I agree we need to hire an OC. The play calling was suspect. Why didn't we throw on first down since our offensive line was manhandled. There seem to be no adjustments at half time. The worst game by our defense this year.

Keep in mind this MSU team only topped Bowling Green by a point, so they weren't an insurmountable juggernaut. They came to play with a well executed gameplan. We weren't willing to take their top receiver seriously. Our offense was badly exposed as uncreative. Simply put, they were ready for us; we just bumbled along with our basic schemes. Bailiff has yet to knock off a mid level P5 team.
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(12-31-2013 09:15 PM)Bay Area Owl Wrote:  Keep in mind this MSU team only topped Bowling Green by a point, so they weren't an insurmountable juggernaut. They came to play with a well executed gameplan. We weren't willing to take their top receiver seriously. Our offense was badly exposed as uncreative. Simply put, they were ready for us; we just bumbled along with our basic schemes. Bailiff has yet to knock off a mid level P5 team.

They also came within 10 seconds of knocking off Auburn...

It seems like MSU was an up and down team that could play with anyone in the country when they were on.

(12-31-2013 09:15 PM)Bay Area Owl Wrote:  Keep in mind this MSU team only topped Bowling Green by a point, so they weren't an insurmountable juggernaut. They came to play with a well executed gameplan. We weren't willing to take their top receiver seriously. Our offense was badly exposed as uncreative. Simply put, they were ready for us; we just bumbled along with our basic schemes. Bailiff has yet to knock off a mid level P5 team.

BGSU was pretty good this year.

A Purdue team that went to a bowl game wasn't mid-level?

i thought the Owls would surprise some people today, and they did. i just didn't think it would be us.

for the the people who criticized Reagan's playcalling all season, I bet you miss him now. I kept looking for the the long pass downfield to Jordan.

defensively, I thought Thurmond should have been blitzing from the git-go.

MissSt fans around us and on our bus were verynice.

(12-31-2013 09:00 PM)NolaOwl Wrote:  The game represents a thorough beating - physically and mentally. We were mauled in the trenches and out ran in the skill positions. Really, it was not as close as the score would indicate as State shut itself down early. We appeared to give up.

Where do we go from here? DB has taken us to the top of the diminished CUSA but we clearly have much to do to get to the next level. Listening to the State players interviewed after the game brought home the built- in obstacles any coach would have in bringing those kids in to Rice. One telling stat - their o line outweighs our d line by an average of 40 pounds. Given those realities, maybe we should just celebrate our CUSA success and chalk up the loss to just stepping up too far out of our class.

I agree that there is a ceiling because of our place in the grand scheme of things. But I don't think we are at it yet.

First step is the OC. Would help if we could get some donations for that budget. Step 1a is get ground broken on the EZF.

(12-31-2013 09:20 PM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  

(12-31-2013 09:15 PM)Bay Area Owl Wrote:  Keep in mind this MSU team only topped Bowling Green by a point, so they weren't an insurmountable juggernaut. They came to play with a well executed gameplan. We weren't willing to take their top receiver seriously. Our offense was badly exposed as uncreative. Simply put, they were ready for us; we just bumbled along with our basic schemes. Bailiff has yet to knock off a mid level P5 team.

They also came within 10 seconds of knocking off Auburn...

It seems like MSU was an up and down team that could play with anyone in the country when they were on.

Bingo.

I want to see the Sadow performance rating on this stinker. My hunch is despite all this after-the-fact loving on how great MSU is/was it's going to be real ugly.

Offensive game plan was uncharacteristically vanilla for a bowl game. The past two bowl games under Bailiff we sort of cored up the existing offense and then added a set of completely new looks/plays for the bowl game. For this one we just fumbled around with the same stuff we've run all year. After a couple series MSU realized after a month of preparation they were ready for the same old schemes they'd seen on film. We were supposed to see more tempo and urgency, instead we were even flatter. Edmondson gets an F.

