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Rice Football Recruiting: O-Line class steady after late-summer decommit

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The 2020 Rice Football recruiting class suffered a blow over the weekend, but one decommitment won’t shake what the Owls are building.

More: Complete list of 2020 Rice Football commits

In what has become a rare occurrence for the Owls under Mike Bloomgren, offensive lineman Brady Feeney decommited from the 2020 Rice Football Recruiting class over the weekend. Even with his abscence, the Owls incoming class ranks among the best of their peers. Rice has the No. 3 class in Conference USA and the No. 72 class in the nation with days remaining before fall camp begins on August 1.

Houston we don’t have a problem

Feeney’s departure is disappointing, but it’s not a sign of any significant problem in the ranks. The Owls remain confident for a number of reasons. First, this situation hasn’t proven to be an area of concern. In the past two recruiting cycles (2019 and 2020), four players have decommitted from Rice:

  • Feeney left the fold, committing to Indiana on Sunday
  • One reached a mutual understanding with the coaching staff that the Owls weren’t the right fit
  • An east coast cornerback flipped to Vanderbilt from Rice last September. He was committed for less than a month.
  • One of the Owls’ 2019 quarterback targets fell back into an offer during the early signing period to play for Buffalo, a local team with connections to his family

Altogether Rice brought in 40 players with their 2019 class. They have a little more than a dozen in the 2020 group, and counting. Rice doesn’t have a decommitment problem — and that’s a sign of a strong culture which players don’t want to leave.

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More in the pipeline

Feeney first caught the Owls’ eye at a Stanford camp when coach Mike Bloomgren was working out west. He’s a good player who will be missed, but he projected as a guard at the next level, a position not as important for Rice right now as an outside man.

The Owls’ already have two guys in the wings ready to fill that tackle role, commits Trey Phillippi and Cole Latos. Both players are raw, ulta-athletic types with the physical frame ready for the college game. From a size and measurables perspective, they’re ready to hold down a side on the Owls’ offensive line.

Phillippi is a converted tight end and Latos can play both sides of the ball. They’ve yet to log a ton of film at the tackle spot, allowing the Owls’ to get in early and bring them on board. They’re raw talents with tremendous upside, fitting the position of greatest need for Rice on the offensive line.

Feeney’s decommitment wasn’t good news, but the future of Rice Football recruiting remains rock solid.

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Rice Football Recruiting: Owls committed to a national recruiting scope

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Rice Football Recruiting goes well beyond the campus at South Main. The Owls have stretched across the nation in search of the best talent.

Rice isn’t like most other in-state schools. For one, the academic rigor necessary to earn admittance at South Main is extremely high. The Owls acceptance rates for both athletes and non-athletes are stringent.

In order for the Rice Football team to reach a similar caliber of athlete the Owls have widened their scope significantly, especially since Mike Bloomgren signed his first recruits in the winter of 2017. Here’s a breakdown of the Owls’ current class tiers by states.

Rice Football Recruiting

The vast majority of the sophomores and all of the freshmen and 2020 commits were recruited by Bloomgren and his staff. It’s no accident the reach has expanded significantly since his arrival. The Owls still heavily recruit Texas, but they’re reaching well past the Lone Star State as well.

The senior class also includes three grad transfers, originally from Texas, who played their college ball elsewhere. When taking that into consideration, roughly 60 percent of the players Bloomgren recruited are from Texas, down a considerable portion from the upperclassmen recruited by the previous staff.

Rice Football Recruiting

 

The expanded reach isn’t limited to out-of-state recruiting. Rice Football recruiting is expanding its reach within Texas, too. Each of the Owls’ most recent signing classes has contained fewer great Houston area recruits than the class before it. The current sophomore, freshmen and incoming recruiting classes boasts eight, seven and four members from the greater Houston area, respectively.

If geography was a limiting factor toward on-field success before, it isn’t anymore. Rice football has recruited from Connecticut to California and seemingly everywhere in between. If there is a talented football player with the intellect to get into Rice, this coaching staff is going to find him.

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Rice Football Recruiting: How the Owls are hacking the 2020 rankings

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The 2020 Rice Football Recruiting class is finding top-flight players before major services discover them. How the Owls’ are winning recruiting.

In the world of college football recruiting, stars matter. The rating assigned by 247 Sports and other ratings services are talking points for fans around the country whenever a new player commits (or thinks about committing) to their school of choice. While recruiting players with higher star ratings is generally a positive sign, Rice football has found a loophole in the process.

