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Rice Football 2020 Rising Star: Jake Bailey

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We saw flashes this season, but we’ve only scratched the surface of what 2020 Rice Football Rising Star Jake Bailey will do in his career at South Main.

Jake Bailey’s commitment was announced in the middle of the 2018 Early Signing Period. The Owls’ had already amassed what looked to be a strong class in the months and weeks prior to the faxes rolling in, but the class didn’t have a marquee name just yet. Then Bailey’s signature, and subsequent announcement, became official.

The highest-rated Rice signee under Mike Bloomgren at the time, the two-way athlete was heavily sought after by the offensive and defensive coaches. The offense won out, and Bailey suited up with the wide receivers to begin his Rice career. He worked diligently, learning behind Austin Trammell and Bradley Rozner, two all-conference caliber players.

Before the 2020 season, wide receiver’s coach Mike Kershaw called Bailey “a guy that we’ve got to get on the field more and get him some more touches.” When fall camp eventually commenced, Blomgren himself singled out the young receiver: “Jake Bailey is becoming somebody the quarterbacks trust completely.”

It was hard to go a day at camp without someone mentioning the potential of number 11. Whether a coach or player, everyone was pointing to the work Bailey had done in the offseason and heaping praise and expectations on his shoulders for the season to come.

When the games arrived, Rozner had since been injured and opted out. The rest of the receiving room was riddled with bumps and bruises. Rather than splitting reps with Austin Trammell in the slot, Bailey was forced to the outside. The 5-foot-10 wideout played out of position for almost the entirety of the season. And he still led all wideouts in receptions.

“I feel like my development has been at a good pace,” Bailey said midseason. He’d seen his receptions trend upward in three straight games and scored in consecutive games for the first time in his career.

When Trammell was injured and forced to miss the final two contests, any pretense of easing Bailey into the offense went out the window. He became the go-to guy, setting career-high marks for receptions in back-t0-back weeks. He barely missed out on a touchdown on a goal line stretch against Marshall. A kick return touchdown was taken off the board against North Texas the week prior. Whether the plays counted or not, Bailey became the explosive playmaker the Owls needed.

2020 was meant to be the year the proverbial training wheels came off and Bailey’s potential was realized. When the season played out the way it did, those expectations were strained, but not removed.

With the game on the line against UAB, Bailey was the trusted outlet. He was peppered with targets, almost willing the Owls down the field himself for a hail mary heave.

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.

Still, with only five games played, Bailey and the Rice offense remain somewhat of a mystery. What this unit can be, and what Bailey can help lead it to be, remain an expectant vision. By the time the 2021 season rolls around, Bailey will be entering his third year in the offense. He’ll have 32 receptions, two touchdowns and thousands of reps under his belt. His ceiling is sky-high.

Last year, De’Braylon Carroll earned this award. He delivered on those expectations by becoming a fixture in one of the most disruptive defensive interiors in the conference. He and Elijah Garcia made running the football up the middle a tough sell against some of the most productive rushers they faced.

Bailey’s growth has been notable. His potential remains as high as it’s ever been. The Owls need someone to continue to push the offense to new heights. Bailey can be that guy.

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Rice Football 2020 Special Teams Player of the Year: Charlie Mendes

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Charlie Mendes impressed in his debut season. The redshirt freshmen punter is our 2020 Rice Football Special Teams Player of the Year.

Before former Rice football special teams coordinator Pete Lembo left Houston to take a job with Memphis, he helped secure a commitment from punter Charlie Mendes. The California native was a member of the 2019 recruiting class who elected to come to South Main even though Lembo had moved on. That decision proved fortuitous for the Owls.

Mendes didn’t play a snap during his freshman year. His big leg caught an occasional eye in practice, but the Owls didn’t have need for the newcomer just yet. His time would come, though. After a year of waiting and learning, it was Mendes’ job to lose this spring. Not only did he keep the job, he put together an impressive season. Despite all the challenges that came with the bumpy road the Owls were forced to take, Mendes was steadfast.

