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September 21, 2007 > Sports > Red Raiders use the big play to outshoot Owls

Red Raiders use the big play to outshoot Owls

By Nathan Bledsoe | Thresher staff

In 1995, the last year of the Southwest Conference’s existence, the football team struggled in conference play. Now, 12 years later, the Owls are reminded how tough those days were.

After losing handily to both Baylor University and Texas Tech University, both old SWC foes, Rice plays their third game in as many weeks against a member of the now-defunct conference, playing University of Texas (3-0) tomorrow at 6 p.m. in Austin. It will be the Owls’ third straight meeting with a Big 12 opponent.

The contest also marks the second straight week the Longhorns face a Conference USA foe. Texas narrowly escaped Orlando with a 35-32 victory over the University of Central Florida last Saturday.

Texas has looked inconsistent and shaky in their games thus far, narrowly defeating Division I-AA Arkansas State University and trailing TCU for the entire first half before coming back to beat the Horned Frogs. However, junior linebacker Brian Raines knows if the Owls hope to down the Longhorns for the first time since 1994, they must play nearly flawlessly.

“When you do play the big schools you do need to do everything right, and that’s what we’ve got to start doing,” he said.

Unfortunately for the squad, they did not come close to doing everything right last weekend, falling 59-24 to the Red Raiders. Texas Tech lived up to its reputation as an offensive juggernaut, and the game marked the highest offensive outputs for both Rice and Texas Tech thus far this season.

On the offensive side of the ball, the Owls came out firing, with both sophomore Toren Dixon and junior Jarett Dillard snagging touchdown passes. The team used multiple formations and plays in Saturday’s game that had not yet been used, moving the chains consistently in the first half, and Rice got as close as 21-17. But the team sputtered in the second half, ending three drives on two fumbles and an interception.

“Offensively, we played a solid first half,” head coach David Bailiff said. “The second half we kept having three-and-outs and turning the ball over — we can’t do that.”

Winning the turnover margin battle propelled the Owls to many of their victories in 2006, but the team has struggled to force turnovers this season. In order to beat the Longhorns, the Owls must capitalize on all opportunities for turnovers while not committing many themselves.

“We lost the turnover battle again, we had three, they had two,” Bailiff said. “We’ve had a lot of opportunities for turnovers, we just haven’t capitalized on them.”

However, Rice did show glimmers of hope. The pressure applied by the defensive line aided a weak secondary, sacking Tech quarterback Graham Harrell once. But moreover they forced rushed, errant throws and multiple holding penalties out of the Texas Tech offensive line.

While giving up 59 points indicates a poor defensive performance, Rice allowed a few key big plays, which ran up the score. This propensity to give up the big play concerns the coaching staff, and is something that the team has focused on correcting for the past two weeks.

“Defensively, we gave up 593 yards, but on 89% of the plays they had 293 yards and on 8 plays they had 290 yards,” Bailiff said.

Many of the long gains given up went to Texas Tech’s redshirt freshman receiver Michael Crabtree, whose eleven reception, 244-yard performance earned him Big 12 offensive player of the week honors.

A bright spot for the Owls was continued improvement on special teams, with senior punter Luke Juist continuing to punt consistently, and with marked improvement in the kickoff coverage team. Of Texas Tech’s four kickoff returns, the longest went for only 25 yards.

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