RICE WINS SECOND STRAIGHT.
Defense throttles the Mean Green’s high-flying offense, makes key stop to thwart comeback
Halfway through the Owls’ season, with Louisiana Tech driving to tie the game late in the fourth quarter, safety Treshawn Chamberlain jumped a route through the middle, but failed to make a play on the ball.
The resulting completion helped the Bulldogs tie and eventually win the game in overtime.
On Saturday, when North Texas receiver Michael Lawrence ran a similar route over the middle, Chamberlain promptly arrived to drill the receiver and force a game-sealing incompletion as Rice defeated the Mean Green, 20-14, at Rice Stadium.
“Instances like that show how much we’re growing as a team,” linebacker Blaze Alldredge said. “We expect great things from ourselves and I think you’re starting to see time and experience really come to fruition for us as we’re starting to pick up momentum and get hot towards the end of the season.”
For the second straight week, Rice (2-9, 2-5 in Conference USA) capitalized on a first-half scoring surge. But like the week before, the offense was shut out in the second half, leaving the defense to fend off a resurgent North Texas attack to win the game.
The Mean Green (4-7, 3-4) had converted two fourth-down-andshort plays en route to a Tre Siggers touchdown run, which cut the Owls’ lead to six with just over seven minutes remaining.
On the ensuing kickoff return, Rice receiver Austin Trammell fumbled and UNT recovered at the Rice 23.
But North Texas only came as close as the 13-yard line. On fourth and 12, quarterback Mason Fine sought Lawrence in the end zone, but Chamberlain hammered him, leaving a shaken Lawrence and an incomplete pass behind. The hit helped secured Rice’s first consecutive wins since November 2016.
“What highlighted the feeling even more is that it was a shortened field,” Alldredge said. “You come out, backs against the wall, all odds against you and you say, ‘You know what, I’m a man and I’m not going to let circumstances define me.’ ”
Rice scored on four of its first five drives of the game.
Chris Barnes slotted a careerlong 48-yard field goal on the team’s opening drive. Once North Texas got the ball back, Fine was intercepted by Chamberlain.
Four plays later, after a fourthdown conversion, running back Aston Walter threw a 21-yard completion to tight end Jordan Myers. Walter ran the ball into the end zone from a yard out for his seventh rushing touchdown of the season on the next play.
Four minutes later, Rice running back Charlie Booker fumbled the ball. But on the Mean Green’s first play after taking possession, safety Naeem Smith popped the ball from Siggers’ control and defensive lineman Kenneth Orji recovered.
Booker redeemed himself on the first play of the second quarter with an 8-yard touchdown run. After a North Texas threeand-out, another Barnes field goal stretched Rice’s lead to 20.
North Texas entered Saturday’s game ranked second in CUSA in total offense, but the Owls defense limited the Mean Green throughout the half. By the intermission, Rice had produced 228 yards of offense to UNT’s 51.
Rice also held the edge in first downs (14 to two) and tripled UNT’s time of possession.
But the tale of two halves played out for a second straight week, when a 37-yard third-quarter run by DeAndre Torrey breathed life into the Mean Green offense and pushed it to the Owls’ 32. Three plays later, Fine slipped into the end zone on a 10-yard run.
On its first drive of the fourth quarter, Siggers’ score cut the deficit to six with 7:32 remaining in the game. But again, a defensive stop secured the Owls’ victory.
Rice held Fine to 163 passing yards and no touchdowns. He was intercepted once and sacked three times.
“That’s who we wanted to build our team to beat,” coach Mike Bloomgren said of North Texas. “In totality, how bout that defense?”