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The latest of the Rice Football coaching search

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No offers have been made, but the end is in sight as Rice football continues its search for its next head football coach.

It was reported Monday morning that Yale’s Tony Reno had emerged as the favorite to be named the next head coach of Rice Football. While The Roost can confirm Reno is among the finalists for the job, no formal offer has yet been made, and it’s still within the realm of possibility the Owls go elsewhere in their search.

At this time the candidate pool has been trimmed and Reno is just one of the names in the mix. The other candidates are have emerged from an extensive national search that began following the firing of Mike Bloomgren several weeks ago.

Reno fits a profile the Owls are seriously exploring with these finalists. They want a program builder with head coaching experience who has a winning tradition. Several rising coordinators were initially tossed into the consideration set among national reporters, but this is not the direction Rice intends to go at this time.

This report surfacing when it did further clarifies the narrowing time horizon with which Rice has to make this hire. The Early Signing Period opens December 4 and Rice would prefer to have a candidate in place at that time but the situation remains fluid.

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Rice Football 2024 Game Preview: USF

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Rice football is set for Senior Day and their final game of the 2024 season where they’ll host South Florida. How to watch, key stats, x-factor picks and more.

Any hopes of a five-win bowl berth for Rice football were squashed last weekend in a one-sided loss to UAB on the road. The Owls’ upcoming opponent, South Florida, faired much better, defeating Tulsa for their sixth win of the season to clinch a spot in the postseason ranks. Here’s everything you need to know about the matchup between Rice and USF.

Kickoff time | 1:00 PM CT
Venue | Rice Stadium – Houston, TX
TV | ESPN+ (Viewing Guide)
Radio | Varsity Radio App (Online)

Audio / Visual Preview

We’ll preview Rice football vs USF on this week’s episode of the Blue and Gray Preview Show, kicking off live on Wednesday on the Rice Athletics YouTube channel. Look for a recap of the game on the site afterward as well as on The Roost Podcast, which should be released early next week.

Sizing up the contenders

Rice football is playing for pride at this point. Led by an interim head coach with a roster full of seniors set to be recognized before the game, the Owls are hoping to end the final game of the Mike Bloomgren era on a high note. On the other side, South Florida hopes to build some momentum as they prepare for a second consecutive bowl season under Alex Golesh.

Series History

All Time | USF leads, 1-0
Last Five | USF leads, 1-0
Last Meeting | Away 2023, USF won 48-29

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Rice Football Stat Notables

Passing | Warner – 245/397 (61.7 percent), 2280 yards, 14 TD, 13 INT /  Devillier 2038 (52.6 percent), 137 yards, 0 TD, 0 INT
Rushing | Connors – 142 carries, 740 yards (5.2 yards per carry), 8 TD / Jackson- 43 carries, 235 yards (5.5 yards per carry), 0 TD
Receiving | Sykes – 58 receptions, 664 yards (11.4 yds/rec), 5 TD / Campbell – 29 receptions, 320 yards (11.0 yds/rec), 1 TD / Connors – 58 receptions, 394 yards (6.8 yds/rec), 1 TD
Tackles | Morris – 55, Taylor – 54, Awe/Hook- 46
Pass Breakups | Fresch – 9, Ahoia – 6, Taylor -5
Interceptions | Taylor/Flowers – 2, Fresch/Williams/Mutombo – 1

USF Stat Notables

Passing | Archie – 129/220 (58.6 percent), 1452 yards, 8 TD, 8 INT
Rushing | Joiner Jr. – 101 carries, 747 yards (7.4 yards per carry), 11 TD / Wright – 98 carries, 459 yards (4.7 yards per carry), 6 TD
Receiving | Atkins – 61 receptions, 567 yards (9.3 yds/rec), 1 TD / Brown-Stephens – 22 receptions, 294 yards (13.4 yds/rec), 3 TD / Porter – 24 receptions, 200 yards (8.3 yds/rec), 0 TD
Tackles | Harris – 65, Pettway – 54, Byard – 49
Pass Breakups | Austin – 9, Rucker/Knox – 5, Banks – 3
Interceptions | Austin/Ward/Schuler – 2, Five tied with one

USF X-Factor | In Archie we trust

Things got dark for South Florida when quarterback Byrum Brown went down midseason. It took the Bulls a while to get back on their feet and rekindle the offense, but backup quarterback Bryce Archie has been integral to that turnaround.

Archie completed 53.7 percent of his passes in his start against Memphis and has increased his completion percentage in each subsequent game until it fell for the first time from 68.8 percent against Charlotte to 67.7 percent last week against Tulsa in a rout, his first 300-yard game with the Bulls this year. If he stays locked in and gets this offense back up to it’s lofty standards USF will be hard to beat.

Rice X-Factor | Hold onto the ball

Rice turned the ball over four times against UAB and lose by four scores. The math doesn’t always work out quite like that, but it speaks to how slim the margins are for this team right now. The Owls fumbled the ball away in the second quarter when the game was still within a field goal margin. But three interceptions in a span of five drives doomed any chance of the Owls making this a competitive game.

UAB was only forced to perform one extended scoring drive after the first quarter last week. South Florida has proven their offense is capable of more than that. Spotting them any extra chances will take an already tall order and make it even more challenging.

If Rice can protect the ball and play complimentary football they’ve proven themselves able to hang with even the best of the best in the AAC. If they can’t this one might be over quickly.

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One Final Thing

Is it too cliche to call this coming Rice football game the end of an era? Perhaps. But it many ways the Owls will be closing the door on Mike Bloomgren’s tenure for good and opening themselves up to the great unknown. The Owls are in the midst of a coaching search — more on that front coming, hopefully, soon for our Patreon subscribers — and once that is finalized, new era will indeed be upon us.

