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Rice Football players add to 2021 preseason honors

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A host of Rice football players were named to all-conference lists this offseason. Here’s a roundup of which publications honored each of the Owls.

Preseason magazines are a staple of the offseason and this summer is no different. Among those annual publications, a Rice football was featured prominently among Conference USA all-conference teams.

There will also be a few Owls included in our preseason all-conference teams in the 2021 Rice Football Season Preview, scheduled to be released on July 7. Stay tuned for more information on that front.

For the time being, here’s the rundown of each honoree and which honors they received:

Shea Baker, OL
  • Phil Steele’s All-Conference USA First Team Offense
  • Athlon Sports’ All-Conference USA Second Team Offense
Jake Bailey, PR/AR
  • Phil Steele’s All-Conference USA Fourth Team Special Teams
  • Athlon Sports’ All-Conference USA Third Team Offense
De’Braylon Carrol, DT
  • Athlon Sports’ All-Conference USA Second Team Defense
Treshawn Chamberlain, LB
  • Dave Campbell’s All-Texas Second Team Defense
  • Phil Steele’s All-Conference USA Second Team Defense
  • Athlon Sports’ All-Conference USA Third Team Defense
Elijah Garcia, DT
  • Phil Steele’s All-Conference USA Third Team Defense
Jordan Myers, AP
  • Phil Steele’s All-Conference USA Second Team Offense
  • Athlon Sports’ All-Conference USA First Team Offense
Bradley Rozner, WR
  • Dave Campbell’s All-Texas Second Team Offense
  • Athlon Sports’ All-Conference USA Third Team Offense
Trey Schuman, DE
  • Phil Steele’s All-Conference USA Third Team Defense
Clay Servin, OL
  • Athlon Sports’ All-Conference USA Fourth Team Offense
George Nyakwol, Saf
  • Phil Steele’s All-Conference USA Fourth Team Defense
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Rice Football 2021 Spring Ball Review: Defense

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The Rice football spring practices are complete. What did we learn about the defense and where does it stand entering the summer?

There wasn’t much mystery with the Rice football defense entering spring practices. The Owls finished the 2020 regular season ranked 12th nationally in scoring defense and returned the vast majority of their starters and depth. Beyond filling an open spot at linebacker, spring was about tidying up loose ends and building depth. From the line to the secondary, here’s where each position group ended up.

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Rice Football: 2021 Spring Practice Depth Chart takeaways

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The first Rice football practices are in the books. This is the first of several updates of how the Owls are looking on the grass.

Rice football announced its spring roster in mid-February. Two new coaches, including new offensive coordinator Marques Tuiasosopo, were introduced on Tuesday. In between those events, the Owls kicked off spring practice.

The 15 sessions are scheduled to run throughout the month of March with the spring game set for April 2. Last year’s practices were halted abrupted when COVID-19 restrictions thrust all sports into an unexpected halt. With precautions in place, Rice expects to not only finish but continue to improve during this year’s spring practices.

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2021 Rice Football initial spring depth chart

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There’s a lot to unpack here. How those players look on the field and what sort of movement we could see over the next few weeks will be covered in the next post. On this occasion, we’ll dive into the most important takeaways from the initial layout of the depth chart.

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Shutout and Shutdown: Rice football stuns undefeated Marshall

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On a chilly Saturday morning, Rice Football stunned the college football world, knocking off an undefeated, ranked Marshall squad on the road.

For the first time since 1995, Rice football pitched a shutout. On that day 25 years ago, Rice blanked UNLV 38-0. Fast-forward to 2020 where the Owls have now held No. 15 Marshall off the scoreboard in the biggest win of the Mike Bloomgren era. Marshall had never been shut out at Joan C. Edwards Stadium. Now they have.

The last time Rice shutout a ranked opponent? October 22, 1960, when they beat No. 16 Texas, 7-0.

