Football falls on the road again
The football team lost for the 14th time in its last 16 road games last Saturday, falling 35-10 in Reno at the University of Nevada. The road loss was also the Owls’ third in a row, as they dropped to 3-3 on the season and 2-2 in Western Athletic Conference play, effectively ending any hopes of realizing their preseason goal, a WAC championship. Nevada (3-4, 1-2 WAC) earned its first conference victory in front of a homecoming crowd of 18,800. ‘[Playing on the road] doesn’t matter,’ senior cornerback Raymorris Barnes said. ‘The game of football is going to be the game of football, no matter if it’s 50,000 fans for you or 50,000 fans against you. The problem is not so much being on the road — it’s being consistent. Why we play so well at home, why we play so badly away, I don’t have an answer.’ The game started off promisingly, as sophomore cornerback Matt Ginn intercepted his second pass of the season on Nevada’s opening drive, returning the ball 28 yards to the Nevada 30-yard line. The Owls could not capitalize though, when sophomore kicker Brennan Landry missed a 47-yard field goal on their subsequent possession. ‘They gave the one turnover early in the game, and that’s when we needed to score,’ head coach Ken Hatfield said. ‘If we score on the first drive, I think that gives us the confidence you’ve got to have in that kind of game — a homecoming game.’ The Wolf Pack wasted no time building what proved to be an insurmountable lead, marching 70 yards down the field for a touchdown. Nevada had another scoring opportunity after senior fullback Ed Bailey fumbled the ensuing kickoff, giving the Wolf Pack possession on the Rice 32. Three plays later, Nevada led 14-0. Rice managed a field goal as time ran out in the first quarter, but the Wolf Pack answered with an efficient, 12-play, 80-yard touchdown drive to make the score 21-3 with 10:44 left in the second quarter. The Owl defense responded by holding Nevada to a net loss of 17 yards on its next four drives and scoreless on its next six. The Rice offense, however, was unable to capitalize due to poor field position and its inability to mount a sustained drive. The score remained 21-3 into the middle of the fourth quarter. Senior center Ross Huebel said Nevada used different defensive looks to confound the Rice offense. ‘They did run a different defense — I wouldn’t say that’s what caused us to stop,’ Huebel said. ‘We still picked it up, we still did our job. We did a good job as a unit overcoming that — the reason we were having trouble on drives was a single play. If one block would have gone a little further there, if it would have been a different lead [block] in another spot, and we would have gone a little further.’ Nevada moved the ball effectively in the fourth quarter, scoring on two short touchdown runs. Rice managed its lone touchdown of the game on a 13-yard run by freshman quarterback Joel Armstrong, but the 25-point loss was the Owls’ worst of the season. ‘We have to focus more as a team.’ Barnes said. ‘You play well for the second and third quarter, but in the first and the fourth quarter, you have letdowns, you lose the game. That’s one thing we need to work on — being consistent.’ Barnes said the Owls’ coaching staff prepared the team well. ‘It’s evident the game plan worked in the second and third quarter when the plays were executed,’ Barnes said. ‘It’s just that we need to execute in the first and fourth, the entire four quarters. It comes down to each individual player mastering their fundamentals — doing everything individually to help the team out as a whole.’ Armstrong, who split time with starting senior quarterback Greg Henderson, led Rice in rushing for the first time in his career, running for 98 yards on 10 carries. Armstrong had a pair of 37-yard runs and fell just short of his third straight 100-yard game. Nevada held the Rice rushing attack, the nation’s best statistically, to 268 yards on 53 carries. The Owls averaged 5.1 yards per carry, their third-lowest total of the season. By contrast, the Owls ran for 6.4 yards per carry in dominating SMU Oct. 10. With Henderson out with a chest injury, Armstrong started at quarterback and directed the offense as the Owls ran for a total of 496 yards. Bailey led Rice with 158 yards and four touchdowns, while Armstrong added 138 yards on 14 carries. Freshman running back Bio Bilaye-Benibo carried 10 times for 123 yards, making him the fifth different Owl to gain 100 yards rushing in a game this season.
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