Scouting Report: Rice Owls

(Photo: USA TODAY Sports)

The long wait is over and football will be back Saturday afternoon as Texas opens the 2023 season against Rice. The Owls are coming off a 5-8 season where they qualified for a bowl thanks to a high APR score. Mike Bloomgren is entering his 6th season at the helm and has a career coaching mark of 16-39. Let’s take a look at what to expect from the Owls.

Offense

Texas fans will see a familiar face behind center in JT Daniels, who is on his 4th college program. Daniels will be making his 3rd career start at DKR (USC in 2018, WVU in 2022) and will be looking for his first victory. The highly touted recruit has had an up and down college career following a knee injury in 2019. He offers very little with his legs and is a traditional dropback passer. Turnovers have been an issue (25 career INT’s in 937 attempts) and the skill talent around him will be a downgrade from what he had at USC, Georgia and West Virginia.

The Owls are replacing leading rusher Cameron Montgomery but return 3 other running backs who logged meaningful carries in 2022. Ari Broussard (262 yards, 9 TD’s in 2022) is likely to receive the bulk of the carries. Rice struggled to run the ball last season, ranking 79th nationally in yards per carry (3.9). The passing game figured to be the strength of the offense with the addition of Daniels and several quality receivers returning, but Bradley Rozner (transfer) and Cedric Patterson (gave up football) both left the program this summer. This leaves Luke McCaffrey (yes, related to Christian) and Kobie Campbell as the only two returning receivers who recorded double digit receptions in 2022. 

Along the offensive line, Rice returns both starting tackles but is replacing the majority of the production at all 3 interior spots. If Texas is unable to generate interior pressure consistently, it does not bode well for the rest of the season.

Defense

The good news for the Owls is juniors and seniors occupy 9 of the 11 starting spots on defense. The bad news is many of the returners were on a defense that was awful in 2022. Rice allowed 6.5 yards per play last year, good for 123rd nationally. Rush defense was a major issue (allowed 5.4 yards per carry) and the pass defense was just as bad (allowed an opponents passer rating of 157.1). 

The Owls struggled to generate pressure on opposing QB’s (95th in sack %) and will be counting on returning edge rusher Josh Pearcy to take his game to another level after notching 6.5 sacks last year. Rice does return 3 of 4 starters in the secondary, led by Austin native Sean Fresch at CB.

Overall Thoughts

The bugaboo for Rice over the years has been their inability to hold up in the trenches in games like these. Bloomgren, who previously worked as the OC at Stanford under David Shaw, wants to win up front on offense but the run game and QB play have been very inconsistent during his tenure. The addition of Daniels at QB will give him his best signal caller since he arrived, but the lack of weapons surrounding him is likely to prevent the Owls from truly breaking out offensively. Defensively, Rice was just plain bad a season ago. If the Texas offense is as good as many think they could be, the Longhorns should be able to move the ball almost at will in this one.