While Tech has now had two games called off this season due to COVID-19, the Rice Owls have only played two games entirely. And the two opponents Rice has faced are perhaps the two worst in Conference USA: Middle Tennessee and Southern Miss.
So while we have a pretty good idea of how Tech looks like in 2020, Rice is still a bit of an enigma. In the season opener against the Blue Raiders, the Owls struggled and lost in overtime. But the next week in Hattiesburg, the Owls came away with a convincing 30-6 victory.
Because we haven’t seen how Rice performs against even a Top 100 team, we have to take everything with a grain of salt. But with that in mind, Rice’s offense seems to be good enough at putting up points. Both of Rice’s past opponents allow 37 points per game. The Owls scored 34 against MTSU and 30 against USM.
A lot of that is due to how good they are when they get down towards the goal line:
But not too close to the goal line. A scoring opportunity is when the team gets the ball inside their opponents’ 40-yard line. But if we look at points per red zone trip, Rice looks a bit worse:
Combined, those two charts tell an interesting story when combined: Rice actually scores fewer points if they cross the 20-yard line.
And that oddity may be due to one thing: Rice has yet to score a rushing touchdown.
There are four teams in college football who have yet to score a rushing touchdown: UMass, Bowling Green, and Akron. The other three schools have two passing touchdowns across them. Rice has eight.
Rice has not had the best success running the ball this year (averaging 3.8 yards a carry, fourth-worst in C-USA), but in short-yardage situations, the Owls have actually been pretty good on third or fourth down and short:
But Rice has not had those goal-line chances. The Owls have only snapped the ball inside the 5-yard line four times. Three were on the drive that ended with a 3-yard touchdown pass. The other was an incomplete pass on a third down.
But that may not matter if Rice is able to sustain the success they have when the ball is snapped between the 20 and the 40. Because half of Rice's touchdowns this year have come on passes of 20 yards or longer. There's no need to be a good red zone team if you rarely stop in the red zone.
And the Owls have those long pass opportunities inside the 40 because they run the ball a lot. Like "47 times a game" a lot.
When teams sell out against the run it opens up things down the field. And if Tech wants to escape what's expected to be a close game against the Owls, they'll need be ready for those over the top throws.
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Nathan is also a contributor to gtpdd.dog, a lighthearted Louisiana Tech blog. Be sure to check out @gotechplsdntdie on Twitter.
