Owls look to defense as key to first win
Rice coach Mike Bloomgren references the games on his team’s schedule as opportunities.
When Rice (0-6, 0-2 in Conference USA) travels to San Antonio to face UTSA (2-4, 1-2) on Saturday, the team will be looking to curb its trend of missed chances.
“I think, ironically enough, (with) every loss there’s an added intensity,” defensive end Trey Schuman said. “On one hand, that’s kind of bad because you want that same intensity all the time, but guys know we’re pressed for time. We want six wins to get to a bowl game, we have six games left. This intensity that we need to have for this game needs to be more than anything we’ve had the rest of the year.”
For Schuman and the defense, that endeavor starts with pressure.
“Getting to the quarterback,” Schuman said of the unit’s focus through the bye week. “We don’t have the sacks and the production in the pass game that we want to, and we want to be able to work well with the back end to stop the quarterback and to stop them on third downs because we feel as a defense that our third-down efficiency is below par right now.”
Rice opponents are converting half of their third down attempts against the Owls defense (13th in CUSA).
Schuman also emphasized the importance of field awareness and knowing where the quarterback is at all times.
It’s something of particular importance against UTSA, whose top two signalcallers have combined for 452 rushing yards.
On Monday, UTSA quarterback Frank Harris was ruled out for the season with an upper body injury. But Lowell Narcisse has accounted for 326 rushing yards and three touchdowns.
The Roadrunners are last in C-USA in passing offense, which could bode well for a Rice team that was beaten through the air in the first half of its most recent loss to Alabama-Birmingham.
“I expect them to play pretty good,” running back Aston Walter said of UTSA, which beat Rice 20-3 in a game where both passing attacks struggled last year. “They came out last year had great energy, made a lot of plays, but I think that we’re a lot more developed this year.”
Offensively, Bloomgren spent part of the bye week addressing third-down conversion rates (especially mid-range conversions).
“We talked a lot about situational football. Offensively, I don’t know that I’ve ever been a part of an offense where you’re converting less on third and 4 to 6 than you are on third and 7 to 10,” he said. “We’re doing such a better job staying ahead of the sticks than we did a year ago, we’re just not converting those things consistently enough.”
The Owls have the third lowest third-down conversion rate (31.46) and the second worst red-zone conversion rate (72.22) in C-USA.
Despite the team’s improvement, that reality has proven most costly.
“It’s our third conference game and obviously both teams are in need of a win,” Bloomgren said. “I want so badly for us to put it together and play our kind of football and come out victorious this Saturday.”