Army opens as a 7 point favorite.

(09-04-2016 03:38 PM)loki_the_bubba Wrote:  Army opens as a 7 point favorite.

I certainly called that one on the money!

Up to 8 1/2 at several books.

Army 38 - Rice 24. We score 7 if those in garbage time.

Who knows how good Army is because who knows how good Temple really was? last year may have been a fluke for them. And teams sometimes make big improvements from first week to second, so if Rice learns something this week, who knows what can happen?

Always helpful to have the extra 2 days to prep against a team like Army. Last week, Army completed 2 of 5 passes for 15 yards, while rushing for 329 yards. As unimpressed as I was with Rice's performance against WKU, I still don't understand why folks around here are predicting an Army win. They just aren't a team built to take advantage of Rice's known weakness, and Bailiff has done a pretty good job preparing his team for wishbone-type offenses ever since the Navy debacle.

I'd take Rice and the points.

Track the line:

Your guys run defense looked amazing, unless Army finds a true passing attack I see you guys winning by 7-10 points

(09-05-2016 10:57 AM)mrbig Wrote:  Always helpful to have the extra 2 days to prep against a team like Army. Last week, Army completed 2 of 5 passes for 15 yards, while rushing for 329 yards. As unimpressed as I was with Rice's performance against WKU, I still don't understand why folks around here are predicting an Army win. They just aren't a team built to take advantage of Rice's known weakness, and Bailiff has done a pretty good job preparing his team for wishbone-type offenses ever since the Navy debacle.

Agree - As good as Army may or may not be...they don't throw and we looked pretty good against the run in our one game. 24-21 Rice.

Thanks for this video from Ricefootball.net

I just don't see why people think Army should have won this game

Looks like we led all the way until a late turnover gave them a tie at 2:13 left in the game. We never trailed.

As usual, avoid the TOs and our chances are good.

(09-05-2016 11:30 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  Thanks for this video from Ricefootball.net

I just don't see why people think Army should have won this game

Looks like we led all the way until a late turnover gave them a tie at 2:13 left in the game. We never trailed.

As usual, avoid the TOs and our chances are good.

??? OO, we may never have trailed, but we were totally dominating the action the first 20 minutes of the game, and from that point on Army had us on our heals. TOs are part of football; a very major part. I was at that game, and from my standpoint, and others watching with me, Bailiff and Edmondson took the foot off the pedal half way through the 2nd quarter, and started playing ultra conservative-- on both offense and defense. Army outplayed us from the midpoint of the 2nd quarter onward.

(09-05-2016 11:40 PM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  

(09-05-2016 11:30 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  Thanks for this video from Ricefootball.net

I just don't see why people think Army should have won this game

Looks like we led all the way until a late turnover gave them a tie at 2:13 left in the game. We never trailed.

As usual, avoid the TOs and our chances are good.

??? OO, we may never have trailed, but we were totally dominating the action the first 20 minutes of the game, and from that point on Army had us on our heals. TOs are part of football; a very major part. I was at that game, and from my standpoint, and others watching with me, Bailiff and Edmondson took the foot off the pedal half way through the 2nd quarter, and started playing ultra conservative-- on both offense and defense. Army outplayed us from the midpoint of the 2nd quarter onward.

That doesn't mean they should've won.. The game is 60 minutes long and we made the plays that we needed to win.

We stuffed them after turning it over in the their red zone to force a field goal. We then drove the length of the field to take a 38-31 lead.

Just because it was a close game doesn't mean Army should've won.

Ultimately this is semantics, but when I think of games that "[Insert Team] should've won," I think of weird occurrences like Kick-6's (See GT-FSU on the same day as Army-Rice), terrible calls by the officials that have since been retracted, and other similar things.

The 18-14 win vs. FAU in 2013 comes to mind. Also the 31-30 UT win and the 31-30 UH win and the 38-31 UT win, and the Baylor win in the last minute that kept us from a bowl game, and so on. They each should have lost those games, but didn't.

Anyway, I think it a stretch to say we should have lost a game we led the whole way, held inside our ten to force a tying FG, and then went down and scored the game winner with 30 seconds left. We could have, sure. But should have?

