The source for Rice sports news

Rice Football 2020 Team MVP: Austin Trammell

By

Team captain Austin Trammell broke records and more than earned the selection for our 2020 Rice Football Team MVP.

Austin Trammell didn’t touch the football in the first two quarters of the Owls’ season opener against Middle Tennessee. In the third quarter of that game, he hauled in his first catch, an eight-yard touchdown reception. From that moment onward, he was a touchdown machine, an unquenchable spark plug for the Rice offense.

It was Trammell on the receiving end of Mike Collins’ fourth down heave in the final minute of regulation. It was Trammell again, on the very next pass, racing into the endzone for the go ahead score. Who else would the Collins hit on the two-point conversion that followed? Once more, it was Trammell.

When Rice needed a play, Trammell produced. After watching how much the star receiver impacted the game down the stretch against Middle Tennessee, wide receiver’s coach Mike Kershaw stated the obvious in the days following the game: “He needs to be more involved.”

The next time Rice took the field, Trammell was more than involved, he was the centerpiece of the Rice offense. He caught three touchdowns against Southern Miss, torching the entire secondary down the sideline for a 72-yard score. He found the paydirt again in the first quarter of the Owls’ third game against North Texas. In the span of seven quarters, from the end of the first game to the beginning of the third, he scored six times.

Entering the season, Trammell has scored seven times in 37 career games, a rate of roughly one touchdown every five or so games. In 2020, he averaged two touchdowns per game. After looking the part in fall camp, he delivered jaw-dropping performances from the gridiron stage every Saturday.

Then, almost out of nowhere, the show stopped.

Trammell suffered an injury against North Texas that prevented kept him out of the Owls’ final two games. When accounting for one defensive score, an offense that averaged 27 points per game with him on the field scored 14.5 points per game with him on the sideline. If the MVP belongs to the team’s most valuable player, it’s hard to argue for anyone else other than the Owls’ team captain and leading touchdown man.

His shortened 2020 season propelled him further up several of the program’s all-time lists. He’s eighth all-time in receiving touchdowns. He’s the ninth Owl with 3,000 all-purpose yards. His six touchdown receptions in a single season were the most since Jordan Taylor caught seven in 2014, and it took Taylor 10 games to reach that mark. Trammell did it in three. The spark he brought to the offense was undeniable.

Trammell first earned a starting job in his sophomore season. He caught 62 passes that year, following that with a 60 catch performance as a junior. His 16 receptions this year, when averaged against a typical 12-game season, put him on pace for 62 receptions. To some extent, his usage was on par with what it had been in the past. In reality, though, how he was targeted took a significant step further down the field.

After averaging 10.2 and 12.1 yards per reception in 2018 and 2019, respectively, Trammell averaged 20.9 yards per catch in 2020. No player in Conference USA averaged more. In fact, he and North Texas wideout Jaelon Darden were the only players in the conference to average at least 15 yards per reception and catch at least five touchdowns. Trammell wasn’t just a deep threat. He was a bonafide playmaker.

Even though he wasn’t playing, Trammell was present in the final weeks of practice and game prep. He mentored Jake Bailey and the younger wide receivers, conversing with them in between drills and providing pointers along the way. Just as he had done when he missed spring practices as he rehabbed from a separate injury, he found a way to lead the team from the sideline.

The narrative of who Austin Trammell was as a player changed in 2020. He went from a reliable slot man to a legitimate weapon. No matter where he goes from here, he’ll always have his place in Rice football history.

For a limited time, get two months free with an annual subscription to The Roost.
Become a Patron!
Subscribe on Patreon for exclusive Rice football recruiting updates, practice notes and more.

Recent Posts

The Roost Podcast | Ep 68 – The Roosties, Rice Football Awards

By

The 2020 Rice Football is complete. Carter and Matthew look back at the year and hand out The Roosties, season-long superlatives for top players and plays.

It’s been a wild ride, but the 2020 Rice Football season has reached its conclusion. In addition to the more conventional awards — Team MVP, Offensive Newcomer of the Year, Special Teams Player of the Year, etc — we’ve taken some creative liberties with our second annual edition of The Roosties.

