Owls to play No. 2 Texas Saturday
The football team heads to Austin to take on second-ranked University of Texas tomorrow night, as it attempts to turn in a performance worthy of the national television audience the game will receive. The game airs at 7 p.m. on Fox Sports Net.
Rice (0-1) and Texas (2-0) have had very different season beginnings. The Longhorns defeated then-fourth-ranked Ohio State 25-22 Saturday on the road in Columbus, while the Owls lost 63-21 Saturday to unranked University of California-Los Angeles at the Rose Bowl.
Dating back to last season, Rice has lost seven consecutive games. Head Coach Ken Hatfield said the first six of those are irrelevant.
“Last year has nothing to do with this team,” Hatfield said. “This team is 0-1 with the players who are on the team this year, and that’s all we’re counting on right now. … Nobody wants to be where we are. Nobody wrote that in the script. But the good thing is the players that we have … want to improve and get better.”
The oddsmakers have the Longhorns as a six-touchdown favorite, but Hatfield said the Owls’ goal is to win, not just to be competitive.
“We need to beat Texas,” Hatfield said. “Outscore them. We want to win the football game. Right now it’s 0-0. We’ve got a game plan, and hopefully we’re a lot better team this week than we were last week.”
Last year, the Owls lost 35-13 in Austin. UT took control early in that game, allowing Hatfield to give some of his freshmen their first playing time in a college football game. One of those freshmen was now-sophomore quarterback Joel Armstrong, who gave the Owl faithful a glimmer of hope for the future when he broke off a 44-yard run against a surprised Longhorn defense. That experience should help prepare Armstrong for the toughest starting assignment of his young career.
A main objective for the Owls is staying healthy before beginning conference play. Last season, three offensive starters went down in the first three games, but Rice escaped UCLA without any major injuries. The only long-term concern for the Owls is junior running back Mike Falco, who had his knee scoped this week.
While senior defensive end John Syptak is considered Rice’s best defensive player — he was named preseason Conference USA defensive player of the year — senior linebacker Adam Herrin has assumed more of a leadership role. Hatfield said Rice’s senior leaders must help the team maintain morale after last week’s loss.
“We’re a team — like 50 percent of the other teams — that lost our first game. I remember several years ago we lost to Ohio State 70-7 in the first game of the year and came back and beat Tulane on the road the next week. … [After] a loss, … you look [to] Adam Herrin and the leadership you have to help the younger people get through it.”
But the Tulane of 1996 is not the Texas of 2005. UT quarterback and Heisman hopeful Vince Young is a highly skilled, mobile quarterback who has recently added an accurate passing game to his repertoire. Even when he did not have a good throwing arm last year, Young had three touchdown passes against the Owls. Young has become a national media darling, his resume
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