Owls mauled by Cougars to end season

By Meghan Hall     12/3/09 6:00pm

What a difference a week can make. After the football team's 30-29 win over the University of Texas-El Paso two weeks ago, things were looking up for the Owls (2-10, 2-6 Conference USA). Not only did the win come over a superior team and not only did the win send the seniors off in style, but the near-miraculous victory gave Rice its first winning streak of an otherwise horrendous season.

With momentum firmly in their back pocket, the Owls entered the University of Houston's Robertson Stadium last week with, if not swagger, then at least a sense of confidence that they could run with then-No. 25 Houston (10-2, 6-2 C-USA), which has been in the Associated Press Top 25 on and off since defeating then-No.5 Oklahoma State University 45-35 on Sept. 12.

But three hours after tipoff, whatever confidence Rice had was obliterated in perhaps their worst loss of the season, a 73-14 loss that gave the Cougars the Bayou Bucket, awarded annually to the team that is victorious in the rivalry, and their fourth win in the last five contests between the two squads.

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And it was a shame, really, considering just how far the team had come in the two weeks prior. After their first win of the year against Tulane University over Homecoming Week, Rice downed the Miners (4-8, 3-5 C-USA) at home in impressive, near-miraculous fashion.

After a moving tribute to Dale Lloyd, the Rice football player who died following a 2006 practice and who would have been a senior this year, the game appeared destined for the same outcome as so many previous when UTEP picked up 14 quick points in the first quarter. But Rice scratched back and headed into halftime down 20-10.

Even though redshirt sophomore quarterback Nick Fanuzzi finished with an astonishingly unremarkable 55 yards and Rice trailed the Miners by over 100 yards in total offense, six UTEP turnovers gave the Owls all the ammunition they would need to make the game competitive.

Following a quick score by the Miners in the fourth quarter, Rice trailed 29-17, but the Owls went on to score two unanswered touchdowns - both by freshman running back Charles Ross, who finished with 11 on the season - to grab a lead with 7:45 left in the game. UTEP had plenty of time for a comeback, but its attempts were thwarted with three turnovers in the last nine minutes of the game.

For Head Coach David Bailiff, the win was much appreciated and an appropriate tribute to Lloyd.

"That win was one of the craziest games I have ever been a part of," Bailiff said. "You feel like, obviously on some of the breaks that we had Saturday, that maybe his spirit was with us, guiding us along the way. To give the Lloyd family the team ball after the game, it was an emotional locker room."

With the seniors' last game at Rice Stadium behind them, junior defensive end Scott Solomon seemed unconcerned about the pregame hype, Rice's winning streak or Houston's Heisman candidate in quarterback Case Keenum.

"We just look at this game as a huge rivalry for us," Solomon said. "We just take it for what it is. We don't really look into the background stuff. We go into this game just really focused on this rivalry and playing them for who they are."

Apparently, "who they are" is an incredibly talented football team, which got a head start on its pursuit of the Bayou Bucket when their first play, a 99-yard kickoff return by Tyron Carrier, netted them seven points. In fact, Houston went on to score in each of its next nine drives. The Cougars scored quickly and scored often, managing to lose the time of possession game (27:30 to 32:30) while dominating the Owls with 684 yards of total offense.

Meanwhile, it took Rice four tries to sustain a drive longer than three plays. The Cougars had an imposing 59-0 lead going into halftime, and they extended their advantage to 66-0 before the Owls could finally put together a scoring drive, their longest one of the night.

The 63-yard drive culminated in an 11-yard touchdown run by Ross. Following that score, the Owls only let Houston run seven total plays on their next two drives and forced Houston to punt for the first time.

Rice scored its second and final touchdown on the day with another Ross run, this one for four yards. The Cougars' last touchdown and a missed 37-yard field goal by senior Clark Fangmeier led to the final score of 73-14, the most lopsided defeat Rice has suffered since the team's 1977 loss to Lousiana State University 77-0. Those 73 points represent the third-highest total ever accumulated by a Rice opponent and the most in more than 30 years.

The Owls accumulated more rushing yards than did Houston (243 yards to 221 yards), thanks to the efforts of Ross and redshirt sophomore Tyler Smith, both of whom finished with more than 100 yards. But the Cougars boasted more than a threefold advantage when it came to yards in the air. Keenum, who leads the nation in passing yards, accounted for 323 of those yards along with two touchdowns and an 81-percent completion percentage. In total, nine Cougar receivers finished with double digits in the yards-received column.

Fanuzzi finished with 132 yards and two interceptions, both of which were turned into Houston touchdowns. All in all, it was a highly ineffective performance from the Owls and far from a good ending to a season that appeared to be on a tiny upswing after two consecutive wins.

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