It’s been 35 days since North Texas last played and 21 days since Rice last played. Both teams made their long-awaited returns to the gridiron at Apogee Stadium this Saturday. The rust was evident early within the Mean Green, trailing 10-0 in the opening minutes. But North Texas (3-3, 2-2 C-USA) piled on 27 unanswered points and controlled the second half to hand Rice (1-2, 1-2 C-USA) a 27-17 loss.
“It felt like a game one all over again,” Rice head coach Mike Bloomgren said. “You’d love to say, ‘Well, we had three weeks in between games and that’s hard,’ but they had five weeks they overcame. They did a better job dealing with it than we did.”
Rice flew right down the field on its opening possession. The Owls traveled 48 yards in eight plays, finally succumbing to the North Texas defense inside the 30-yard line. Rice capped off the drive with a Collin Riccitelli field goal. The defense subsequently forced a stop and it was right back to work for the Owls.
Quarterback Mike Collins delivered a series of first down throws to keep the chains moving in the first quarter. He passed for a combined 95 yards on Rice’s first two possessions. On the second drive of the game, he connected with his primary target Austin Trammell for a 14-yard touchdown and a 10-0 lead.
Rice appeared destined for a three-score lead several times. First, a fumble by running back Khalan Griffin — who registered 72 rushing yards his first career start — in North Texas territory thwarted Rice from extending the lead. One series later, Rice attempted a 4th and 2 from the Mean Green 11, but Mike Collins quick slant in the end zone to Jake Bailey fell incomplete.
“The decision making was I thought we really had a chance to really impact the game,” Bloomgren said. “We’re up 10-0 at that point, a chance to really change the game. You put seven on the board and it feels different. We got a quarterback that we really trust in Mike Collins. We put the ball in his hands and obviously it didn’t work out.”
The first four drives all pierced into the North Texas 30-yard line, but Rice managed 10 points. Shortly after the missed fourth down conversion, everything changed.
North Texas quarterback Jason Bean kept the ball on a zone read and sprinted 66 yards to the end zone to put his team on the board. While the offense started to gain its rhythm, the defense and special teams stepped up to swing the momentum in the home team’s favor.
“I definitely think there was a change in mindset and that’s what really hurt us. That big play gave them momentum,” outside linebacker Blaze Alldredge said. “When you’re facing the No. 2 offense in yards per game in the country, those are things you can’t do. We knew this offense was a slow starter and a hard finisher, and for some reason we forgot about that.”
The Mean Green defense built on Bean’s touchdown run by forcing a three-and-out and recovering a muffed punt. Then, Bean delivered a 28-yard touchdown strike to FBS receiving touchdowns leader Jaelon Darden to secure a 14-10 lead — the margin would sustain through halftime.
“We started off the game as well as we could,” Bloomgren said. “For 10 minutes we played our kind of football and did the things that we needed to do, and then I had no idea what — but we quit doing our jobs and quit doing things we were coached to do. We didn’t play well.”
In the second half, North Texas kept everything in full throttle. The Mean Green defense consistently invaded the backfield to sack Collins, and the unit finished with seven sacks. Facing plenty of down and distance situations, Rice was never able to gain the offensive firepower which existed in the first quarter. The sacks forced Rice into ugly 4th down scenarios, including 4th and 14, 4th and 32, and 4th and 23 on three of its five second half drives.
“For them to have seven sacks, that’s a really good day for them defensively,” Bloomgren said. “We did not protect the passer well enough — not even close. All the good of that 10 minutes certainly got evaporated by halftime.”
Rice’s secondary still played well. The Owls forced Bean to just nine completions on 20 attempts. Darden’s explosive playmaking was a particular focus in practice this week, and the star wideout only hauled in four receptions for 50 yards Saturday. However, North Texas’ running back duo of DeAndre Torrey and Oscar Adaway III combined for 174 rushing yards, and Bean added 94.
“I gotta give credit to our guys on the back end — to Miles (McCord), and Andrew (Bird), and to Prudy (Calderon) — I felt like they played great games and did a great job limiting their explosive pass plays,” Alldredge said. “In terms of the box, we gotta do better. We missed too many tackles and at the end of the day, it’s not about scheme. It’s about if you can get off tackles and get off blocks, and we didn’t do a good job of doing that today.”
Five weeks separated the games but North Texas increases its winning streak to two with the comeback victory over Rice. The Mean Green remain a legitimate contender in a wide open C-USA West, especially given the team’s offensive potential — even without the usual astronomical performance from Darden.
“We made a commitment to take away two things on their offense and make them beat us with other people,” Bloomgren said. “I have to take my hat off to Seth Littrell and their coaching staff for doing a great job of adjusting to what we were showing them.”
It’s time for Rice to make its own adjustments now. The Owls looked far from the team that shut down Southern Miss 30-6 in their last outing. UTEP awaits next on the schedule, and Rice hopes a productive week in the film room can turn things around after its most lopsided C-USA loss in nine games.
“We’re gonna come back to work on Monday,” Bloomgren said. “We’re gonna assess what happened in this game. We’re gonna learn from this film with a critical eye, and then we’re gonna move forward.”