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Game notes
Time and date: Saturday, August 31 at 7:00 p.m. ET
Network: ESPN+
Location: Rice Stadium — Houston, TX
Spread: Rice (-10)
Over/under: 49.5
All-time series: Rice leads, 16-1
Last meeting: Rice 14, Sam Houston 13 — September 18, 1993
Current streak: Rice, 4 (1941-93)
Setting the scene
It’s a local matchup we’ve never seen before at the FBS level. Rice meets second-year FBS member Sam Houston under the lights at Rice Stadium on Saturday night. Rice Stadium recently underwent turf renovations after the previous surface was torn up in the summer by Hurricane Beryl. But the new field is installed, ready to go, and ready to watch two teams duke it out on the opening weekend of the 2024 season.
Sam Houston Bearkats outlook
Sam Houston head coach K.C. Keeler enters his second season leading an FBS program. He won an FCS national championship with the Bearkats in the spring of 2021.
Photo by Sam Wasson/Getty Images
The transition is fully complete. Last season, Sam Houston onboarded as first-year members of the FBS but faced several restrictions including bowl ineligibility and the inability to qualify for the Conference USA Championship Game. But after acclimating to the FBS level for a season, the Bearkats are now full-fledged members of the highest level of college football, hoping the trials and tribulations of a 3-9 campaign funnel into greater success.
“We look different,” head coach K.C. Keeler said. “I think we’re making progress moving forward in trying to get this team up to speed and playing an FBS schedule week in and week out,” Keeler said. “When you’re moving up, I think that’s the most noticeable thing is week in and week out, the wear and tear and how physical the games were.”
Sam Houston may have started 0-8 and finished 3-9, but the Bearkats weren’t that far off from attaining as many as eight victories. The Bearkats lost by the slimmest of margins on seemingly a weekly basis, yielding long game-tying drives to Jacksonville State and FIU before dropping those games in overtime, squandering a 14-point second half lead to UTEP, coming eight yards short of knocking off WKU, and coming within three yards of upsetting CUSA champion Liberty.
The Bearkats found ways to win at the end of the year, emerging in several close games while winning three of their last four. But how do those narrow heartbreaks turn into triumphs? Keeler believes there’s five plays that swing every game, and his team is finding ways to make those five plays benefit Sam Houston more than its opponent.
“They lived through what our theme is,” Keeler said. “The theme is ‘we’ve got to find those five plays somewhere,’ and those five plays are a lot of places. Those five plays are in the weight room. Those five plays are how hard we practice. Those five plays are getting in the tubs or getting in the training room or getting extra rest… Those five plays would have made us 8-4. Those guys lived through us being 0-8 and just continuing to go out and practice and the whole theme of we’re in this thing together and we’re gonna play all 12. Having guys who went through all that and saw the success we saw at the end… it puts a lot of belief in what we’re doing. We know we’re better.”
Sam Houston must replace quarterback Keegan Shoemaker who started 11 of the 12 games in the prior season. There are three candidates, ranging from dual-threat Central Michigan quarterback Jase Bauer who started nine games for the Chippewas last season, 2023 JUCO All-American and national championship winning quarterback Hunter Watson, and incumbent backup Grant Gunnell — a sixth-year transfer portal journeyman who started one contest in 2023. Keeler knows who the starter is but kept it a mystery on the depth chart, listing all three as a potential starter.
“We’re not gonna tip our hand,” Keeler said. “But I’ve been really pleased. I thought Keegan played really well last year. I think he hit a ceiling. I think some of the guys that are competing right now have a little bit of a higher ceiling, and I’m hoping that we play at a higher level this year at that position. It’s been a battle all during spring and pretty much to the end of training camp. We haven’t settled on a guy until just recently.”
Former Central Michigan QB Jase Bauer is one of the three potential starters at the position for Sam Houston. Bauer made his mark as a runner in the MAC with three 100+ yard rushing games.
