RE: Rice at UTEP Football. 11-30-2019. Prediction and Roll Call
We don't appear to have to have an other games post this week, is I'll post here.
I was at the Iron Bowl yesterday. In addition to a heck of a ball game, we were struck by the atmosphere. My GF said that she had not seen anything like it since a rugby international test match in South Africa ten years ago.
I don't remember any Rice game ever with anything approaching that kind of atmosphere. The closest was probably the LSU games, back when we were good enough to make that series competitive. TexasU games drew large crowds, but the intensity and atmosphere were just never the same. It was more like Horn fans smugly expected to dominate, and were disappointed when they didn't. And aTm simply didn't get to be really good until we got to be really bad. I really don't recall any SWC games, even Texas/u-aTm, getting there. Maybe TexasU-OU comes closer than anything I can recall, when both teams are good.
I know a lot of people miss the SWC. I miss the kind of game-day atmosphere I saw yesterday. I grew up with it, and that seemed normal to me at the time. Of course, the Iron Bowl is probably over the top. It is the number one sporting event in an entire state for a year, and that state lives off the results for the other 364 days. Rice can't get there, but it would be nice off we could get at least somewhat closer.
This one really wasn't that meaningful. Neither one really had serious playoff chances. The favorite comment of Auburn fans afterwards was, "At least we killed whatever playoff chances you had," and the number one comment of Alabama fans was, "Looks like you are stuck with Gus for another year."
As far as Gus, I remember a lot of people on here wanted him to come here at one time. His rushing schemes are well crafted, but his passing attack is unsophisticated HS level stuff. It just relies totally on a receiver's ability to beat a DB or the QBs ability to make incredible throws, with none of the stretches and stresses that RUOwls talk about. There are no--or very few--three-level stretches, with one receiver going deep, another running medium depth, and one or more others running short stuff. He probably runs the ball on passing downs more than Bailiff did. A lot of it is run, run, pass, punt. It works when you have Cam Newton at QB, not so well when you don't.
One nice touch I noted. Joe Burrow came out for pregame last night wearing a jersey with his name spelled "Burreaux" on it. He really seems to have adapted to and adopted Louisiana, and Tiger fans seem to have embraced him. It's nice story.
(This post was last modified: 12-01-2019 08:31 AM by Owl 69/70/75.)
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