In some ways, the 2020 Owls’ 20-0 win over a ranked Marshall team came out of nowhere. But for those watching the program quietly add talent and take the right steps, it served as validation for three years of hard work. There will be plenty more to unpack from this win in the days to come, for now, a few immediate reactions from the Owls’ big win.

Playing against the odds

Rice had lost its last 32 games against ranked opponents entering their game against Marshall. If that wasn’t enough to qualify as adversity, the absences of quarterback Mike Collins, wide receiver Austin Trammell and linebacker Antonio Montero upped the challenge by a significant margin.

Depending on where you looked, Rice was somewhere between a 21 and a 25 point underdog on Saturday. They weren’t expected to keep it close, let alone contend. Surprise.

When the deck is stacked against you to that degree, you need two things: execution and luck. Rice got both on Saturday. They kept Marshall quarterback Grant Wells off balance from the start, forcing five interceptions.

On the luck front, they were extremely fortunate to receive the latest flag I’ve ever seen throw on a fake punt attempt. Charlie Mendes caught the snap and threw a deep shot down the left sideline. The ball fell to the turf, primarily because the Marshall defender was mugging the would-be Rice receiver. Initially, no flag was thrown, but after a brief conference, the officials changed their minds. Rice got three points off the reversal, extending their lead to two scores, 10-0.

A questionable fumble call against Jake Bailey in the second half and a missed field goal were two of the unluckier moments for the Owls, but for the most part, Rice took advantage of their opportunities and left themselves enough breathing room to overcome those obstacles.

Dominant defense sets the tone

Despite the odds, Rice was not intimidated. They did just about everything right to engineer the upset.

The Owls held on fourth down on Marshall’s opening possession. The forced turnover on downs marked the 13th consecutive game in which Rice had kept their opponent scoreless on their opening drive. Check.

They extended the defensive success by controlling the clock on offense and shutting out Marshall in the first quarter. Rice has yet to allow a point in the first quarter this season. Check.

You could tell the physicality and the effort was different. The defense featured a few creative blitz combinations, but for the most part, it was a strong game from the Rice defensive line against a vaunted Marshall offensive line.

Bloomgren said Marshall’s biggest strength was their ability to line up and “whip the dude in front of them”. Rice just didn’t let that happen. Quite the opposite, in fact. In every phase of the game, Rice football whipped Marshall.

If the play-to-play grind wasn’t enough, safety Naeem Smith delivered the knockout blow in his first action of the season, putting Rice ahead 20-0 on this pick-six.

Rice had six interceptions in 12 games last season. Blaze Alldredge, Josh Pearcy, Andrew Bird, Treshawn Chamberlain and Smith each had a pick on Saturday against a quarterback that had only thrown four in seven games this season.

Special, special teams

Rice muffed three punts in their first three games and suffered the infamous quadruple-doink against Middle Tennessee. That phase of the game had thwarted the Owls’ chances this season. Against Marshall, they were crucial to the Owls’ success.

Collin Riccitelli converted two of three field goals. Mendes’ execution of the fake punt pass set Rice up for a score. Mendes pinned Marshall deep on one of his few punts of the day. Then, with Marshall backed up in their own endzone, Bailey returned a punt to the Marshall to the Marshall 27 to set up another score.

The coverage units were lights out. When they did punt, Mendes was masterful. Apart from a missed field goal, this unit played some of their best football of the entire season.

Signature win

Months ago when we thought Rice football would be playing a full 12 game season, a bowl game was set as the expectation for this team. If the Owls could achieve that it would be proof the team was making progress and heading in the right direction.

When that schedule was scrapped, the means of evaluating progress became much more challenging. For one, we didn’t know how many games Rice would play this year. We didn’t know who those games would be against. And we didn’t know which players Rice would have. Losing Brad Rozner to an injury before the Owls first game compounded things even more.

But this win—knocking off a ranked opponent on the road without your starting quarterback and best wide receiver—proves “the process” as Bloomgren likes to call it, is working. Rice just beat the best team in Conference USA. They’ve proved they can do it. Now they need to show that effort and poise consistently.