Photo by Justin Casterline/Getty Images
Passing is the identity of the Sam Houston offense, as the team finished near the median in average passing yards but stood sixth from the bottom of the FBS in rushing yards per game at 88.9. Perhaps that changes with an improved rotation. The running back room returns leading rusher John Gentry (392 yards) but greatly expands its depth. Zach Hrbacek is in the fold again after missing the majority of last season and the team also added Jay Ducker — a 1,000-yard tailback for the 2021 MAC champion Northern Illinois Huskies.
“It’s nice getting Hrbacek back healthy,” Keeler said. “That was something we really battled with last year. We got really thin at that position going down to our seventh running back at one time. ‘Duck’ has come in and had an ankle (injury) early, but now he’s 100 percent and looked good the past couple days. You can see why he was the rookie of the year in the MAC a couple years back. I think we have a pretty good room there and think we can play five. I think Gentry has been the guy who’s been the steadiest and had a really good training camp, but getting Zach healthy and getting Duck in there with the two freshmen, we have enough depth in there.”
Maybe the strongest position group on the entire team is wide receiver, headlined by possession receiver Noah Smith, who exchanged 79 receptions for 782 yards in his FBS debut year. And just like the Bearkats return Hrbacek, they also return Ife Adeyi who is blessed with a clean slate after missing nine games due to injury in 2023. Malik Phillips is back in the corps after finishing second on the squad in receiving yards, and Simeon Evans is a rising contributor Keeler feels can light up defenses this year. This corps will try to assist the new starting quarterback in getting in a rhythm — something the Bearkats struggled with in the first three games of their inaugural FBS season.
“It’s nice getting Ife back and Noah Smith back,” Keeler said. “We feel really good about the receiver position. We think that’s a deep room. Simeon Evans has played really really well. We can put him at a number of different spots on the field. We also feel good about our tight ends.”
Sam Houston’s defense certainly exceeded expectations for an FBS newcomer, ranking 65th in points allowed per game to end the season. The Bearkat defense came out swinging upon entry to the FBS, limiting Air Force and BYU to a combined 27 points in its first two outings. While each of the final 10 opponents scored 20+, Sam Houston chases a similar start on defense this season.
There’s one major departure in First Team All-CUSA linebacker Trevor Williams who recorded 135 tackles and 8.5 tackles for loss as the heart and soul of the unit. The torch is passed to outside linebacker Kavian Gaither, who will wear the green dot for coach-to-sideline communication this year. Gaither was the WAC Defensive Player of the Year in Sam Houston’s final FCS season and he’ll lead a unit that will start as many as three transfers Saturday.
“We lost one of the great players in the history of this program in Trevor Williams,” Keeler said. “But we’re probably better at linebacker in terms of the overall room. I think we’ve found a couple of d-tackles, three of four, that are gonna play some good football for us this year. I think we’ve done a pretty good job at each position group, we actually feel we’ve gotten better at. This roster is significantly better moving into this season, and hopefully that pays a difference for us.”
Sam Houston holds the designation as a double-digit underdog, something the program became quite familiar with last season. After starting 0-8, can the Bearkats shake off early season misfortunes and claim that coveted 1-0 standing? Keeler thinks there’s plenty of volatility in first games, allowing underdogs the perfect opportunity to snatch notable upsets.
“First games are always interesting,” Keeler said. “I don’t think anyone thought Georgia Tech was gonna beat Florida State opening day, but that’s the type of stuff that happens opening day. First games, you’re kind of working through the issues that you don’t know you may come up against in a practice situation.”
Rice Owls outlook
Rice head coach Mike Bloomgren prepares for his seventh season at the helm after attaining a personal-best six wins and bowl eligibility last fall.
Photo by John Rivera/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
Another year of Rice football commences, and the theme of the program is stability. The Owls enter year seven under head coach Mike Bloomgren, and there is continuity all around. All three coordinators are back and the majority of starters from 2023 return, particularly on the defensive side. Rice has incrementally improved in the win column each year since 2020, but Bloomgren believes this is his strongest and deepest team yet, using the experience card to its advantage.