Defense was fine at the outset except for that one crucial flaw that I and the broadcast crew and probably some others realized after the first MSU scoring drive. The bracketing/zone/single safety in man approach to covering Lewis out of the slot was not going to work. That specific mismatch broke the back of our defense on a number of early 3rd downs and as a result we got far behind and the defense and team's overall spirit was broken. I was and am surprised that after showing the wherewithal to move Gaines into the slot to cover receivers when necessary during the season, we didn't bring this strategy out until the 2nd half when the game was already out of hand and the teams spirit deflated.

On that note, it was disappointing to see the team fold up down the stretch instead of showing the more consistent fight the did during this season.

Have to call the season a success with the conference title and the seniors should be proud. I'll really miss guys like Ross and Gaines. Look forward to their Draft processes and Sunday careers.

But that was about as bad an ending as you could have. Thoroughly thrashed by a mediocre SEC team and much of a seasons PR capital wiped out on the public stage of a New Year's Eve bowl game. Ugh.

I think the team was shocked by what was happening to it and just crawled into its shell. The killer was the last TD before the half. 20-7 or 20-14 and we come back fired up. The way the TD before the half was scored rattled us even more and we never fought back from then on.

44-21 or even 44-17 and you don't feel so bad but to have our offense disappear after our second series and the defense manhandled all night was a huge negative particularly as a conference champion. I will be interested in how Bailiff explains what happened and what we need to do to not have it happen again. I think most of us had thought nights like this were in the past and that just made this horror show even more disappointing.

(12-31-2013 10:06 PM)talon owl Wrote:  I want to see the Sadow performance rating on this stinker. My hunch is despite all this after-the-fact loving on how great MSU is/was it's going to be real ugly.

Offensive game plan was uncharacteristically vanilla for a bowl game. The past two bowl games under Bailiff we sort of cored up the existing offense and then added a set of completely new looks/plays for the bowl game. For this one we just fumbled around with the same stuff we've run all year. After a couple series MSU realized after a month of preparation they were ready for the same old schemes they'd seen on film. We were supposed to see more tempo and urgency, instead we were even flatter. Edmondson gets an F.

Defense was fine at the outset except for that one crucial flaw that I and the broadcast crew and probably some others realized after the first MSU scoring drive. The bracketing/zone/single safety in man approach to covering Lewis out of the slot was not going to work. That specific mismatch broke the back of our defense on a number of early 3rd downs and as a result we got far behind and the defense and team's overall spirit was broken. I was and am surprised that after showing the wherewithal to move Gaines into the slot to cover receivers when necessary during the season, we didn't bring this strategy out until the 2nd half when the game was already out of hand and the teams spirit deflated.

On that note, it was disappointing to see the team fold up down the stretch instead of showing the more consistent fight the did during this season.

Have to call the season a success with the conference title and the seniors should be proud. I'll really miss guys like Ross and Gaines. Look forward to their Draft processes and Sunday careers.

But that was about as bad an ending as you could have. Thoroughly thrashed by a mediocre SEC team and much of a seasons PR capital wiped out on the public stage of a New Year's Eve bowl game. Ugh.

Good post.

Disappointed with how vanilla we were, with no reason to be conservative (in all phases of the game). Though ultimately the issues were not with play-calling on offense, but that we just haven't developed the weapons to deal with teams that can keep our running game in check.

MSU is good, but wow, buzzsaw? Ultimately they have vulnerabilities with their offense and their defensive secondary; we couldn't take advantage of either. We dropped many could-be INTs, brought no pressure on their QB, didn't tackle well, and let them exploit a single mismatch in an obscene fashion for the former, and with McHargue we lack the game to attack the latter. We've certainly faced better opposing lines, as we had more protection time to pass than in many CUSA games, and their OL was unable to dictate the running game vs. our D.

I sat through some ofer seasons, but never were we manhandled like we were today. Not since the 72 to 15 shellacking we had at the hands of Texas way back when all the UT quarterback did was a three step drop and throw the ball as far as he could and watch Jonny Lam or Jonny Ham run underneath it.