You can always find previous episodes on the podcast page. For now, give a listen to Episode 68.

Episode Notes

  • The Roost Postseason Survey — Thank you to all who have followed the podcast or the website this season. The journey has been a fun one and we’ve been glad to be here every step of the way. But we want to get better, too. Let us know what you liked and what you didn’t in this brief survey. Thanks!
  • Housekeeping — Don’t miss this opportunity to subscribe on Patreon. Get two months free when you subscribe to an annual membership today. There’s a lot more in store for this football program, including all our Early Signing Period content. Get the scoop on the Owls’ 2021 class and more now.
    Become a Patron!
  • The Roosties – The second annual edition of our Rice football postseason award shows, The Roosties highlight some of our favorite players, moments and stories from the 2020 season. Tune in for the following awards:
    • Favorite Play
    • Player You Were Most Wrong About
    • Most Improved Unit
    • Play/Game You Most Want to Redo
    • Player You’ll Miss the Most
    • Out of Nowhere Star
    • Most Valuable Transfer
    • Best Block
    • Most Dominant Game
    • Player You’re Most Looking Forward to in 2020

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.

Subscribe on Patreon for exclusive Rice football recruiting updates, practice notes and more.

Recent Posts

The Roost’s 2020 Rice Football Season Superlatives

By

The Roost’s 2020 Rice Football Season Superlatives exist to honor exceptional Owls who made a difference on the field this season. Here’s the complete list.

There were many individual performances worth recognizing in the 2020 Rice Football season. In addition to the more traditional awards below, make sure to check out The Roosties, the second annual award show from The Roost Podcast, which features a different angle of honors. From our favorite plays to the players we were most wrong about in the preseason, we cover some of the more creative superlatives on the show.

Defensive Newcomer of the Year — CB Miles McCord

Full Story: Defensive Newcomer of the Year Award

Excerpt: “McCord’s rise is a feel good story. He’s another junior college player turned into a Conference USA mainstay by this coaching staff. But more than anything, he kept an elite defense operating at the same level through a year flush with challenges. When Rice needed someone to hold the line, McCord stepped in and elevated the play of those around him. The Owls will be glad to have him patrolling the boundary for years to come.”

Offensive Newcomer of the Year — RB Khalan Griffin

Full Story: Offensive Newcomer of the Year Award

Excerpt: “Rice had the No. 3 rushing defense in the conference this fall.  One player surpassed 100 yards on the ground against the Owls all season. Preseason all-conference rusher Brenden Knox averaged a meager 3.8 yards per carry on 20 attempts, tallying 76 yards against the stout Rice front seven. Griffin had more than double that after initial contact in his first padded scrimmage. The bar had been set.”

Rising Star — WR Jake Bailey

Full Story: Rising Star Award

Excerpt: “Bailey was gritty and dependable. He was effective at all levels of the field, and he did it with his head down, ready and willing to work. The box scores in a shortened season don’t boast overwhelming totals. The negated plays that were inches away from going the other way don’t help the numbers either. But the player that Bailey became was irrevocably better than the version of himself he was the year prior. And he looked pretty good then.”

Special Team’s Player of the Year — P Charlie Mendes

Full Story: Special Team’s Player of the Year Award

Excerpt: “As good as Rice has been on special teams in three years under head coach Mike Bloomgren, it hasn’t been nearly as smooth of a ride at any other facet of the third phase. Rice muffed punts in three consecutive games this year. Place kicking was good, albeit with a few notable, painful bad bounces. The Owls’ only return touchdown was called back via penalty. But punting, punting was never a problem. Because of Mendes.”

Defensive Player of the Year — LB Blaze Alldredge

Full Story: Defensive Player of the Year

Excerpt: “Boiled down to its core, Alldredge was a culture builder for a program in desperate need of a reformed identity. The defense allowed 36.0 points per game in Alldredge’s first season. This year the Owls surrendered 18.8 points per game. From one extreme to the other. It doesn’t really matter which statistic you pick, Alldredge made the defense better.”