“I’m doing less because we’re a player-led team,” Bloomgren said. “We have continuity in our coaching staff. We only have one new coach added, kept all three coordinators in place, and we’ve got players that are taking the bull by the horns and correcting things before they even get to their coaches in many more cases. I’m doing less and it makes me a lot more confident.”
Although the returning talent is evident, one of the most important pieces of the 2024 Owls is a newcomer. Last season, Rice consulted the portal and made a splash acquisition by landing quarterback JT Daniels. This offseason, the Owls once again tested their luck in the portal and wound up with former Temple starter E.J. Warner. Warner posted consecutive 3,000-yard seasons and four 400+ yard passing games in two seasons as a starter in Philadelphia, and his new coaching staff is doing everything it can to make him comfortable in Rice’s pro-style offense, as he prepares to suit up for the first time in blue and gray.
“Offensively, it’s been very different for me because we’ve incorporated a lot of concepts from Temple where E.J. did well or was comfortable with,” Bloomgren said. “Although many of them are still west coast concepts, there’s many things I haven’t done since my days with the Jets, so it’s been cool to see those things come back into my life and some of the RPO stuff E.J. was good at as well.”
Another valuable component of this offense is Dean Connors, who appeared on the Doak Walker Award watchlist for the nation’s best running back. Connors experienced a breakout 2023, accumulating 771 yards as a rusher on a 6.4 average while serving as a remarkable threat in the receiving game with 43 receptions and 403 yards. Citing his preparation and leadership, Bloomgren has referred to Connors as “the fifth McCaffrey brother” for his similarities to former Rice star Luke McCaffrey, who the Owls must replace in 2023.
McCaffrey, now with the Washington Commanders, was the engine of the offense last fall, ranking first by a country mile in receiving yards (992) and touchdowns (13) on the roster. While the Owls return plenty of familiar faces in 6’5” sideline threat Rawson MacNeill, 18-year old true sophomore Landon Ransom-Goelz, Braylen Walker, Drayden Dickman, and Matt Sykes, Rice must find a true No. 1 option to emerge at the position to keep its passing attack within the top 50 of the country.
“They’ve been a fun group to work with this offseason,” Bloomgren said of the receivers. “I think you got to talk about Matt and Rawson MacNeill at the X spot and how they’ve done and the plays they’ve just made and the effort they’ve played with. Drayden Dickman has just been a guy that ran a 10.18 in the state-qualifying meet and you just wanted to see that speed on the football field. We saw it in bowl practice. That’s the first time we really saw Drayden Dickman really torch people with his speed, and then it happened all spring ball and it’s just continued to grow this fall camp… Braylen Walker, we’ve all seen the explosive possibilities of him in football games for the Rice Owls. The thing we haven’t seen is a guy that knew the offense well enough to be an every down player. Now he’s at that place, and I’m so proud of Braylen.”
On the defensive side of the ball, there’s certainly room for growth as Rice ranked 54th in total defense and 85th in scoring defense a year ago. But the Owls return 20 of their top 22 from the 2023 two-deep, and that returning experience and chemistry could pay dividends. Rice’s only losses are on the defensive line in Coleman Coco and De’Braylon Carroll — their two leaders in the sack department — but they addressed the pass rush in the portal by bringing in Michael Daley from BYU and Charlies Looes from Dartmouth.
Rice OLB Josh Pearcy is back for his third season as a team captain. The longtime Owl has 168 tackles, 13 sacks, and 27.5 tackles for loss in six seasons on campus.
Ricardo B. Brazziell/Austin American-Statesman / USA TODAY NETWORK
Add those new faces to a sixth-year defensive coordinator in Brian Smith horde of returning players who have been rostered since at least 2020 — including defensive tackle Izeya Floyd, inside linebacker Myron Morrison, outside linebacker and three-time captain Josh Pearcy, cornerback Sean Fresch, strong safety Gabe Taylor, strong safety Plae Wyatt — and the Owls possess more starting experience than almost any defense in the FBS.
