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Rice Football: 2021 DL Jalen Hargrove commits to Owls

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The 2021 Rice Football recruiting class just added a big addition in the defensive trenches. Jalen Hargrove has committed to the Owls.

Even with games being postponed left and right, the 2021 Rice Football recruiting class continues to produce good news. There is roughly a month to go before the early signing period and the 2021 class is coming together nicely, including the most recent addition hailing all the way from the Northeast.

Defensive lineman Jalen Hargrove from Choate Rosemary Hall has committed to Rice football. The 6-foot-3, 305-pound athlete made the move just one day following his officially offer from Rice. The less than 24-hour turnaround puts him among the quickest triggers in the 2021 class. He certainly knew what he was looking for.

Hargrove was one of a few offers handed out by the Rice football recruiting staff in the past week. You can read more about those other offers and targets in our most recent recruiting update.

Rice was the first school to offer Hargrove, something that’s become somewhat of a common occurrence with the current recruiting staff. They’ve been quick to identify talent and act upon what they see on film, not waiting for other offers to tip them off. It’s part of what has enabled them to get in early and hold on to some extremely talented players.

Premium: 2021 Rice Football Recruiting Offer and Commitment Tracker

Hargrove can do a lot of different things for a big guy, but his power up the middle is one aspect that stands out the most. He just won’t be blocked. His highlights are play after play of him plowing through unwitting offensive linemen who only hoped they could slow him down. Once Hargrove gets moving, it’s hard to slow him down. He’s going to be fun to watch in the trenches at South Main.

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Rice Football Recruiting: Owls launch new wave of 2021 offers

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The 2021 Rice Football recruiting class is off to a great start, but the Owls aren’t done. Here’s a quick roundup of the most recent offers.

COVID-19 concerns with their opponents have kept Rice football off the field, but they’ve been hard at work on the recruiting trail in recent weeks. The Owls have extended four offers in the past three days, and six since mid-October.

Most notably, Rice has ventured onto the transfer market. For the first time during this cycle, Rice has extended offers to transfer players. Here are the new names that have been added to the offer list in the last week and a bit more about each target.

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BREAKING: Rice Football vs LA Tech postponed

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Rice football’s upcoming game against Louisiana Tech has been postponed due to COVID-19 complications at Louisiana Tech.

For the second time in two weeks, Rice football has had a game postponed by COVID-19 issues from their opponent. The Louisiana Tech game is off after the Bulldogs were forced to pull out of the upcoming game in Ruston.

Rice had last week’s game against UTSA postponed on Friday morning. This postponement comes late in the week once again. The Owls were preparing for Thursday afternoon practice when they were told the game would not be played as scheduled.

At this time, neither Rice or Louisiana Tech share an open date. The Owls had previously had games against Marshall and UAB added to their schedule last week. Whether or not the UTSA game would take priority over the Marshall game was a focal point of conversations last week. The math gets increasingly more complicated with one more C-USA West game called off again this week.

More: Rice football practice notes and press conference quotes

Western Kentucky remains the only C-USA school to avoid a postponed game because of COVID-19. A full list of C-USA games impacted by postponements since the season kicked off in late August is available on our Conference USA COVID-19 Postponement Tracker.

The next game on the schedule for Rice football is a Nov. 21 road trip to North Texas. They have not played since beating Southern Miss on the road on Halloween. According to the schedule as it exists today, Rice won’t play at home again until Nob. 28 against UTEP. Whether any of those games are played according to that schedule is very much so up in the air.

What happens next?

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The Roost Podcast | Ep 60 – Rice Football vs LA Tech Preview

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Rice football had its game against UTSA postponed last weekend. Carter and Matthew talk discuss the fallout and the Owls upcoming contest against Louisiana Tech.

What we had hoped would have been a postgame debrief turned into talk of the Owls’ first unexpected postponement of the 2020 season. UTSA called off last week’s game on Friday morning, citing COVID-19 issues within the football program. That left Rice without an opponent on Saturday.