Offensive Player of the Year — QB Mike Collins

Full Story: Offensive Player of the Year

Excerpt: “His 10 passing touchdowns in three games were the most in the first three Conference USA games of any quarterback in school history. He was efficient, leading the offense to 30+ points in two of his three appearances, a scoring total the Owls had only reached twice in their previous 25 games. His final outing came on the road against North Texas. Rice would lose, but Collins would throw for 300 yards for his first time as an Owl.”

Team MVP — WR Austin Trammell

Full Story: Team MVP

Excerpt: “The next time Rice took the field, Trammell was more than involved, he was the centerpiece of the Rice offense. He caught three touchdowns against Southern Miss, torching the entire secondary down the sideline for a 72-yard score. He found the paydirt again in the first quarter of the Owls’ third game against North Texas. In the span of seven quarters, from the end of the first game to the beginning of the third, he scored six times.”

Subscribe on Patreon for exclusive Rice football recruiting updates, practice notes and more.

Recent Posts

Rice Football 2020 Defensive Player of the Year: Blaze Alldredge

By

Linebacker Blaze Alldredge set a new standard at South Main. The Owls’ captain is our pick for Rice Football Defensive Player of the Year.

The story of how Blaze Alldredge came to be a Rice Owl is a good one, but the impact he’s had on the Rice football program is a legacy still being written.

As he describes it, head coach Mike Bloomgren and Rice football took “a chance on a junior college guy with zero offers out of high school.” A late addition to the 2019 signing class turned into one of the most impressive resumes of any linebacker to walk between the hedges on South Main—and there have been some great ones.

Alldredge first received the call to start on the road against Southern Miss in 2018. He led the team in tackles and had the Owls’ first interception of the year in that game, the fourth contest of the season. But the defense still surrendered 40 points and the Owls lost the game. A fill-in role for an injured man above him on the depth chart turned soon led to his name being inked in permanent marker among the defensive starters.

In almost a perfect juxtaposition of past and present, Alldredge also had an interception in his last road start, coming this fall in Huntington, WV against previously unbeaten No. 15 Marshall. Once more, Alldredge led the team in tackles, but this time the end result was much different. Not only did the defense not allow a single point, they scored a touchdown of their own, courtesy of Alldredge’s roommate Naeem Smith on a pick six.

Alldredge will tell you himself that he’s come a long way from that first start against Southern Miss. The accolades that follow him reinforce that growth. A first-team All-Conference USA selection this year, Alldredge was also on every preseason watch list he qualified for. It didn’t matter who you asked, Alldredge was and is the best of the best.

The only naysayer, to any degree, would probably have been himself. “I just wish I coulda given them more,” he said following his senior season.

What he did give, was impressive. Alldredge finished the 2020 season third in Conference USA in tackles per game. He had at least a share of a tackle for a loss in his last 16 games played, dating back to last year when he finished second in the nation with 21.5 tackles for a loss. He was the heart of the Rice defense, and at the same time, he was the arms, legs, feet and just about everything else. There wasn’t anywhere on the field Alldredge couldn’t be and there wasn’t any job he wouldn’t do.

A team captain, Alldredge’s impact well beyond the field. In the preseason, linebackers coach Scott Vestal said having Alldredge in meetings was “almost like having another coach in the room.” Vestal praised the Alldredge’s inquisitiveness and forward-thinking nature. A student and a teacher, Alldredge would routinely quiz and council young players and help them understand the scheme. He found all the little ways to make the team better.

Boiled down to its core, Alldredge was a culture builder for a program in desperate need of a reformed identity. The defense allowed 36.0 points per game in Alldredge’s first season. This year the Owls surrendered 18.8 points per game. From one extreme to the other. It doesn’t really matter which statistic you pick, Alldredge made the defense better.

“Plays that would have rattled us before,” Alldredge noted, “That doesn’t happen anymore. We have a lot more confidence.” Call it confidence; call it consistency. Call it whatever you’d like to. The net result is a defense that looks entirely different than the unit Alldredge stepped into.

Rice made tremendous strides on defense thanks to Alldredge’s leadership. But in his mind, the bar has been elevated. “In terms of what I’ve accomplished at Rice. I think that that’s going to be best reflected by what happens in the years to come,” he said, following the end of the 2020 season. “I think that we have a really talented linebacker room, we have guys that hopefully, in a couple of years, make you forget about Blaze Alldredge.”

