Jameson McCausland
Staff Writer
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Texas will attempt to clean up a lot of mistakes on both sides of the ball when they welcome Rice to DKR on Saturday night. The Owls enter the contest at 0-2 on the season after opening with a 38-17 loss to Arkansas and a 44-7 blowout loss to Houston. Let's take a look at what to expect from Mike Bloomgren's team:
Offense
Let's cut right to the chase, Rice is awful offensively. The Owls are a power running team who loves to get under center and run the ball between the tackles. The problem is they struggle mightily to run the ball at all. Against the Razorbacks they averaged a horrible 2.1 yards per carry and improved to 3.5 yards per carry this past weekend versus Houston while only scoring 7 points.
Quarterback is a revolving door. Rice brought in Nebraska transfer Luke McCaffrey prior to the season, but he has already thrown 3 interceptions. Fellow QB Wiley Green has thrown 3 interceptions of his own. The duo is combining to complete 48.1% of their passes. If Texas shuts down the running game, the game could get out of hand quickly.
Up front, Rice has allowed 6 sacks already on the season despite being a team that has only attempted a54 passes. This should be a game where the Texas defensive line is able to control the line of scrimmage and pin their ears back on 3rd down. Neither McCaffrey or Green are much of a threat to run the ball so they will not have to worry about the QB run.
Defense
If Rice is to have any shot in this game, their defense is going to have to play nearly perfect and carry them. They held Arkansas in check for about a half in the season opener before the floodgates opened (with an assist from the poor Rice offense setting the Razorbacks up with short fields).
They have an experienced defensive line, led by DT Elijah Garcia, who has a chance to be an all-conference type player for the Owls. Garcia will be a good test for the interior of the Texas offensive line that struggled in Fayetteville last weekend. On the backend, safety George Nyakwol is a good player and is someone to keep an eye on. The Longhorns will want to get the passing game in sync with conference play approaching, and they will have a good opportunity to do so with how Rice has looked through the first two weeks.
Final Thoughts
This game is more about Texas taking a good first step towards correcting a lot of what went wrong a week ago. The Longhorns have a lot to clean up and they likely won't get all the answers they need due to the quality of the opponent, but building some much needed momentum heading into conference play would certainly be ideal. If Texas is able to play a relatively clean game along the offensive line and Casey Thompson is able to consistently move the offense down the field, Steve Sarkisian should walk away from the game pretty pleased. Defensively, Texas needs to minimize the missed tackles and show some signs of life along the defensive line. The spread for for this game is Texas -26.5 so if all goes accordingly to plan, the Longhorns should be emptying the bench in the 4th quarter.
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