Carter and Matthew discuss how that postponed game fits into the ever-complex maze of 2020 scheduling and look ahead at Rice football’s upcoming (currently scheduled) game against Louisiana Tech.

You can always find previous episodes on the podcast page. For now, give a listen to Episode 60.

Episode 60 Notes

  • Housekeeping — Don’t miss this opportunity to subscribe on Patreon. You’ll get practice reports, film room sessions, recruiting news and the latest analysis and updates on all things relating to Rice Athletics.
    Become a Patron!
  • Conference USA news and notes
    • Four C-USA games were canceled last weekend
    • Only four C-USA teams played
  • Rice Football vs UTSA postponed
    • First postponement from a Rice opponent since the season began
    • Decision was announced on Friday before the game
    • Both Rice and UTSA hope to reschedule with hopes that Rice could drop the Marshall game
    • Rice gets the added benefit of more players healthy with the off week
  • Rice Football vs LA Tech game preview
    • Bulldogs two-quarterback system has proven faulty, at best
    • Justin Henderson and the running game are going to have a hard time gaining ground
    • Louisiana Tech is opportunistic and aggressive on defense. Limiting mistakes is a must.

Where can you find us?

Download and subscribe to The Roost Podcast on any of your favorite podcast providers. The show is available on iTunes, GooglePlay, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, TuneIn and PodBean. Please consider leaving a review wherever you listen.

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Rice Football Film Room 2020: Louisiana Tech Preview

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Rice football has a new challenge ahead of them this week against Louisiana Tech. We break down the Bulldogs on both sides of the ball in this week’s film room.

Well, any thought that Rice football’s delayed start to the season would save of from the vagaries of scheduling in 2020 can be put to bed. With no tape from a delayed matchup with UTSA, we’ll turn our attention to this Saturday’s (scheduled for now, anyway!) opponent, Louisiana Tech. In an odd but maybe not surprising bit of symmetry, the Bulldogs also had last weekend’s game canceled due to a COVID outbreak in their opponent’s program.

Louisiana Tech’s schedule looks a lot like many C-USA teams to this point in the season: a couple of close conference wins, a shootout with Houston Baptist, and blowout losses to Marshall and BYU. Perhaps we should give some credit to Skip Holtz’s team for managing to win four of their seven games thus far while not looking especially good at any particular aspect of the game.

More: LA Tech Press Conference Quotes and Practice Notes

They’re dead last in the conference in rushing offense, with a paltry 2.8 yards per carry (that only rises to 3.7 without sacks). They’re second in passing yards per game, but average just 6.7 YPA and have been shuffling back and forth between Luke Anthony (176 attempts) and Aaron Allen (75). Overall, they’re 11th in C-USA in yards per play on offense and eighth on defense.

Their best win of the season thus far is their most recent game against UAB, which they pulled out in double overtime, 37–34. UAB is probably the best team in C-USA West and second behind Marshall in the conference as a whole, so that’s a great win—but results can be deceiving. The Blazers outgained the Bulldogs by a significant margin on both a total and per-play basis and had three turnovers to Louisiana Tech’s one.

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In fact, per ESPN’s Bill Connelly, the victory over UAB was the sixth-lowest postgame win expectancy by a winning team this season*. Postgame win expectancy is a metric Bill creates by looking at the in-game stats which correlate most strongly with winning (success rates, explosive plays, and so on), then projecting a winner based only on those stats. While a game’s outcome is all that matters in the standings, for predicting a team’s performance going forward, you have to take a deeper look, beyond the final score.

*As you can see in the tweet, their earlier win over Southern Miss was the fifth-least likely win of the season. The Bulldogs are fortunate to be 4–3 instead of 2–5.

Still, it’s not wise to take any opponent lightly in this conference. So we’ll take a closer look at a play from each side of the ball in the aforementioned win over UAB to show how the Bulldogs can be dangerous.

On defense, one thing the Louisiana Tech defense does well is get picks. They’re tied for the conference lead in interceptions and have scored twice on pick-sixes, including the play we’re looking at.

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