However, there is still one more game to be played.

The seniors playing in their final game put every ounce of effort into building this program from humble begins. To reach back-to-back bowl games was no small feat from where they started. And while it’s fair to be disappointed with the results this year, it’s hard to look at this class and these players with anything but gratitude for the groundwork they laid for what’s next.

This group proved that winning is possible here in the current climate of college football. They proved a program like Rice can go toe-to-toe with the best of the AAC and take them to the brink. What’s to say a new voice and renewed investment won’t be the catalyst to get the program to that next step?

Those answers will come in time. Right now, everyone inside the Brian Patterson Center is focused on one thing: beating South Florida. It sure would be a nice way to go out.

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Rice Football bottoms out in loss to UAB

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Rice Football never got into gear on the road against UAB, sputtering in all three phases in a loss to the two-win Blazers.

The much-maligned Trent Dilfer won the day on Saturday, earning a lopsided win over a listless Rice Football squad that never found its way. “I don’t think we played the game I felt we were going to play,” interim head coach Pete Alamar said. “I don’t think how we played matched how we practiced. I thought we practiced well.”

The loss adds to the pain of an underwhelming season that has gone so far awry. Here are a few immediate reactions from the game:

Out of Sync

UAB took a 14-7 lead early in the first quarter on the back of two plays. The first was a 90-yard kick return that set the Blazers up inside the five-yard line for a one-play touchdown drive. The next, a 48-yard touchdown run, came on the ensuing drive.

Six of the Blazers’ next seven plays went for first downs. The Rice football defense has been the backbone of this program all season long, if not longer. To see them struggle so severely was jarring, especially coming off the bye. Add on a fumble from tight end Elijah Mojarro and a picture began to form of a team that just wasn’t all on the same page.

To an extent, the apparent mental haze is understandable. This is a team coming off a bye with an interim head coach with two games left to play before an increasingly uncertain future begins might not have been as locked in as they’d been in previous weeks. These are human beings, after all.

Rice floundered even when handed 30 yards via penalties and set up with a first down at the three-yard line. Warner tossed his second interception of the day soon after, a 99-yard pick six that put Rice in a two-score hole at the break.

This running scheme is broken

This is probably a moot point with a coaching change looming, but the lack of rushing production from this team has been one of the most unexpected mysteries of the season. UAB entered this game dead last in the AAC in rush defense allowing 230 yards per game on the ground. And it wasn’t just some bad days against option teams. This run defense was actively bad.

Yet, Rice tallied 35 rushing yards in the first half en route to 115 total yards rushing in the contest. Game script wasn’t the reason the Owls weren’t able to run the football. They’re just not set up to do so, a mind-melting reality when one considers the years of talk of Intellectual Brutality and “pounding the rock”.

The lack of a running game has put more pressure on EJ Warner. While Warner has been better of late, there aren’t many offenses in the country that get better when they throw everything onto the back of their quarterback and ask them to be Superman each and every play.

Regardless of how things got to this point, this reality isn’t sustainable. It’s probably fitting the program will be forced to go back to the drawing board and find a new solution on offense this offseason.

Flashes of (Defensive) Brilliance

Even though turnovers have largely eluded them, the Rice football defense has been one of the better chaos-creating units in the conference this season. Rice entered this game second in the conference in sacks per game and fourth in tackles for loss per game.

Gabe Taylor picked up the Owls first sack of the afternoon, exploding off the edge and knocking the ball out in the process.

Plays like this have enabled this unit to thrive. Even when the ball doesn’t come out, putting the opposing offense in second-and-long and third-and-long situations has largely paid off.

That aggressiveness proved to be an important tone-setter early in the second-half, too. A five yard tackle for a loss by Ty Flowers helped secure a quick three-and-out, giving the Owls’ offense another chance to wake up. It’s not the defenses fault the offense

Just one more

Over the past month, sources confirmed to The Roost that Rice football was prepared to accept a bowl berth should they qualify under the five-win APR exception. That’s how the Owls made their first bowl trip under head coach Mike Bloomgren.

It won’t be in play this year. The loss to UAB in Birmingham on Saturday was the eighth loss of the season for program, officially closing the door on any bowl hopes, however faint they might have been.

Alamar said that although there was an understanding what this loss meant for those bowl hopes, he did not directly address it with the team postgame. “There was a ton of reasons to come out here and play well and win this game,” he said. “We did not play well enough to win.”

Instead of playing for a miracle against South Florida next weekend, Rice will officially be ending an era. The program will honor its seniors who helped raise the floor of this program from a one-win team to a consistently competitive force will be thanked. At the same time, Rice will be eagerly awaiting a new leader.

Whoever this new head coach will be, he’ll be tasked with achieving what Bloomgren was never able to do here at South Main: find the ceiling.

Digging Deeper

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A Salute to Dean Connors

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Rice Football: Behind enemy lines with a UAB Insider

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UAB is next up on the 2024 Rice football schedule so we’re going behind enemy lines with Blazers’ insider Evan Dudley from AL.com.

Blazers’ insider Evan Dudley of AL.com was kind enough to stop by and answer a few questions about the upcoming matchup between Rice Football and UAB. The answers below should shed some light on the Owls’ upcoming opponent.

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Rice Football 2024: Bye Week 2 Practice Report

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Rice football has two games left in the regular season and UAB is next on the docket. Here’s what we learned from the Owls at practice this week.

After a lighter week of work on the practice field last week, Rice football returned to work in earnest this week following the bye. A relatively healthy group, all things considered, should be close to full strength for this final two-game set of the regular season. Here’s where the team stands prior to the UAB game this weekend.

More: Rice Football Head Coaching Search — Names to Know ($)
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Offensive line opportunity

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