“You have guys like Michael Daley coming in from BYU who you have to find a way to get him on the field,” Floyd said. “Guys like Josh and Myron have been here, but even guys who were here are taking another step — guys like Sean Fresch for one, Plae Wyatt and guys like that in the back end, Gabe Taylor… And I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention (defensive end) Demone Green taking another step as a young guy coming in and being an important part of our team.”
One new feature in college football is the helmet communication between the coaching staff a single player on both sides of the ball. For the Rice defense, Taylor will wear the green dot as the chief communicator. The former Jim Thorpe Award player of the week will be responsible for transmitting messages throughout the unit, but one message that has already been passed around the defense is the need for takeaways. Rice finished in the bottom 15 in turnovers forced last year, intercepting just five passes and recovering seven fumbles in 13 outings.
“That was definitely a message that was passed down to us by the coaching staff last year,” Floyd said. “The difference between last year and this year is the steps the players have taken to own that. Speaking for the defensive side of the ball specifically, taking the ball away has become a very important part of our game and we’ve stressed it to the highest importance… I think you’ll see that on the field this coming weekend.”
The 2024 season presents a different feel for the Owls. It’s Rice’s best chance at 1-0 in a long time, entering a Week 1 matchup as favorites for the first time since 2018. Not by coincidence, it’s also the Owls’ first time kicking their season off at Rice Stadium in the opening week in six years. Rice has traditionally traveled to difficult environments like 2021 Arkansas, 2022 USC, and 2023 Texas to launch the new year, but that won’t be the case this fall.
“A lot of times I give a diplomatic answer, ‘Yeah, I like this schedule — it’s good,’ because you’re gonna play them all anyway. But I love this schedule, playing the first three games in Houston, TX and four of our first five in Houston, TX,” Bloomgren said. “Opening at home is where you want to be. We want the opportunity to play in front of our home crowd, get our families here, and not having to travel. Not that Sam Houston is an unbelievable opponent because I think they are, but it’s different than going to Austin for the first game. It’s different than going to USC.”
With a favorable schedule in hand and a wealth of experience, what are the goals for Rice? The team eyes its first winning season since 2014 and ultimately sets its sights on a conference championship after qualifying as one of six AAC bowl teams in 2023. But those preseason goals aren’t on the forefront of their mind right now. Instead, Rice seeks its first victory over an FBS team in an opener since 2008.
“We’ve talked enough about what the goals for this football team are, very clearly,” Bloomgren said. “They’re earning the right to go to a third-consecutive bowl game and compete for this conference title. But all of that is so far in the future that I think we’re about to stop talking about it. We’re just worried about Sam Houston.”
Prediction
This one has makings of a close game. There is somewhat a clash of styles as Rice prefers to ground and pound, especially through means of star running back Dean Connors, while Sam Houston’s offense presents more of an air raid feel.
If E.J. Warner’s skills from Temple translate to this new offense, the Owls can become lethal. Finding a No. 1 receiver to replace an NFL talent in Luke McCaffrey may not be feasible, but if the Owls can spread the ball around and keep the offense balanced, they can have the upper hand against a Sam Houston secondary losing its top defensive back in Da’Marcus Crosby.
On the other side of the ball, Sam Houston’s offensive line must be prepared to pass protect against a physical Rice defensive front which includes several 300+ pounders in Izeya Floyd and Blake Boenisch — larger than most of the d-lines they’ll encounter in CUSA play. The Bearkats should still see some success in distributing the ball to Noah Smith and Co. and potentially gain yardage through quarterback runs, especially if Jase Bauer is the top option.
Sam Houston has a knack for involving itself in close games, and this one won’t be an exception. But Rice presents the experience and chemistry to win a Week 1 contest and earn its first 1-0 start in six years.
Prediction: Rice 28, Sam Houston 20
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