that he tends to bring out at the start of spring practice every year. The wording has varied over the years, but the gist of it goes something like this.
Defense is a destructive process. Everyone can fall down and one guy can make a big play on his own. Offense is a constructive process. All 11 guys have to do their job for a play to be successful.
And because it’s generally assumed that it’s harder to get 11 guys to execute in sync on Day 1, the defense has always started faster than the offense in spring practice. That wasn’t the case this year.
The offense stole the show in Scrimmage 1 and had another practice heading into the second scrimmage in which they swept the defense in all the major team drills of the day. For the first three or four weeks of camp, the offense led the way, a definitive first for this team since Bloomgren arrived.
Now the defense did catch up because they have lots of talented players too, but most had fewer question marks about that side of the ball which returns so much productivity from a season ago. To see the less established unit, breaking in a new quarterback and without their top playmaking option at wide receiver, do what they did is extremely encouraging.
It suggests that the talent level as a whole has moved closer toward being more “quarterback-proof” than it has been in years past. This offense has enough talented pieces that it doesn’t need a hard reset in March to start from scratch and rebuild from square one. Even the younger faces can pick up where they left off and keep moving. That’s an extremely encouraging sign for the future.
The O-Line will be alright
Despite an inauspicious showing in the spring game, the offensive line has been largely impressive through the duration of spring practices. Ethan Onianwa looks right at home at left tackle and the rest of the line has gelled well. Having to cycle through multiple third-string options in the second scrimmage and spring game made the optics look less than ideal, but the body of work was encouraging on the whole.
Run blocking has been a massive struggle for this unit over the last several seasons. Protection has largely been alright. The line excelled in protection throughout the spring and regularly opened up lanes for the backs. A defense that made some big plays and stymied the passing game did allow 5.4 yards per carry on the ground, primarily to Quinton Jackson and Christian Francisco.
Beyond getting healthier by the fall, Bloomgren divulged afterward they are getting reinforcements on that front. Days later, Chad Lindberg a former Georgia offensive lineman and blue-chip offensive tackle recruit from League City, Texas, announced his commitment. He’ll join the Owls this coming season with two years of eligibility remaining.
The starting five from left to right, hypothetically, could now be Ethan Onianwa, Brant Banks, Braedon Nutter, John Long and Chad Lindberg.
Then there’s Brad Baur, Miguel Cedeno, Weston Kropp, Lavel Dumont and Spencer Cassell as potential backups. That could be a solid unit on its own. That’s a fantastic starting point, especially considering where this team has come from in years past.
Just wait until we see a full complement of touches for Dean Connors behind this unit. Which brings us to the next takeaway…
Dean Connors breakout incoming
Dean Connors only carried the ball six times in the spring game. He caught three passes. The only surprising result from those nine touches, honestly, was that he did not score. It’s been that kind of spring for the standout running back, who continues to get praise after praise from his teammates and coaches.
For example, when asked to identify the hardest offensive player to tackle on the team, both rush end Joshua Pearcy and linebacker Ty Morris pointed to Connors. “He’s a dawg,” Pearcy said with a grin, fresh from a head on collision with Connors in practice in which the elusive running back had somehow evaded Pearcy’s grasp and burst away for additional yardage.
It was that kind of spring for Connors. He’d get a handful of snaps and still leave the field with a highlight play or two, utilizing his vision and agility to score touchdowns from all areas of the field.
“Just trying to figure out more ways to get better and more ways to learn,” was Connors’ assessment of his spring. “Trying to learn more of a holistic view of the offense, learn different positions, more of the scheme, and dive deeper into some of the things I didn’t know.”
Boden Groen is the pass catcher to know
When flipping through my notebook of reactions and thoughts from the spring, few names showed up more times among offensive players than tight end Boden Groen. As the wide receivers cycled through so many different names and faces, Groen stepped into the unquestioned TE1 role. Although he shared snaps with Elijah Mojarro and others, it was Groen that became a visible factor in the passing game.
The offense’s only passing touchdown in the second scrimmage came in the redzone on a crossing route to Groen, who caught the pass from Warner in stride and made a beeline to the pylon, outracing the defense and finding paydirt, one of their lone blemishes on another otherwise exemplary afternoon.
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Among all receivers and tight ends, Groen trailed only Luke McCaffrey in receptions and receiving yards for the Owls last season, and that came while serving as the backup to Jack Bradley for most of the year. Now given more snaps and responsibilities as the starter, those numbers — 39 receptions for 383 yards — are only going to rise.
The rest of the pass-catching hierarchy still has to sort itself out. No matter how the targets to the receivers bear themselves out, Groen is going to be a focal point of this offense, particularly in the redzone.
Odds and Ends
- We’ve seen so many running backs have big spring games only to fade back into the rotation come the fall. I think Quinton Jackson’s explosiveness is real and he’ll carve out a meaningful role in the offense, but his frame and skillset probably lends itself to a more stylized role that leaves the bulk of the rushing work to others like Daelen Alexander, Bucknell transfer Coleman Bennett and freshman signee Taji Atkins.
- Rawson MacNeill and Landon Ransom were both solid this spring, but no wide receiver really separated themselves as a clear frontrunner just yet. Expect a much wider target distribution at the position this coming season, pending big changes in fall camp. Kobie Campbell is probably the wideout who made the best case for a bigger role in 2024.
- There are moments when AJ Padgett looks really, really good. Physically he has the talent to play the position, it’s just been the mental lapses that have kept him from becoming a true challenge for the job. If he does settle in as the backup, which would be expected as of now, Rice fans should feel very comfortable with that outcome. He’s won games for the Owls in the past.
