The Glass is Half-Full
The Owls lost their fifth straight game last Saturday against the University of Tulsa to drop their record 0-5. Thus, it would be easy for me to craft a blog post about everything on the team that’s upsetting me (the offensive line, a combined QB rating of 54 over the past two games, Nick Fanuzzi’s shoulder, etc.), but I’m a glass-half-full kind of person and therefore would rather write about a few things that are going well.
THE TALL TARGET
Wardlow, who played behind current Houston Texan James Casey last year, is doing well as a starter and notched a team-high 51 yards on three carries against the Golden Hurricane. He brought in the only touchdown of the day with a 29-yard reception from Ryan Lewis in the second quarter.
“Taylor’s invested a lot of years this program, a lot of years in that weight room, and it’s paying off now. He’s a big, tall target for us,” coach David Bailiff said of the 6-foot-6 tight end. He’s currently second on the team with 159 total yards.
POSSESSIONS & PENALTIES
Against Vanderbilt, the Owls tossed four interceptions but lowered that number in the Tulsa game to one, which came on the fourth quarter during the last drive. (Rice also hasn't lost a fumble since playing Oklahoma State.) In their last two games at home, the Owls have accumulated nine penalties, compared to 15 by their opponents.
KICK BACK AND RELAX
...when punter Kyle Martens is on the field, anyway. Bailiff succinctly put it best: "Kyle Martens had another fabulous game."
Martens may be getting too much practice, but at least it's doing him good. He's averaging 48.5 yards per punt over the last two games, which includes 450 total punting yards last week against Tulsa. His overall season average--46.5 yards--is good enough for 11th in college football, though he's fifth among those with at least 15 punts (Martens has 30). He also ranks fifth in total punting yards with 1395.
So let those positives and the following encouraging words by Bailiff keep your spirits up until Rice plays Navy at 2:30 p.m. on Saturday:
"I can tell you the players still believe in themselves and believe in what we’re doing. They have a tremendous attitude. There’s no give up in them, it’s nothing but fight. I think going in to that game, as we do every game, we expect great things to happen. We expect to win, it hasn’t happened. We’re not going to change our mentality or our attitude or let our expectations drop."