When Mendes first stepped foot onto the turf at Rice Stadium in a live game the calendar had already blown past September into late October. Most teams around the country had played several football games, but Rice football was in the midst of their season opener against Middle Tennessee. Mendes took the snap and blasted a 58-yard bomb. Welcome to college, kid.

From that point onward, Mendes has been a fixture on Rice special teams. He averaged 42.8 yards per punt with a long of 59-yards. For those that don’t eat, sleep, and breathe punting statistics, the Owls’ redshirt freshmen punter had a good year. Perhaps not a Ray Guy Award-caliber season, but a surefooted debut in the midst of a season that was anything but normal.

Before the year began, special teams coordinator Drew Svoboda liked what he’d seen from the Owls’ new punter. “He’s got long levers,” he said, “He’s got great biomechanics to punt.” The 58-yarder out of the gate backed up those initial assertions. It also kept any competition from incoming transfer Collin Riccitelli at bay.

Most football fans don’t pay much attention to the punter unless there’s a misstep in a crucial moment. But the reliable foot of Mendes may have gone further under the radar than usual because of the bevy of riches the Owls’ have had at the punter position in recent years.

One of Mendes’ predecessors, Jack Fox, is a Pro Bowl punter in the NFL this season. After taking a redshirt season of his own following a stellar college campaign, Fox continues to wow with his leg. Following Fox at Rice was the tandem of Chris Barnes and Adam Nunez who pulled off one of the more spectacular shared punting seasons in recent memory, splitting the long distance and short-range duties.

And then there’s Mendes, who took over following that lengthy list of successful punting seasons and didn’t miss a beat.

On a per punt basis, Mendes put 42.9 percent of his punts inside the 20-yard line this year. Fox averaged 38 percent such punts during his three-year Rice career. Mendes put one of 21 punts into the endzone for a touchback. Nunez and Barnes had a touchback apiece in 2019. Fox averaged one touchback on roughly every 10 tries, twice the rate of Mendes.

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.

Which brought to mind another conversation with Svoboda following spring practice. “When you’re back there punting in practice,” Svoboda said of Mendes, “a hundred guys seem to be staring at every punt, so it’s pretty easy to gain or lose credibility with your teammates pretty quick as a specialist. He rose to the challenge.”

Both in practice and when the lights turned on, Mendes delivered, again and again. He was named to the Conference USA All-Freshman team for his efforts. If the bar was high, Mendes held it there. The latest in a growing lineage of punters, he’ll have an opportunity to further engrave his place on the list in seasons to come.

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Rice Football 2020 Offensive Newcomer of the Year: Khalan Griffin

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After rising through the ranks and making the most of his opportunity, Khalan Griffin is our 2020 Rice Football Offensive Newcomer of the Year.

A year removed from his first carry as a Rice Owl, Khalan Griffin was on crutches. A leg injury suffered in the first game of his senior season shortened his high school career, but not before he would amass 208 rushing yards, hobbled, in his second game before being shut down.

Touching twice the century mark on one leg was impressive. But it wouldn’t be the last time Griffin fought the odds and compiled an absurd state line. Healed up and back to 100 percent, Griffin hit the ground running at Rice as soon as he could.

He was attentive in preseason Zoom sessions, working to learn an offensive far more complex than any he’d run before. It was tough sledding. When he arrived on campus, he was buried on the depth chart, just like most of his fellow freshmen classmates. But Griffin didn’t stay there.

By way of effort and opportunity, Griffin and fellow freshman running back Kobie Campbell were the only two healthy running backs during the Owls’ first scrimmage of fall camp. That would mean a heavy workload for Griffin, the first big test of his collegiate career.

He carried the ball 32 times that Saturday morning, racking up 247 yards on the ground, 165 of which came after contact. One of the stingiest run defenses in Conference USA was gashed by a true freshman who, admittedly, was still learning the ropes.

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.