Maybe the best game we had all season was the conference championship and one of the worst was today? Just how many days of preparation did Rice have for each game and just how effective was that preparation?

At least Bailiff can't be looking for a five year extension or is he?

Rice was manhandled worse by UH quite recently.

Was a single pass completed against Gaines today? I remember seeing one short pass against Callahan, but nothing else (granted I did a fair amount of socializing). Coverage from the safeties is better than under Driesbach, but still not where it needs to be overall. When Rice is mostly stopping the run (except for the QB) would like to see more packages with 3 CB's on the field. But credit to Prescott and MissSt for making some plays as well.

One thing I learned today, when their olinemen out-weigh our DE's by ~60 lbs, we should try blitzing more, because any perceived speed advantage by the defense just isn't enough. And rushing 3 was not the answer, as it gave Prescott 5 years to eventually find an open receiver (or alternatively open the middle of the field for a scramble).

There was no doubt that Miss St. was bigger, stronger, faster, deeper - - we knew that coming in. And it was a home game for them.
But we got blown out basically for three reasons:
1. Gaines and Callahan were rendered entirely null by receivers that Miss St. had designed from the beginning to function only as decoys. And we never adjusted.
2. We relaxed, sat on our laurels, and didn't work HARD with Edmondson to come up with an offensive plan. It was ENTIRELY predictable that they would stuff our run game (like FAU, UNT, Tulane and other lesser teams), yet we still had developed no answer and not even a new play or two.
3. Prescott played flawlessly.

(12-31-2013 07:45 PM)WIowl Wrote:  

(12-31-2013 07:44 PM)Bay Area Owl Wrote:  

(12-31-2013 07:38 PM)wrysal Wrote:  This game proves you get what you pay for.

While I understand the money flowing around the P5 eclipses what the non-P5 has, it's not like we pay our coaches in peanuts. Bailiff makes $650K, and our top assistants must make at least $150K. Even $150K should buy a coach who can strategize and adjust against an opponent.

To get out of CUSA, Rice needs to become a Top 25 team. Can Bailiff do it?

I do not believe for a moment that is the prerequisite to getting in another conference. Money.

(12-31-2013 10:27 PM)At Ease Wrote:  MSU is good, but wow, buzzsaw? Ultimately they have vulnerabilities with their offense and their defensive secondary; we couldn't take advantage of either. We dropped many could-be INTs, brought no pressure on their QB, didn't tackle well, and let them exploit a single mismatch in an obscene fashion for the former, and with McHargue we lack the game to attack the latter. We've certainly faced better opposing lines, as we had more protection time to pass than in many CUSA games, and their OL was unable to dictate the running game vs. our D.

I often agree with you, and I hate to pump up an opponent that just blew us out, but I think you're selling them short here. At least how they played yesterday.

Their defensive front got decent, not great, pressure on our QBs, but more importantly they had very good containment on scrambles and they held Ross and Davis to 2.88 YPC. Nobody else on our schedule came close to doing that.

Prescott reminded me of Manziel minus the showboating.

Their conventional (non-scramble) running game was probably their least strong point and their RBs still averaged 5.15 YPC.

I join you in wishing we had been less predictable on both sides of the ball, but I can't think of a comparable performance by a Rice opponent since Texas in 2008.

They did not dominate in the trenches IMO. We got out-played and out coached by superior talent, but not blown out physically. Defense was the strength of this Rice team but we still have a ways to go to have a defense that is solid vs good teams. Versus A&M, Miss St., and even Houston, the defense was below average. It was good in Conference USA and especially good at home, but not good away from HRS and C-USA.

Our offense couldn't get going against the best defense we've faced all year. For all our success, this was NOT one of the better Rice offenses I've seen. Whenever we played against a solid D we struggled to score (FAU, North Texas). I appreciate what McHargue was able to do at Rice, but he's not a star QB. He showed only marginal improvement over his career despite being a 4-year starter. I don't know that we can improve on our QB play anytime soon, though I still hold out some hope that DJ can bounce back in 2014 and prove to be as good or better at leading the offense. Without Dak at QB, this would've been a closer, low-scoring game.

