Rice Pregame talk

[Policarp]

I got a chant for everyone going to Houston, “What goes in a bowl of gumbo”?FYI, You have to sit in the “Owl’s nest”to drink beer in the stadium.��

I don't like that nest crap at all.
To be herded into a corner just to enjoy a beer. F that. I have had more than enough of segregation by politics & jabs already. Thanks for sharing.Poli will likely be drinking well aged Rum with his diet cokes.

[John Cocktolstoy]

I got a chant for everyone going to Houston, “What goes in a bowl of gumbo”?FYI, You have to sit in the “Owl’s nest”to drink beer in the stadium.��

Is the owls nest something you have to purchase a ticket to sit in? Is it something that you can come and go into? Is it their version of stadium suites?

[MelRock]

They said the same thing at baseball about drinking beer. It turned out you could drink in the stands.

[John Cocktolstoy]

I just read on their web site “we are pleased to offer beer and wine throughout the stadium in 2022”

[AirBill]

This you Jay?

[BabbForHeisman]

Looking this afternoon, I was pretty surprised how few tickets seem to be available on the lower bowl through Rice. I don’t think all those tickets will turn into butts in the seats in game day, but you never know.

[UL_Cajuns]

Looking this afternoon, I was pretty surprised how few tickets seem to be available on the lower bowl through Rice. I don’t think all those tickets will turn into butts in the seats in game day, but you never know.

Yea I just noticed that as well. Hoping it is a combination of alot of Louisiana fans in the area going or traveling and RICE fans going because they are interested in this game of the nations longest winning streak coming to their stadium!

[RaginDave]

Rice Owls Preview

Rice is coming off a 4-8 2021 campaign, the best record they have had in a while, to give you some idea of how futile this program has been recently, 2017 1-11, 2018 2-11, 2019 3-9, 2020 2-3 and last year 4-8. Their 4 wins last year were against FCS Texas Southern, Southern Miss, a surprise win at UAB and a season ending win vs La Tech. The early season schedule was brutal for Rice starting off with a road game vs Arkansas, a home game vs Houston, and a road game vs Texas, they were outscored 140-24 in those 3 games. This year they started the season off vs a very good USC team and lost 55-3 against them and then get a home game vs McNeese in which they thoroughly dominated the Cowgirls. Mike Bloomgren is the head coach of Rice in his 5th year and 5th overall as a Head Coach. Bloomgren has an 11-32 record as a Head Coach, except for the Covid year has seen increases in wins each year, albeit not big increases. Rice did have a nice run in the late 2000’s and early 2010’s where they made 5 bowl games in 9 seasons between 2006-2014 but it has been a mess since then. We have only faced Rice 5 previous times with us holding a 3-2 advantage over Rice, but we have not played since 1989. A little fact is that Rice has lost 19 straight non-conference FBS games, their last non-conference win was against Army in 2015.

Rice and UL have played a total of 5 times, but the last time was not since 1989. Cajuns hold a 3-2 advantage vs Rice. Rice holds win in 1921 (54-0) and 1983 (22-21), UL won in 1982 (21-14), 1988 (41-16) and 1989 (18-3) only one of these games, the 1988 game was played in Lafayette. The 1989 game was Brian Mitchell’s senior year, that team went 7-4 and lost to Number 11 Alabama 24-17.

Bloomgren, who spent 4 years in the NFL and was the OC at Stanford before coming to Rice is a ground first type coach. And with that style of offense, they are usually competitive in G5 games as seen by the fact that 7 of their 12 games were decided by 14 points or less with 5 of them being decided by less than a TD. The problem last year was they only averaged 21.5 points per game in 2022 while giving up 36.2, they also gave up 436 yards per game last year while only gaining 362, so they were outgained by 74 yards per game and nearly 15 points per game.

QB—Rice loses their #1 QB from last year, but that is not a huge problem as they played 4 different guys at QB last year. Jake Constantine was the regular starter and threw for 1622 yards with 8 TD’s and 7 INT’s. He is gone but the three guys behind him are back, but one of them Luke McCaffery (brother of NFL Carolina Panthers RB Christian McCaffery and son of former NFLer Ed McCaffery has moved to WR). The two guys who were slated to take the reins this year are Wiley Green (6’3 211 Sophomore) and TJ McMahon (6’0 197 Junior), Wiley Green ultimately has won the job as the starter, but I would not be surprised if we see McMahon and others in the game as well. Bloomgren likes to play many guys at QB. Wiley was 36 of 55 for 316 yards with 4 TD’s and 3 INT’s while McMahon was 12 of 20 191 2 TD’s and 1 INT. McCaffery who did not have a little success running the ball but was not much of a passer, hence the reason that he moved to WR this offseason. Green’s problem besides inconsistency has been injury. Green started 10 games in the 2018 and 2019 season with 52% completion % 7TD’s and 6 INTs, only had 10 pass attempts in 2020 and had 2 starts in 2021 including the upset vs UAB but was injured and miss a large portion of the season. Wiley played in Game 1, but was injured, McMahon played in Game 2. Not sure the status of Wiley, but we could see both guys on Saturday. Hard to get much of a read since Rice was thoroughly demolished vs USC and then crushed McNeese the following week.

