Red Raiders' offensive buzzsaw cuts down Owls

By Meghan Hall     9/17/09 7:00pm

At halftime in last weekend's contest against Texas Tech University, the football team's chances of a comeback looked, if not quite promising, then at least decent. The Owls (0-2) were down 14-3 to a team that finished the 2008 season with the fourth-best offense in the nation, battling amidst the red-swathed sea at Jones AT&T Stadium. The Owls felt good about their odds.

The feeling did not last long.

Forty-one Tech points later, Rice was staring up at a 55-10 bruising, the kind of beatdown not often seen outside of Austin and the type that checks moral victories at the door. The Owls had thrown the book at the Red Raiders (2-0), but it was to no avail. Texas Tech picked apart a crumbling secondary, held fast against Rice's depleted receiving corps and bulldozed an offensive line that, try as they might, still gave up six sacks.

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Demoralizing? Definitely. A trend? Coupled with the season-opening, 20-point loss to the University of Alabama at Birmingham, yes. A pattern? Tomorrow's game will tell.

And what a game it will be. Not only will Rice be facing its first top-25 opponent of the year in No. 16 Oklahoma State University, but they will be facing a Cowboys squad licking its wounds after last week's 45-35 loss to the University of Houston, a defeat that dropped them 11 spots in the polls and all but smothered their national championship dreams. But it's not just that Oklahoma State (1-1) will be looking for revenge against Conference USA - the Owls will also be playing their third-straight road game of the season, traveling to Stillwater, Okla., for tomorrow's 6 p.m. game.

For sophomore defensive back Travis Bradshaw, the toughest part of tomorrow's contest will come from the Cowboys' thirst for vengeance.

"On one hand, our conference had a great win," Bradshaw said. "That's great for our conference and I'm all about our league, but on the other hand we can now expect Oklahoma State to be more focused and more determined than ever. They will now be more upset coming into our game. They'll be angry, so now we have to perform."

The odds, it would appear, are not high for victory. But Bailiff and his staff are sticking with the two-quarterback system they've employed for the last two games. Redshirt senior quarterback John Thomas Shepherd, who had a mediocre start in the loss to UAB (1-1) , will return to the starting role after backing up sophomore quarterback Nick Fanuzzi, who notched his first career start against Texas Tech but finished only 4-7 with 22 yards. Shepherd, on the other hand, threw for 109 yards with one touchdown and was rewarded by being named the starter for tomorrow's game against Oklahoma State (1-1).

"John Thomas played well this week and played better than Nick," Bailiff said. "We're going to continue to play two quarterbacks for at least another week. The first week it was really clear that Nick out-performed John Thomas. In the second game it was clear John Thomas out-performed Nick. We've got to get consistent at that position. Once we get consistent at quarterback we're going to be OK."

But it's not as if the quarterbacks position is the only spot causing the Owls' ills. The defense, while not quite patchwork, is still struggling with its responsibilities, though the first half gave signs of hope. After allowing Texas Tech to scored twice in the first quarter, Rice stopped the bleeding for the remainder of the first half and maintained possession for more than two-thirds of the second quarter.

Bailiff was pleased early on to see the team responding on that side of the football after witnessing major defensive struggles against UAB.

"I thought that our defense [in the first half] played a very inspired performance to hold Texas Tech to just 14 points," Bailiff said. "That's hard to do."

But there are two halves in every game, an elementary fact that came back to haunt the Owls. During Rice's first possession after the break, the offense took a chance and could not convert on fourth-and-one, handing the ball over to the Red Raiders at midfield.

From that point forward, the game was all Texas Tech. Red Raiders quarterback Taylor Potts picked up his game in the third and tossed four touchdown passes in a little over 15 minutes.

"We just need to learn to finish on that side of the football," Bailiff said. "I think we made some fundamental, technical errors in that second half. We have to learn to finish. We had people there. We have to work on finishing tackles."

Bradshaw agreed with Bailiff's assessment of the defense.

"We played a pretty good first half," Bradshaw said. "The second half was different story. We had a lot of little mistakes, and we just missed on some opportunities."

The Owls did manage a single touchdown in the final quarter, coming off Shepherd's three-yard pass to junior wide receiver Taylor Dupree - the first career touchdown for both - but the offense was overshadowed by the quarterback on the other sideline, who continued the streak of stellar quarterback performances against the Owls. After quarterback Joe Webb's C-USA-record-setting performance for UAB, Potts was nearly unstoppable as he threw for 456 yards and seven touchdowns.

The Rice offense was not nearly as consistent, with 11 different receivers catching passes from three different quarterbacks. Redshirt junior Patrick Randolph led the way with 50 yards and five catches, both career highs for him. In the statistic columns, Rice triumphed in the running game with 60 rushing yards to Texas Tech's 52, but the Owls' 197 of yards in the air were drastically outnumbered by Texas Tech's 508 yards.

"Offensively, we had a lot of opportunities," Bailiff said. "We had a lot of plays that should have been absolutely big plays. We didn't get the ball there. We only had two big plays on the night. It's hard when you don't have big plays to win football games."

Redshirt sophomore Tyler Smith, who played with a hurt toe, led the running back corps with 49 yards on the ground. He is listed as questionable for tomorrow's game with a case of turf toe.

"I'm proud of Tyler Smith," Bailiff said. "He tried to play on a toe that most people would not have tried to play on. Our running game goes as he goes: He's a total-package back right now. He runs very effectively, he has great vision, good speed; he offers good protection on the pass and he has that side-jump move when he needs it to set-up defenders."

If the Owls hope to have a chance against the Cowboys, they will need Smith healthy and then some. According to Bradshaw, though, a second upset in as many weeks may not be unthinkable.

But only if the Owls are flawless.

"We have to be fundamentally sound and focus on the details of the game," Bradshaw said. "We'll have to be perfect in every aspect.

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