I was impressed with Miss St.'s play-calling, every play had something to keep the Rice D off-balance. Would like to see more of this incorporated into the Rice offense. It helps to have a QB who plays like Cam Newton.

We're not where we want to be, but we're getting there. Winning the conference was a huge step forward for the program. It's one of the worst conferences in football, but we took care of business and played like a top 25 team at home. I'd day this Rice team should be ranked at about #60 in the country, which is not bad, but certainly not good enough to beat good P5 conference teams. Next year should be exciting. We still have a lot of returning talent, and hopefully more young talent emerges. If we get good QB play we should go bowling again, and maybe we can even beat Notre Dame or A&M. I don't think we're too far from being able to knock off teams like that, despite last night's outcome.

We were blown out by Sun Belt team Troy in the 2006 bowl game, so being blown out by SEC's Miss St (a glorified Troy) should not be a shock in 2013. This is a Miss St program on the rise, who will contend for the SEC next season. Rice is a team that should contend for C-USA every season and with continued building could become a consistent top 50 team.

Those who talk about play calling, exactly what is it that you like or don't like about theirs or ours? Plays that work are good play calls and plays that don't work are bad play calls. And the team that executes best has more good play calls. When you get beat 44-7, it wasn't play calls that beat you. I just hear complaints about play calling all the time, but most of the time there's not much comment about what would have been good play calls. I'd just be hearing more along the lines of what would have been better.

I also hear a lot about their O-line was bigger than our D-line. O-lines are bigger than D-lines, probably something on the order of 40 pounds is average. The positions are different with different requirements. D-linemen have to be quicker and more athletic, which means they are generally quite a bit smaller. I'm guessing our O-line is bigger than our D-line, and was probably bigger than Mississippi State's D-line.

What we saw yesterday was an indication of how far we have to go. We are way ahead of where we have been, but not where we need to go, not by a long shot. The score reflected a difference in athletes. With better schemes and better preparation, we could make it closer, or maybe increase the number of times we could actually win, and we can hope to get there. But for now, we have to play or best game opposite their worst game when we are out-athleted. And we were, by a mid-level SEC team. But mid-level SEC teams out-athlete lots of people.

(01-01-2014 02:29 PM)Buho00 Wrote:  Next year should be exciting. We still have a lot of returning talent, and hopefully more young talent emerges. If we get good QB play we should go bowling again, and maybe we can even beat Notre Dame or A&M. I don't think we're too far from being able to knock off teams like that, despite last night's outcome.

I don't want to be a downer, but I think it's best for this board to be realistic now, so we don't go through the constant angst next season when we falter some. This year, everything aligned for us: 23, get that 23! seniors; a favorable schedule; an intact coaching staff; injury-free relatively; a very experienced QB; a game-changing kicker; two all-conf. corners; a couple of knuckle-biting wins.
I will always be optimistic, but next year there will be ALOT to rebuild.

In this conference, with our fan support, and with our academic requirements, we will NEVER get the athletes to compete with a team like we saw yesterday. Let's get real. I think we can aim to win CUSA frequently, bowl regularly, and someday gain entry into a better conference. Until then we need to do the little things to prepare ourselves: alumni $; engage the students; expand the student body; provide more institutional support for the MOB; market hard and put people in seats, even if it means giving tickets away; keep facilities up.

Generally speaking, we need once and for all, to COMPLETELY get past the campus-wide ambivalence about athletics. I think Tudor and Karlgaard are two key players that might possibly be able to make this happen.

(01-01-2014 04:30 PM)Barney Wrote:  

(01-01-2014 02:29 PM)Buho00 Wrote:  Next year should be exciting. We still have a lot of returning talent, and hopefully more young talent emerges. If we get good QB play we should go bowling again, and maybe we can even beat Notre Dame or A&M. I don't think we're too far from being able to knock off teams like that, despite last night's outcome.