Forget about Blaze Alldredge? Not a chance.

For a limited time, get two months free with an annual subscription to The Roost.
Become a Patron!
Subscribe on Patreon for exclusive Rice football recruiting updates, practice notes and more.

Recent Posts

Rice Football 2020 Offensive Player of the Year: Mike Collins

By

Mike Collins impressed in limited action, doing more than enough to be named our 2020 Rice Football Offensive Player of the Year.

Rice football did a lot of things well in the first two years under head coach Mike Bloomgren. Consistency at the quarterback position remained squarely on the “work in progress” side of the ledger. The Owls had gone through at least three quarterbacks in each season with no sure-fire answer heading into their 2020 campaign. Enter Mike Collins.

When he arrived on campus, Collins was a relative unknown. A grad transfer from TCU who played his high school ball in Connecticut, Collins was the Owls’ third graduate transfer at the position in three years under Bloomgren. His resume included a couple of Big 12 games and coaches were hopeful.

Collins tracked a step to two ahead of redshirt freshmen JoVoni Johnson through a shortened spring and delayed fall camp. He looked the part. Then, shortly after a day of practice in which he threw zero incompletions all afternoon, he was named the starter. There was a guarded optimism when the season began in earnest in late October against Middle Tennessee. Still, no one was certain what would happen when he took the field for the first time.

Mike Collins completed two of his first 10 passes in a Rice uniform. He threw his only interception as the Owls fell behind 7-6 early in their season opener. Then he settled down and transformed into the passer the coaching staff saw throughout camp. He led the Owls back from a fourth-quarter deficit, delivering a key fourth-down conversion and the go-ahead touchdown pass with seconds remaining.

When the dust settled, Collins had thrown for 242 yards and four touchdowns in his Rice debut. That marked the first time a Rice quarterback had thrown four touchdown passes in a game since Tyler Stehling did so against Prairie View in 2016. It was the first time any Owl had four touchdown passes in a season opener since Chase Clement threw six against SMU in 2008.

The heartbreaking loss was tough to swallow. Still, Collins displayed tremendous resolve when he returned to the field for practice the next week. “There’s so much that we can improve on, especially personally that I can improve on,” he said before his second start, a road game against Southern Miss.

Already in the company of some of the better Rice quarterbacks of the modern era, Collins didn’t slow down. He was spectacular against Southern Miss, completing 12-of-17 passes for 233 yards and another four touchdown passes.

His 10 passing touchdowns in three games were the most in the first three Conference USA games of any quarterback in school history. He was efficient, leading the offense to 30+ points in two of his three appearances, a scoring total the Owls had only reached twice in their previous 25 games. His final outing came on the road against North Texas. Rice would lose, but Collins would throw for 300 yards for his first time as an Owl.

Even with the 1-2 start, everything seemed to be looking up for the Owls, particularly on offense. Then Collins did not return to the field. An undisclosed injury forced Rice to finish the 2020 campaign without their breakthrough star signal caller. JoVoni Johnson would come off the bench an defeat No. 15 Marshall on the road, but the offense never clicked the same way it did when Collins and senior receiver Austin Trammell were both healthy.

No matter where Collins goes from here, his impact on Rice football was significant. He delivered a blueprint for this offense, one that’s had its share of highs and lows. He proved the ceiling for this passing attack is higher than it had been in previous years. That with the right skill set and understanding, a potent offensive attack was possible within this scheme.

Where the Owls turn now, or rather to whom, will forever be seen through the lens of Collins’ accomplishments. Should he chose to do so, Collins would be eligible to return to Rice for the 2021 season. Further clarity on the Owls’ senior class will develop in the coming weeks. No matter what happens next, his three-game 2020 stint will be revered.

Collins ends 2020 as one of two quarterbacks in the nation to throw for 10 touchdowns with one or fewer interceptions. That’s not bad company for an offense that prides itself on pounding the rock.

For a limited time, get two months free with an annual subscription to The Roost.
Become a Patron!
Subscribe on Patreon for exclusive Rice football recruiting updates, practice notes and more.

Recent Posts