Early lead not enough for Rice to take Texas

By Meghan Hall     9/25/08 7:00pm

Last weekend, the football team traveled to Austin for their 91st meeting with the University of Texas. The crowd of almost 100,000, the largest to see a Rice game since the Owls played the University of Michigan in 2000, saw the Owls fall to the seventh-ranked Longhorns 52-10. Although Rice was only down 7-3 at the conclusion of the first quarter, Texas quickly began an offensive push and scored 31 unanswered points from the first to the third quarters.

The Owls struck first, kicking a field goal with under eight minutes remaining in the first quarter. They were then held scoreless until the final minutes of the third quarter, when senior quarterback Chase Clement completed a 15-yard touchdown pass to senior wide receiver Jarett Dillard. Texas then notched 21 more points to secure the final score and a win in the latest game in the long history of the Rice-Texas rivalry.

Head coach David Bailiff said he thought Rice would turn in a better result.

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"We were moving the football, and I really felt good about things," Bailiff said. "I know we had that punt formation where we trapped them down on the one-yard line, which ended up being a 99-yard drive for them. But I felt good about it, even going into halftime when it was 24-3. I thought we would have a better job stopping them in the second half."

The 3-0 Longhorns piled up 600 yards of total offense, almost doubling Rice's 318 yards. Texas quarterback Colt McCoy completed 19 passes in 23 attempts for 329 yards and four touchdowns. His receiving stars were Quan Cosby, who made seven catches for 90 yards, and Jordan Shipley, who earned 155 yards on five catches.

The trouble lay in the Owls' rushing attack which only accrued 17 net yards. Clement had a solid passing game, going 25-37 with 254 yards and one touchdown pass. On the ground, however, he lost 49 yards rushing and only ended up with a net of 20. Texas also sacked him six times.

Sophomore tight end James Casey, tied for the NCAA lead with 7.25 receptions per game, caught eight passes for 56 yards, while Dillard had nine catches for 158 yards and one touchdown grab. Casey and Dillard-who are together averaging 12.75 receptions and 217 yards per game-are the only set of teammates who are both in the national top 10 in receptions.

Dillard's 158 yards represented the third-best receiving game of his career, and he extended his streak to forty games in which he has caught at least two passes, the longest in the nation. With the touchdown pass he caught from Clement, the two moved within one catch of tying the all-time NCAA career record for a passing duo. Tim Rattay and Troy Edwards of Louisiana Tech and Colt Brennan and Davone Bess of Hawaii share the record with 39 touchdown passes.

Though Coach Bailiff and the rest of the team do not make the record a priority for them, they are also not ignoring how close Clement and Dillard are to history.

"It's obviously a very special record," he said. "It's something that-I'll be honest-we don't talk about. [.] Those two guys have had an amazing run here, and they're going to continue to have it. I'm just thrilled that we're here, and they have the opportunity to do that. I think it's really special and a tribute to two great young men."

Bailiff said Rice should be able to use their loss against Texas as motivation and even as a sign of progress.

"The one thing [is that] we can't lose sight of where we are,"Bailiff said. "A year ago when we played them, we gave up 31 points in the second quarter."

The Owls return home with a 2-2 record for their game tomorrow, the first at Rice Stadium since the season-opening win over Southern Methodist University. They play the University of North Texas for the first time since 1988 and next week they will head out to 3-0 University of Tulsa to try to keep an undefeated Conference USA record.

Though North Texas has an 0-3 record, the Owls are careful to look at the strength of their schedule - the Mean Green have lost to Louisiana State University, Kansas State University and Tulsa.

"They're just playing great teams right now," Bailiff said. "That's where you have to count on these seniors to not say 'they're 0-3' [to the rest of the team]. These seniors will not let us have a letdown.

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