Immediately following the big day, head coach Mike Bloomgren opened up his post-practice press conference with comments on Griffin. “Khalan Griffin was dominant again today. It didn’t matter what defense he was going against. It didn’t matter what offensive line was blocking for him. He just found a way to make every run violent,” Bloomgren said. It was high praise for a young player.

Then the games arrived. The backup to starter Juma Otoviano out of the gate, Griffin provided fresh legs in the Owls’ fourth-quarter rally against Middle Tennessee in their season opener. His first carry of the fourth quarter went for 10-yards. Then he exploded for a 20-yard scamper up the gut. Rice would go on to pull within one score following a touchdown pass on that possession.

Two games, and almost a month later, Griffin started his first career game. On the road against North Texas, Griffin ran for 72 yards and caught two passes for 45 yards, surpassing 100 all-purpose yards for the first time in his career. Rice wouldn’t win the game, but the moment wasn’t lost on the grateful freshman.

“I want to start off by saying thank you to my coaches and the whole running back room because without them, I don’t think I’d be standing in front of you today,” Griffin said when asked about his first start. “I also want to give a hats off to Juma [Otoviano], Ari [Broussard], Kobie [Cambpell] and Jawan [King].”

Griffin would lead Rice football in rushing in the abridged 2020 season. He finished second on the team to only Austin Trammell in all-purpose yards. His first collegiate touchdown managed to elude him, despite a first down run against Marshall that was stopped at the one-yard line.

Beyond that, the rest of his freshman campaign went extremely well. Griffin had three starts in five games. He ran for 249 yards and carved out a key role in the offense. His future is bright.

When asked what the pecking order would be in the backfield before the season, Bloomgren was noncommittal. He went as far as to say Griffin “took advantage of an opportunity.” What would transpire in the weeks and months to come was far from decided. Griffin made those decisions easier with his commitment and effort, both on and off the field.

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Rice Football 2020 Defensive Newcomer of the Year: Miles McCord

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Thrust into a starting job, corner Miles McCord made the most of it, earning the title of 2020 Rice Football Defensive Newcomer of the Year.

McCord began his collegiate career at Gold West College in 2018. He was a rotational defensive back that year, but did enough to give himself a chance to play at the D1 level. He joined the Rice football team in May of 2019, shortly before offseason workouts began.

When McCord arrived, he was a work-in-progress player, a guy that wasn’t expected to be in the starting lineup any time soon. He was a depth piece with good athleticism and untapped potential, a raw talent, ready to be molded.

McCord appeared in four games his first season at South Main, primarily playing on special teams. By the time spring ball arrived in 2020, he hadn’t cracked the two-deep. The casual fan wouldn’t have paid much attention to McCord, No. 24, but his coaches noticed.

They noticed his intellect, the way he understood the scheme and where he was supposed to be. They noticed him come off the field during practices, identifying missed assignments and improper reads. By the time fall camp finally came around, McCord had made a tremendous leap from where he was as a late-summer flier more than a year ago.

Meanwhile, transfers and injuries ravaged what was expected to be a rather deep position group. Tyrae Thornton was gone. Collin Whitaker was off the roster. Andrew Bird was hurt. Jason White was hurt. Tre’shon Devones would be in and out of the lineup as he battled injuries of his own. Newcomer Sean Fresch played in one game before missing the rest of the regular season, injured.

At times it felt like McCord was the only man left standing. At times, he was.

“His confidence is growing. He’s mastered the defense,” cornerbacks coach Gerard Wilcher said midway through the season. Wilcher noted that McCord was behaving much more like a veteran in terms of his understanding and communication than the junior college player the Owls’ had initially recruited.

If McCord fell upward into the starting corner job, he didn’t stick there by default. As his teammates returned to practice, almost of all which fall above him in the original pecking order, it was McCord who stayed on the field. McCord was the only corner on the roster to appear in every game the Owls’ played in their abridged 2020 season. No other corner played in more than three. McCord played—and started—every contest.