In any case, the 2016 version will be played this Saturday. Everybody make your choices. I choose Rice. 31-17 sounds nice.

Another one we "should" have lost - the 2006 UAB game, the game that first uncovered the genius of Todd Graham. Whlie behind in the score, Rice drove to the red zone and then threw an interception in the end zone with less than half a minute left. Game over, and I along with many others started gathering my things. But LO! The UAB DB tries to run it back, and completely untouched, fumbles the ball. We recover, and throw a last second TD, win by a point, IIRC. THAT is a game we should have lost.

(09-06-2016 08:36 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  Another one we "should" have lost - the 2006 UAB game, the game that first uncovered the genius of Todd Graham. Whlie behind in the score, Rice drove to the red zone and then threw an interception in the end zone with less than half a minute left. Game over, and I along with many others started gathering my things. But LO! The UAB DB tries to run it back, and completely untouched, fumbles the ball. We recover, and throw a last second TD, win by a point, IIRC. THAT is a game we should have lost.

While happy to have seen it, that team got every break that went the other way the previous 5 years or so. Thanks for the ghost that caused the fumble

(09-06-2016 10:08 AM)texowl2 Wrote:  

(09-06-2016 08:36 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  Another one we "should" have lost - the 2006 UAB game, the game that first uncovered the genius of Todd Graham. Whlie behind in the score, Rice drove to the red zone and then threw an interception in the end zone with less than half a minute left. Game over, and I along with many others started gathering my things. But LO! The UAB DB tries to run it back, and completely untouched, fumbles the ball. We recover, and throw a last second TD, win by a point, IIRC. THAT is a game we should have lost.

While happy to have seen it, that team got every break that went the other way the previous 5 years or so. Thanks for the ghost that caused the fumble

yeah, we seem to be on the short end of "gifted" games, and that covers the late 50's to now.

I would be shocked if Army decides to air it out against us. Their QB Bradshaw and their new FB Davidson (since their leading rusher, Aaron Kemper, got kicked off the team in July) will be their workhorses as they were against Temple (only passed for 15 yards). Remember, Army played us in late October last year, and had the benefit of already seeing our pass defense get smoked by Baylor, WKU and somewhat by UT. Yet, despite all this info, Army stuck with their rushing attack and passed for a combined 18 yards. This is not a team that is all of a sudden going to decide to gameplan around throwing for 300 yards.

(09-06-2016 01:21 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  The 18-14 win vs. FAU in 2013 comes to mind. Also the 31-30 UT win and the 31-30 UH win and the 38-31 UT win, and the Baylor win in the last minute that kept us from a bowl game, and so on. They each should have lost those games, but didn't.

Anyway, I think it a stretch to say we should have lost a game we led the whole way, held inside our ten to force a tying FG, and then went down and scored the game winner with 30 seconds left. We could have, sure. But should have?

In any case, the 2016 version will be played this Saturday. Everybody make your choices. I choose Rice. 31-17 sounds nice.

Agree. Could have, not should have. Good point.

The "should have" folks are likely thinking of the related question: Is the Rice-Army game being in doubt where we need to be?

(09-06-2016 11:38 AM)GoodOwl Wrote:  

(09-06-2016 01:21 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  The 18-14 win vs. FAU in 2013 comes to mind. Also the 31-30 UT win and the 31-30 UH win and the 38-31 UT win, and the Baylor win in the last minute that kept us from a bowl game, and so on. They each should have lost those games, but didn't.

Anyway, I think it a stretch to say we should have lost a game we led the whole way, held inside our ten to force a tying FG, and then went down and scored the game winner with 30 seconds left. We could have, sure. But should have?

In any case, the 2016 version will be played this Saturday. Everybody make your choices. I choose Rice. 31-17 sounds nice.

Agree. Could have, not should have. Good point.

The "should have" folks are likely thinking of the related question: Is the Rice-Army game being in doubt where we need to be?

No, but that is a whole other question that has no bearing on the potential results of Saturday's game.

Where we should be in this context is irrelevant with regards to where we are currently.