FIRST LOOK: Rice Owls

vs.

5/4 BAYLOR (2–0) vs. NR/NR Rice (2–1) Sept. 26, 2015 | 2 p.m. CT Waco, Texas | McLane Stadium (45,140) TV: FSN

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OPPONENT: Rice Owls
ODB GAME HUB: Baylor Bears vs. Rice Owls 2015
MEET THE PRESS: Baylor vs. Rice
OFFICIAL WEBSITE: riceowls.com
MEDIA GUIDE: 2015 Rice Owls Media Guide (Click here for roster)
LAST MEETING: 56-31 Baylor (predates ODB)
LAST GAME: W; Rice 38, North Texas 24
SB NATION BLOG: Underdog Dynasty, at right
SPREAD: Baylor –34.5 (Open: Baylor –33)
TV COVERAGE: FSSW, 2 p.m. CDT
WEATHER FORECAST: Sunny, high of 93 with 5–10mph winds from NE, 3% chance of rain (Wunderground puts temp at 89° at gametime)
BAYLOR UNIFORMS: No official word yet, announced Friday or Saturday

SBNation.com Rice Preview
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Bears vs. Owls Coverage

Back to Football

Finally, your Baylor Bears are back in action on Saturday. Lots of stuff happened during the bye week. I had a whole paragraph with my thoughts about the dismissal and the "controversy" over Jeff Lebby, but deleted it because I have nothing to add to the conversation that hasn’t been said. So, with that being said, let’s talk about some football, shall we?

The final nonconference game of the 2015 season presents some interesting challenges for the Bears, given the team they’re facing and the on-field struggles they’ve had thus far this season. Rice is coming off an 8–5 season and won the Conference USA title in 2013. It may not be a juggernaut of a program, but it has turned into, as Bill Connelly calls it, "one of Conference USA’s safest bets." They are coming off a season where they were solidly in the middle of the CFB pack in S&P+ on both offense and defense. They are a run-first team with a mobile quarterback

Rice Owls 2015 Schedule

Rice Owls 2015 Individual Stats

Quarterbacks

Driphus Jackson is the main QB and a decent run threat. The stats indicate that while he’s not exactly a dynamic threat on the ground, he can threaten on the ground if you let him get to the perimeter, something Baylor’s struggled with at points in this early season. If they can bottle him up and seal off the perimeter they may be in good shape. Given his mobility he can tend to give up more sacks, so it will be interesting to see how the defense prepares for him. At 7.3 yards per attempt and over 63% completion percentage, he’s got a decent arm.

Rushing & Receiving Stats

Instead of splitting out the table for RBs and WRs, I went ahead and left them all in the same table as it appears on sports-reference because it takes way too long to edit that HTML for the value.

The Owls’ rushing attack appears to be a 4-headed monster, with carries split between Samuel Stewart, Darik Dillard, QB Driphus Jackson, and Jowan Davis. That said, the lion’s share of Darik Dillard’s touches and yards came in the first game against Wagner and have steadily declined since. He had five carries for 21 yards last week against North Texas, while Davis had 21 and Stewart 12 in that game. Austin Walter has also seen a decent amount of action, who shouldn’t be confused with his twin brother, WR Aston Walter (side note: I bet THAT wasn’t confusing for anyone growing up, INCLUDING the parents. Nope.) Jackson was used far less in the run game last weekend, carrying the ball 6 times for –14 yards. Those aren’t ALL sacks, but since the stats treat sacks as negative rushing plays, we can’t say for certain just how many of them were.

On the other hand, WR Dennis Parks emerges as the clearest threat through the air, hauling in 16 catches for 240 yards and 2 TDs thus far in the young season. He has ten more catches than anyone else on the team, and no one else has over 100 yards receiving. That said, the ball does get spread around quite a bit, with 14 other players registering receptions on the season. Sadly for Austin, his twin Aston Walter has only one reception for –6 yards. I imagine Xavien Howard will be locked onto Parks all afternoon.

Owls Team Stats and Rankings

It’s Question Time!

FIRST: Hey, how are you feeling? You feeling like you got your edge?
SECOND: What is the one specific thing you’d like to see improvement in this week (if multiple, pick one)?
THIRD: You’ve seen the quote from a coach up north. Give me your reaction in .gif form.
FIFTH: What’s the weirdest/worst/whatever set of twins names you’ve ever seen/heard of? Alternatively, if you had twins, what would you name them?
FOURTH: Uniform Prediction. Go.