Owls’ effort just not enough
Starting QB Green lost to leg injury in first quarter as Mean Green snap six-game skid
Rice battled North Texas throughout four quarters — and then some — Saturday afternoon at Rice Stadium.
The Mean Green scored the game’s opening points and every time they were on the scoreboard, the Owls responded with a score of their own.
Unfortunately for the Owls, North Texas scored the decisive points in overtime for a 30-24 victory over Rice, which lost starting quarterback Wiley Green to a first-quarter leg injury.
After Christian VanSickle’s 46-yard field-goal attempt sailed left into a crosswind to open the first extra session, Ayo Adeyi’s 1yard run ended the game and the Mean Green’s sixgame losing streak.
“Disappointed we didn’t find a way to win this game,” Rice coach Mike Bloomgren said. “We really struggled to get anything going for a while. Then we were able to rally. They (Owls offense) found a way to take the ball down and send the game in overtime. That’s winning football. What we did in overtime is not.”
A crowd of 17,354 saw a Conference USA matchup in which North Texas’ largest lead was seven. Rice (3-5, 2-2) never led but stayed in the game until the final play.
After coming in cold with Green going down, Jake Constantine directed the Owls to 21 second-half points after trailing 10-3 at the break. When North Texas went back ahead 2417 with only 2:03 to play in regulation, Constantine took the Owls 89 yards for a touchdown.
Constantine’s 12-yard scoring pass to Cedric Patterson III followed by VanSickle’s point after tied it at 24-all with only 16 seconds remaining.
“Being the backup quarterback and preparing like a starter is easier said than done,” Bloomgren said. “(Constantine) went out there and pulled things together pretty well.”
Completing 16-of-30 attempts, Constantine threw for 242 yards with touchdown passes to Patterson and Jake Bailey, who had 10 receptions for a careerhigh 143 yards.
“I tried my best to help us win,” Constantine said “We came up a little short.”
In engineering the game-tying 89-yard drive, Constantine connected on a fourth-and-10 pass to Bailey for 36 yards to the Rice 47.
“It’s nobody quitting,” Constantine said. “Jake Bailey made a crazy catch — one of the best catches I’ve seen. Keeps the game going, gives us a chance to win. The fight was there. We’ve just got to execute a few things better.”
Constantine earlier put together a 19-play, 58-yard possession that consumed 12:07 , ending in a 30-yard field goal from VanSickle that tied it at 3.
Rice outgained UNT 368314 and also enjoyed an edge in time of possession (38:39). But that didn’t add up to a victory for the Owls, who were coming off their best win of the season last week (30-24) at UAB with Green at quarterback.
A week after going 5-of-5 on fourth-down attempts, the Owls went 4-for-4 against UNT.
Against UNT’s athletic and physical front seven, Rice ran for only 97 yards, a 2.1-yard average. Khalan Griffin rushed for a teambest 47 yards and Jordan Myers, who had a 1-yard touchdown run, added 32 yards.
“Our ability to effectively run the ball and stop the run are trademarks of our program and if we can’t do those two things, it’s going to be hard for the Rice Owls to win,” Bloomgren said.
Austin Aune directed the Mean Green (2-6, 1-3) to their first win of the season over a FBS opponent. Aune passed for 121 yards and ran for 65.
Adeyi ran for 47 yards and two scores and became UNT’s featured back when DeAndre Torrey left with an injury in the third quarter after picking up 43 of UNT’s 193 rushing yards.
K.D. Davis collected 18 tackles for UNT and Dion Novil made his share of plays stopping the Owls’ run game with 10 tackles.
“We’ve just got to be better filling gaps and when we’re in position to make plays, we’ve got to finish,” said nose tackle Elijah Garcia, who led the Owls with nine tackles. “This is a tough spill to swallow. We wanted this really badly.”
Green left the game with a right leg injury following a sack with 4:42 left in the opening quarter. After five minutes on the ground, the redshirt sophomore was carted off the field.
The entire Rice team came over to the cart for a get-well sendoff, as well as several North Texas players.
“You can see how much our team loves him and that was evident,” Bloomgren said. “He’s in the hospital. He’s crushed. He’s put his heart and soul in this. That was tough for our football team.”