247 can’t rate every recruit in the country. There are tens of thousands of aspiring college football recruits and only so many hours in the day. Some larger programs can throw their conference affiliation or national brand at the blue-chip players to lure them to school. Rice has found a hack of their own.

The 2020 Rice Football recruiting class features 14 commits including 11 three-star players. Of those 11, six of them were unranked at the time they chose to commit to the Owls. That means the coaching staff was able to identify premium talent before the recruiting services.

Prior to his commitment, cornerback Sean Fresch was unrated. Now he’s the highest-rated recruit in the Owls’ 2020 class. Cornerback Devon Gunter didn’t have a star rating either. He’s the fourth-highest ranked recruit in the class. Lineman Matt Latos, tight end Nate Kamper, offensive lineman Trey Phillippi and wide receiver Andrew Mason have similar stories. From zero stars to three stars, overnight.

Available Now: 2019 Rice Football Season Preview 

At the end of the day, stars don’t win football games, players do. But the 2020 Rice Football recruiting class is stocked with high-level talent, largely because the coaching staff is ahead of the curve. When you know the answer before the rest of the nation does, you’re probably on the right track.

That’s why Rice has a top-three class in Conference USA. And they’re not done yet.

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Rice Football Recruiting: 2020 Corner Sean Fresch commits to Owls

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The 2020 Rice football recruiting class includes a lock-down secondary, bolstered by the Owls’ new commitment, corner Sean Fresch from Austin, Tx.

A rousing run through June landed Rice yet another commitment. The Owls kicked off the month with the Adidas 3 Stripe camp, hosting hundreds of athletes on campus. One of those players was Austin cornerback Sean Fresch who has committed to play his college football at Rice.

Rice was interested in Fresch from the moment he stepped foot on campus at camp. He ran sub 4.4 40-yard dashes and came back and replicated the feet at the Owls’ Junior Day. Watching him work against some of their top targets in person was the litmus test the Owls needed. His blazing speed, complimented with impressive work in one-on-ones made extending an offer an easy decision for the Rice staff.
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Fresch turned down offers from Army, UTSA, UTEP and Sam Houston in favor of the Owls. Rice is carving out a talent pool of top-flight Texas talent. Fresch marks the eighth in-state addition in the 2020 class. Rice is sure to add more to that total before they wrap things up on signing day.

With Fresch in the fold, the Owls’ secondary class is as robust as any in recent memory. Safety Plae Wyatt, corner Devin Gunter, corner Jordan Dubar and Fresch are going to be mainstays at the back of the defense for years to come.

It’s hard to not get excited when you turn the film for Fresch. His ability to read the quarterback and make plays on the ball in the air are hallmarks of a successful player in defensive coordinator Brian Smith’s scheme. That innate ability combined with the jets to take a tipped ball to the house in the blink of an eye makes him an exciting addition to the 2020 class.

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Rice Football Recruiting: Owls make cut for rising 2020 LB Kenneth Phillips

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The 2020 Rice Football recruiting class is hanging with an SEC Power and more as they fight for linebacker Kenneth Phillips.

Kenneth Phillips made noise on the camp circuit this summer. The Owls got their foot in the door with an offer in early June, but several Power 5 teams followed soon after. There was a time when that would have been enough to push Rice football out of the minds of recruits the caliber of Phillips. Times are changing.

Phillips, who will enter his senior season at Fort Bend Bush High School this fall, is regarded as a 3-star prospect and a top-100 outside linebacker prospect in the nation. He released his Top 6 schools today which include Rice, Texas A&M, Indiana, Georgia Tech, Wake Forest and Texas Southern. It’s expected Rice will get an official visit from Phillips before he makes his decision this fall.

Bloomgren recalls the perception Rice had upon his arrival rather sharply: “It took us a little while to be able to get in the game. We would have had trouble getting someone with a Big 12 or a Big Ten offer to come visit,” he admitted. “Now we’re doing that and we need to find a way to close out.”

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Not only is Rice getting those players to campus, but they’re also winning recruiting battles. The current crop of 2020 Rice Football commits includes players who have turned down programs in the Pac-12, Big 12 and Big Ten to come play football at South Main.

Could Phillips add an exclamation point to the Owls’ new-look recruiting swagger? It’s certainly possible. That’s a compliment in itself.

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