RB—The workhorse is Ari Broussard (6’0 215) RB from New Orleans. Broussard led the team in rushing last year with 116 carries for 569 yards and 3 TD’s. On the season Broussard has 100 yards on 32 carries. He will be backed up by a couple of interesting guys, including a 5’5” 160 lb. guy in Cameron Montgomery. Montgomery leads the team in rushing this year on only 10 carries but has rushed for 100 yards. The other guy we might see is Dean Conners (6’0 205) Conners is a Juco transfer. Montgomery is a track star he has a 10.3 second 100-meter time. He is not used often but when he is he can be electric. In the past Broussard has not been much of a threat receiving, but he does have 3 catches on the season for 36 yards, none of the other RB’s have done much in the passing game either. The other crazy thing is that this might be the only team in America, in college football that lines up with a true FB. That guy will be Jerry Johnson III (6’1 240) or Geron Hargon (6’2 228). Neither one of them have a carry this year and of the two only Jerry Johnson has a reception, but it was for negative 3 yards. They are used more as an extra blocker.

WR/TE—This team got a big boost to the receiving corps when McCaffery moved from QB to WR. McCaffery (6’2 200) is a great athlete and still learning the receiver position, but like his brother, he is capable of doing multiple things as a player. Rice loses their #1 receiver last year in Jake Bailey who had 56 catches last year, but with McCaffery and Juco transfer Bradley Rozner (6’5 204, big kid) who is their leading pass catcher this year with 4 catches for 107 yards but did have a few drops in last weeks game vs McNeese. One other player who has made an impact this year is Isaiah Esdale (6’0 202) who has 8 catches for 92 yards this year. The big question mark is Cedric Patterson (5’11 180) who was their #2 leading receiver from last year who has not played in a game at all this season he finished with 38 receptions last year for 583 yards and 6 TD’s. Rice has some other issues with its WR/TE corps, Sam Crawford who was expected to be a starter retired from football before the start of the season and backup TE Gavin Reinwald is out for the year with and ACL injury, so between Crawford, Patterson who we don’t know if he will be available and Reinwald they are already thin there. They do have a big TE Jack Bradley (6’5 258) as their starting TE. He has 4 catches for 39 yards on the season.

OL—The Rice OL is lead by LT Clay Servin (6’4 300) and RG Shea Baker (6’2 311) who are both returning starters and expected to be on the All CUSA teams this year. From there it gets a little more interesting. At Center is Isaac Klarkowski (6’2 300) who has started a few games in his first 2 years but has had some injury problems, LG Braedon Nutter (6’3 303) who had 9 starts at RG last year and Ethan Onianwa a Redshirt Freshman (6’6 310) player at RT. They also lost a little depth from the OL as they moved Trey Phillipi (6’5 278) Tackle to TE right before the season to make up for the loss of Reinwald, listed above. Outside of these starters they have heavy mix of Freshman and Sophomore players as well as a few JUCO guys.

Special Teams—Interesting development in the punting game, Charlie Mendes who was the starting punter for Rice last year and a pretty good one averaging 42.6 yards per punt seems to have been replaced by Conor Hunt who was his backup last year. Hunt has had 6 punts this year for less than a 40-yard average with a long of only 47 yards. In the kicking game the battle was between Tim Horn (transfer from Washington who played in 21 games there and Christian Van Sickle who played in 10 games last year. Rice has attempted 2 FG in 2 games this year and Horn is 1-1 but it was only a 25 yarder and Van Sickle is 0-1 with a miss of over 40 yards, so I am not sure who we will see in our game. Horn has been the Kickoff guy with 6 of 12 kickoffs going for TB’s. Kickoff return duties belong to backup RB Juma Otoviano (5’10 192) he has 3 kickoff returns for 65 yards with a long of 33, he did return 14 KO for them last year with a 22.4 average, but a long of 50. Punt return duties and there has only been 1 return this year belong to starting CB Sean Fresch (5’8 170). He has had 1 return for 10 yards this year, last year he averaged 9.9 yards on 10 returns with a long of 48.