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Rice Football: Owls fall flat in loss to North Texas

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Rice Football started fast and faded just as quickly as the Owls drop to 1-2 on the season following a road loss to North Texas.

Expectations were high when Rice football finally returned to the gridiron after a two-week delay. The Owls had suffered consecutive postponements following an uplifting 30-6 win at Southern Miss, snuffing out any momentum the Owls could have hoped to carry into their game against North Texas.

Rice came out strong and faded fast, resulting in a humbling road loss to North Texas. Here are a few immediate reactions from the game.

Messy, messy, messy

Rice fumbled FOUR times in the first half. That’s an inexcusable turnover count for a full game, let alone the first 30 minutes of action. The mistakes turned what looked to be a runaway day for the Rice offense into an ugly slugfest against what began as a flailing North Texas attack.

The Owls’ lost one fumble in the redzone. Soon after, Mike Collins put a ball behind Jake Bailey in the endzone on fourth down. If he throws that in front of Bailey, it’s a 17-0 Rice lead. Instead, North Texas takes over and a 66-yard Jason Bean touchdown run cuts the Rice lead to 10-7. Turnovers plus turnovers on downs put Rice in a bad spot.

The muffed punt was the third instance of the usually sharp Rice special teams unit turning it over in the Owls’ first three games. North Texas fired a line-drive ball toward Austin Trammell, who was hit immediately upon fielding the ball, almost as if he didn’t expect the quick contact. Again, North Texas capitalized, with a go-ahead touchdown on the ensuing possession.

The offense has looked good. But if they can’t eliminate the self-inflicted mistakes, it’s not going to matter. That goes for the special teams too, who saw an 80+ yard punt return touchdown called back by an uncharacteristic penalty.

The offensive line meets its match

Through their first two games, the Rice offensive line had played extremely well. Ball carriers weren’t getting hit in the backfield and Mike Collins was given clean pockets to work. There were plenty of instances of those things against North Texas, but the frequency of open spaces significantly lessened.

North Texas defensive tackle Dion Novil was a monster. His power on the interior of the line seemed to catch the Owls off guard. He routinely impacted Collins in the pocket, highlighted by an impressive sequence at the end of the first half. He pushed the center into Collins on the second-to-last play of the game to force a hurried throw. Novil then followed up with an unblocked sack on the following play to end the half.

Rice has held up well against powerful interior rushers before. They’ve seen plenty over the past several seasons. They were just flat out beat up front. That left Rice throwing into pressure against a shallow zone all day.

The secondary is going to be alright

Rice received good news this week with the return of Kirk Lockhart, Treshawn Chamberlain, and Andrew Bird. Adding the extra experience was a huge boost to a unit that had been up and down to start the season.

The Owls needed all their reinforcements, and then some. Starting corner Tre’shon Devones was not on the field to start the second half.

When Miles McCord was being attended to on the sideline following a diving attempt, reserve corner Chris Boudreaux, who converted from wide receiver, was forced into the game in the redzone. Naturally, the ball was quickly thrown his way, but he held his ground and helped Rice force a quick field goal. McCord and Bird were both on the field to finish the game.

Not silent, but flat

The Rice offense had been dynamite early on this season. Rice entered the North Texas game coming off back-to-back 30+ point performances. It seemed clear that the offense was better than it had been in the past, but it was hard to christen them good without at least one more game of data.

They came out sharp against North Texas, but mistakes and the shaky performance on the offensive line proved this unit still has some work to do before they make the jump. This touchdown from Collins to Trammell proved how good the unit can be when they’re clicking:

But the inability to solve the North Texas defense proved more troublesome. After the Owls’ hot start, North Texas deployed basically the same scheme. They kept defenders near the box, crashing the line on run plays and dropping them into a zone if the Owls passed. Rice wasn’t able to solve that wrinkle, and they paid for it dearly.

The blueprint is out now for the rest of Conference USA. Rice is going to see this defensive style deployed against them again. They’ll have to be ready.

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