I don't want to be a downer, but I think it's best for this board to be realistic now, so we don't go through the constant angst next season when we falter some. This year, everything aligned for us: 23, get that 23! seniors; a favorable schedule; an intact coaching staff; injury-free relatively; a very experienced QB; a game-changing kicker; two all-conf. corners; a couple of knuckle-biting wins.
I will always be optimistic, but next year there will be ALOT to rebuild.

In this conference, with our fan support, and with our academic requirements, we will NEVER get the athletes to compete with a team like we saw yesterday. Let's get real. I think we can aim to win CUSA frequently, bowl regularly, and someday gain entry into a better conference. Until then we need to do the little things to prepare ourselves: alumni $; engage the students; expand the student body; provide more institutional support for the MOB; market hard and put people in seats, even if it means giving tickets away; keep facilities up.

Generally speaking, we need once and for all, to COMPLETELY get past the campus-wide ambivalence about athletics. I think Tudor and Karlgaard are two key players that might possibly be able to make this happen.

Yes, we lose the Senior leadership we had this season, but unlike past seasons, the depth that Bailiff has built over the past 4 seasons means our task is more on of reloading than rebuilding. Despite the loss of Ross, running back will still be a team strength with Turner, Dilliard and Davis all returning. Despite being a 4-year starter, I don't think we'll see a fall off in QB play. (The issue is whether we will see an upgrade--whether it's DJ or someone else.) We return our two best wideouts in Taylor and Parks. Defensively, our primary loss is at CB. We should have the depth to reload elsewhere...and Covington should be a monster the next two season; especially without a cast forcing him to play with one arm.

Injury-free? Ross' absence was a major factor in two of our losses. We lost our best LB for the season, before the season even started.

Realistically and with our schedule, our expectation for next season should be an absolute minimum of 7 wins (worst case scenario).

(12-31-2013 10:27 PM)At Ease Wrote:  MSU is good, but wow, buzzsaw? Ultimately they have vulnerabilities with their offense and their defensive secondary; we couldn't take advantage of either. We dropped many could-be INTs, brought no pressure on their QB, didn't tackle well, and let them exploit a single mismatch in an obscene fashion for the former, and with McHargue we lack the game to attack the latter. We've certainly faced better opposing lines, as we had more protection time to pass than in many CUSA games, and their OL was unable to dictate the running game vs. our D.

Had the Rice offense been able to put up maybe 300 yards of offense, I think this game looks more in line with the apparent relative strength of the two teams, and that's probably a 35-17 victory or so. Just going by TOP and number of offensive plays, MSU held 3:2 advantage in each, so moving the ball on offense seemed to be the biggest problem by far that Rice had. MSU's defensive line dominated the running game, but I still have to think Rice could do better than they showed yesterday. Had Reagan been there for the preparation and game, I have to think Rice would've done somewhat better than they did yesterday, but still not enough to make the game really close.

(12-31-2013 10:36 PM)MerseyOwl Wrote:  I sat through some ofer seasons, but never were we manhandled like we were today. Not since the 72 to 15 shellacking we had at the hands of Texas way back when all the UT quarterback did was a three step drop and throw the ball as far as he could and watch Jonny Lam or Jonny Ham run underneath it.

Ohio State and Michigan did pretty good numbers on Rice, not to mention UH and Baylor in recent years. I think all of those were more thorough dominations.

(01-01-2014 01:57 PM)Gravy Owl Wrote:  Their conventional (non-scramble) running game was probably their least strong point and their RBs still averaged 5.15 YPC.

Not quite the same thing that you said, but if you remove the QBs from the stats, I think the rushing average drops down the the 3-4 YPC range, and in my perception, that is skewed by the latter third of the game.

(01-01-2014 04:40 PM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  Realistically and with our schedule, our expectation for next season should be an absolute minimum of 7 wins (worst case scenario).

I think I have overestimated how many starters we lose, but I would expect some struggles just because we don't return much experience at QB. Certainly experience isn't everything, but I think it is meaningful. I'd figure a realistic ceiling of about 9 wins, but hopefully by bowl time, we'll see a team that is at least as strong as the team is now.