Owls take early lead, fall short to the Aggies
For the first time in 18 years, the Owls visited an old Southwestern Conference foe when they traveled to College Station to play Texas A&M University on Saturday. With Texas A&M redshirt sophomore quarterback Johnny Manziel suspended for the first half of the game for breaking NCAA rules, the Owls soared out of the gate to take a 14-7 lead after the first quarter.
Despite Manziel's celebrity status, the first quarter of the game was marked with talk of Rice senior quarterback Taylor McHargue's strong beginning. He led two touchdown drives in the first quarter, including a 57-yard run that notched an early 7-0 lead. McHargue said that the Owls were on fire in the first quarter and that in the beginning of the game they were in complete control.
"On the first play, we used one of the packages we installed and got the ball rolling was a great start," McHargue said. "The touchdown on the first series of the game was big for us. I thought the whole first half, we were moving the ball effectively."
The Owls could not keep up the momentum in the second quarter when the Aggies
struck back with three unanswered touchdowns to take a 28-14 lead.
Head Coach David Bailiff said that the team took its foot off the gas pedal and let Texas A&M take back the reins.
"I think we lost focus there in the second quarter for a little bit," Bailiff said. "It's one of those things that I told the team we stopped communicating and defensively we needed to create more turnovers."
The Owls notched another touchdown at the end of the first half thanks to an acrobatic grab by junior wide receiver Jordan Taylor to cut the lead in half, 28-21. At the start of the second half, the Owls had a chance to tie the game, but McHargue threw two crucial interceptions on back-to-back drives. He said that these errors were inexcusable and ultimately cost the team in the long run.
"We shot ourselves in the foot," McHargue said. "In the second half, Coach talked about those mistakes, but I have to do better than that to put our defense in that hole."
The Aggies capitalized on those turnovers, scoring 10 straight points to take a 38-21 lead and never looked back as the Owls were defeated 52-31. The game did not end without fireworks, however, as Manziel drew a 15yard penalty for taunting junior Malcolm Hill
and redshirt freshman Darrion Pollard after one of his three passing touchdowns. A&M Head Coach Kevin Sumlin benched Manziel for the rest of the game and for the first half of A&M's next game after he drew the penalty.
The Owls were not interested in moral victories after losing by three touchdowns. Bailiff said that this result was not acceptable for this team and that the players in the locker room were upset with how the game turned out.
"We were dreaming big," Bailiff said. "We came here to win this football game, so the football team is hurt right now,"
However, Bailiff drew on a lot of positives that the Owls could point to. He said he was really proud of the running game, as Rice racked up more than 300 yards on the ground. Bailiff said that the offense should be geared up and ready to torch defenses as the season goes on.
"You know to come and play Texas A&M and to have over 500 yards [on offense] and to see how good of a team we will be offensively is fantastic," Bailiff said. "[Charles] Ross to play the way he did, I think at one point there he was averaging over nine yards a carry. I was really proud of the offensive line, really proud of the offensive effort."
McHargue said that there were a lot of mistakes, but that since it was Week One the team will learn from them and fix everything that is necessary.
"I mean, we know we are a good team and that's a huge part of Week One," McHargue said. "You look around the country and there's a lot of mistakes and that's no excuse for us, but all this is stuff that we can clean up and we will come back in two weeks and have a lot of this corrected."
Bailiff said that the team's goals did not include winning the Southeastern Conference Championship and that all of their goals are still obtainable. He sees this game as a small hiccup on the road to an extremely successful season.
"I know we gave up a lot of points, but those kids gave a maximum effort and we are going to be a good C-USA football team," Bailiff said. "Our goals are still intact. The first goal coming here was to be a better football team. We are going to leave here accomplishing that objective."
Rice has a bye-week before their home opener on Sept. 14 at 6:30 p.m. against Kansas University. The Owls won last year in Lawrence, Kansas on a last-second field goal to notch their first win of the 2012 campaign.
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