(09-28-2015 03:03 PM)NanoDawg Wrote: Rice vs WKU and Vandy vs MTSU are two big games this week for CUSA.
Rice will be difficult to play against at home - they only lost to ODU last year in a shoot out.
I'm actually rooting for WKU this game and hope they will go unbeaten until we meet them again in the CCG (wishful thinking, I know).
Those are two big games in the conference. Its just so hard to figure out Rice these days. At times it seems like we've made real progress. But if No Texas was just a little bit better two weeks ago, they could have beat us. They certainly burned us on the deep pass, they just couldn't do it often enough more than we could stop them. WKU appears to have a more skilled and seasoned QB, and although their receivers might be a step slower than Baylor's were last week, they are still probably two steps ahead of our secondary.
Rice coaches seem to want to play ball-control offense but only playing with about half a defense so far. We definitely have some talent on this team, but our weakness can be picked apart by teams who can get their passing game going a bit more than No. Texas did. Do we have a home stadium advantage? I wonder how many of our smallish fanbase will bother to show up after last week's embarrassing loss to Baylor? For a conference opponent few of them know much about, albeit the 'toppers are one of the favorites to win the CUSA this year.
I just hope it's close and doesn't turn into something like La Tech did to us last year in Ruston. Rice is trying to get over the hump, and is doing more things right than in the past, but somehow has trouble putting everything together consistently, especially against the better teams we play.
MTSU shows promise, and Vandy is not all that great, but they still have SEC money and seasoning, which counts for something. Hope MTSU can pull that one out for their fanbase and the conference.
I guess the good news for Rice is we'll have a clearer picture of who we are after this game. Beating Wagner was meaningless. No. Texas was not supposed to be good, but their receiver burned us for what, 160 yards and a few scores? If I was any team playing Rice this year, home or away, I'd throw against our secondary a ton. I don't think we can stop that consistently this year, and might have to wait until next year to have a chance to do so. It might end up being a long season because of the weakness. Then again, maybe the coaches will figure out what to change to stop it from happening as much. Our offense is decent, but not score a TD every possession decent.