McCord had the Owls’ first interception of the season, snagging a deflected pass from Southern Miss’ Jack Abraham late in the first quarter of that game. The redzone pick led to a Rice field goal on the ensuing drive, the first points in what would be the Owls’ first win. McCord’s takeaway also played a role in one of the team’s most impressive defensive statistics: Rice allowed zero points in the first quarter all season.

It wasn’t always perfect, but McCord proved himself as a trustworthy starting corner in the bumpiest season he and the Owls will likely ever experience. He had two passes defended along with the interception. His 14 tackles were the most of any corner and the 10th most of any player on the team, an impressive mark for someone who plays as far away from the ball as corners typically do.

But the most impressive contribution McCord produced in 2020 can’t be found on the box score. He was a tremendous asset in coverage, limiting opportunities for opposing offenses. Rice needs true man-on-man cover corners to execute their defensive scheme. The Owls had exhausted all other options. They desperately needed McCord to rise to the occasion. And he did. Again, and again, and again.

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.

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The Roost’s 2019 Rice Football Season Superlatives

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The Roost’s 2019 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 2019 Rice Football season. In addition to the more traditional awards below, make sure to check out The Roosties, the first 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 — DB Naeem Smith

Full Story: Defensive Newcomer of the Year Award

Excerpt: “Smith and the secondary capped off their season with a near-perfect outing against preseason Conference USA Player of the Year Mason Fine on Senior Day. The North Texas quarterback was held without a touchdown pass, in a game in which he attempted at least 15 passes, for the first time since Sep. 16, 2017 at Iowa. Nobody keeps Fine out of the endzone, but Rice football did. And Smith was a crucial piece to that puzzle.”

Offensive Newcomer of the Year — WR Bradley Rozner

Full Story: Offensive Newcomer of the Year Award

Excerpt: “The season was a collection of moments like that for Rozner. He led all of junior college in touchdowns last season. In his first year at Rice, he led the Owls’ pass catchers in scoring, too. Not only did South Main become his home, he proved he belonged on this stage time and time again.”

Rising Star — DT De’Braylon Carroll

Full Story: Rising Star Award

Excerpt: “Carroll’s impact went beyond the boxscore. Those relying on the stat sheet to project how impactful the Rice front seven will be next season are in for a surprise. Carroll will be ready and waiting for his turn. Adams has exhausted his eligibility and moved on. Rice has yet to sign any interior defensive lineman in their most recent recruiting class. The starting job is going to be Carroll’s. If he continues to play at this level he won’t fly under the radar for much longer.”

Special Team’s Player of the Year — LB Garrett Grammer

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

Excerpt: “Humble excellence. That’s pretty much Garrett Grammer in a nutshell. And that’s why this season, despite the string of defeats, has been so rewarding for many on this team. His efforts are the backbone of a team in the progress of pulling itself up by the bootstraps, of a collection of players working their butts off to earn a win, somehow, someway.”

Defensive Player of the Year — DB Treshawn Chamberlain

Full Story: Defensive Player of the Year

Excerpt: “Even with those impressive numbers, it’s hard to quantify the impact a player like Chamerblain had on this defense. The energy he brought to the defense this season went far beyond the x’s and o’s. Some players stay emotionally level from start to finish. Chamberlain is a guy that embraces the intensity of the game, playing with a passion, a swagger that gives him an edge.”

Offensive Player of the Year — RB Aston Walter

Full Story: Offensive Player of the Year

Excerpt: “That career ended in El Paso, Texas on the very field he lost his junior season. This time, instead of accruing another redshirt, Walter went out with a bang. He paced Rice with 149 rushing yards and one touchdown which came from 30 yards out. Things had finally come full circle. A fitting way for a player who’s career had transformed from a part-time role to a core offensive weapon.”

Team MVP — LB Blaze Alldredge

Full Story: Team MVP Award

Excerpt: “Dominant. If one were to describe Blaze Alldredge’s 2019 season in one word, that would be it. This marked the year the JUCO kid from Florida proved he belonged on the big stage. And not just belonged, that he was the Alpha on the field, patrolling the hash marks and ready to take on any challenger who dared run his direction.”

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