DLine—Rice plays a traditional 3-4 defense and up front they have a really good one at DT Ikenna Enechukwu (6’4 266) who had 48 tackles last year from the DT position with 4.5 sacks. He is very good. With him will be DT DE ‘Braylon Carroll (6’0 291) who’s had 5 starts over his first 2 seasons but injuries have slowed him and Izeya Floyd (6’2 326) NT who had 3 starts last year. A huge loss from last year was their leading tackler Elijah Garcia (Rice lost their 3 top tacklers from last season, a DL, a LB and A DB. The other name to keep an eye on is backup DT Trey Schuman (6’0 261 who was a starter last year who will get a lot of playing time he had 40 tackles last year. He will be the first off, the bench if not in the starting lineup. Another name that could crack the starting lineup is Abilene Christian transfer Quent Titre (6’2 286)

LB—They also have a special player in the LB group, and that name is Josh Pearcy (6’2 250) who is their leading returning tackler from last year. He finished last year with 58 tackles and 4 sacks. He should be a 1st or 2nd team ALL CUSA guy this year. They get a guy back who has been pretty good for them but missed much of last year with an injury in Treshawn Chamberlain (5’10 201) at the other Outside backer. He only played in 3 games last year, but before that he had 114 tackles in his first 2 years at Rice. Two newcomers to the starting lineup are in the middle. Myron Morrison (6’3 206) who played in 4 games last year and Aldan Siano (6’0 225) who played in 3 games last year. Morrison has been a real pleasant surprise for them this year as he is near the top in tackles. Some depth at the LB position could come from Rutgers transfer Chris Conti (6’2 230)

D-Backs—Almost everyone back on this team from a team that 274 yards per game through the air. At Corner they will have Sean Fresh (5’8 170) and Jordan Dunbar (5’11 196). They are a solid pair of corners, just not very big and could be an area we could attack with guys like Jefferson and Leblanc and other big WR’s. We will see 4 different guys in the safety position Gabe Taylor (5’10 190) (brother of late/former NFL star Sean Taylor), Marcus Williams (5’11 186) at Strong Safety and George Nyakwol (6’0 180) and Kirk Lockhart (5’11 187) at FS. Lockhart has played extremely well in the first two games and Nyakwol 25 starts over 3 years with Rice (6th year with the program). This is a very experienced group and while they are not big and while this team has some good talent in the front half, the back half might be the best total group on the Defense.

Expect multiple looks on offense and defense, the use of the FB and multiple WR and TE sets. Look for them to move down lineman all over the field on defense, guys like Ikenna Kenechukwu and Josh Pearcy can be set as edge rushers and/or linebackers. Their goal is to confuse you as a play caller and get you off balance. It almost gives you the feel like Rice does not know who they are, they have moved guys in and out of the starting lineup under Bloomgren in his 5 seasons, they have moved players all over the field and don’t seem to have a bunch of consistency on this team. Much of this is because I think Bloomgren is trying to get the best players possible on the field at the same time. And this year has been hard to get a handle on because they were severely overmatched vs USC and then they severely overmatched McNeese State. This is their first test that they feel that they can get a good read on who they are, and it does not get any easier for them after us, they play Houston and UAB, then a break and then a pretty good FAU team. I think overall we should be able to attack their DB’s with our size and that could end up being the difference in the game. I think our advantage on defense is going to be hard to overcome, we have an advantage with our DL vs their inexperienced OL and our DB’s should have an advantage vs their WR’s.

My prediction

Cajuns 38
Owls 17

[Big Poppa]

Cajuns depth chart for Rice game.

https://twitter.com/bycorydiaz/statu.101079554?s=21

[John Cocktolstoy]

How much will Burton play?

[NewsCopy]

After opening with a pair of impressive non-conference wins at home, the Louisiana Ragin' Cajuns Football team takes its show on the road for the first time during the 2022 season when it travels to Houston to face Conference USA member Rice University on Saturday at Rice Stadium.

Kickoff is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. The first meeting between Louisiana (2-0) and Rice (1-1) on the gridiron since 1989 will be streamed live on ESPN+ with David Saltzman (pbp) and Chris Mycoskie (color) announcing.

Louisiana Athletics
RaginCajuns.com
PRESS RELEASE

[fanof71]

How much will Burton play?

He's not playing center but will get his reps at guard.he can't be in great condition, probably a series a half.

[Turbine]

Excellent stuff RaginDave.

Thanks

Priority One: Extend streaks 19 and 15

[no1cajunfan]

I may have missed this, but do we have any reports of Cajuns out for the Rice game due to injuries?

[cjr3888]

Three were listed out on the depth chart, just don't remember who. Amos back to full health and good to go.