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Grudge match -- or is it?
Despite bland pre-game cant,
Tulsa undercurrent runs deep

A different eon, perhaps Rice AD Chris Del Conte gives former Owl head coach Todd Graham a slap onthe back after last year's 48-14 win over Army -- Graham's first as a collegiate head coach (PTH photo)

HOUSTON (Nov. 22) -- And so it all comes down to this. A 3-8 Rice squad takes on an 8-3 Tulsa team in a game which, only a couple of months ago, many Owl fans were expecting – at least hoping – would have bowl game and league championship implications.

That turned out to be half right. For head coach Todd Graham's bowl-bound Golden Hurricane, a win over Rice will put them into the Conference USA league championship game, most likely at Central Florida, a week hence. But for the Owls, this is it for the season. This is the bowl game. This is the game that will leave the taste, good or bad, in the mouths of the Owls, their coaches and fans, as they head into the long off-season wondering what otherwise might have been.

Speaking of mouths, both squads' players have been mouthing innocuous platitudes when queried by incredulous sportswriters this past week. Scribes had expected, apparently, a war of words, after all the hubbub arose several months back in connection with Todd Graham's sudden departure from Rice for greener pastures -- as in $1.1 million greener.

But to hear tell by Rice and Tulsa players, this game stacks up as just another date on the schedule, not the grudge match it was being stacked up to be ever since Graham's hasty departure from South Main in January. One suspects the coaches on both sides were doing a little public speaking mentoring of their own -- and both David Bailiff, for Rice, and Todd Graham have been predictably circumspect themselves.

"I think people want to win because we're Rice Owls," Coach Bailiff said at his Monday press conference. "I don't think people want to win this one just because we're playing Todd Graham. We've gone into every football game expecting to win. So should we expect to win? Sure, that's how you have to do it. I think that we've got some very intelligent young men on this team that know what they have to do to perform at their best. I don't think this will be Todd Graham versus David Bailiff. This will be Rice versus Tulsa."

Coach Graham, meanwhile, chose to emphasize how this game stacks up for his own crew in the way of championship implications. "We have a goal of winning 11 games for the first time in school history; we got a chance to do that hopefully," Graham said. "Heck, this is single elimination, you got to win to go to the next one."

Clearly, Todd Graham was referring to a win over Rice, a win in the C-USA championship game, and a win in the Liberty Bowl, which would, indeed, leave Tulsa with a final mark of 11-3 on the season.

And on paper, at least, it's hard to cipher how the Owls will have any real chance of nipping that championship run in the bud. Tulsa is a team, after all, that hung 56 points on the University of Houston a scant two weeks ago. Of course the Owls ran up 48 points of their own against the cross-town rival Coogs. But until the last few minutes of the game, the scoreboard at whatever Tulsans call that trainwreck of a '30s high school stadium said Tulsa 56, Houston ZERO -- until Shasta avoided total humiliation by scratching out a late touchdown.

About the most hopeful thing that can be said about the Owls' prospects on Saturday is, well, it's that Tulsa's defense isn't really all that great, either. Rice should be able to move the ball against the Hurricane -- through the air, primarily, of course -- but they'll need some help from the defense, a favorable bounce or two of the ball, and a little Divine intervention would hurt a bit, either.

And why not expect that latter? After all, Todd Graham announced to the press last week that God, directly, spoke to him and told him to leave Rice and come to coach at Tulsa.

Rice's best bet, indeed, would involve some invisible angels-in-the-outfield types to fly around the turf of Rice Stadium Saturday afternoon and swat around a half dozen or so Paul Smith forward passes. If the Owls aren't able to slow the wily senior Tulsa quarterback any better than their red-clad next-door neighbors did a couple weeks ago, then church is out for the Flock.

In his first 11 games, Smith, running the same offense that you saw Chase Clement mastermind last year, leads the conference and is third in the nation with 353.3 passing yards per game while completing 61.7 percent of his passes, 34 of them for TDs. He also leads Conference USA and ranks third nationally in total offense with 364.5 yards per game.

"He has All-American numbers," Coach Graham said. "He's phenomenal. That guy is one of the best that I've ever seen, and I've been around this for a while. I think he's very deserving of any accolade that he gets."

However – as J. Fred used to say, rest his soul -- there's a big "however." It seems Mr. Smith also leads the conference with 15 interceptions, including four thrown in a loss to Central Florida, mid-season.

Since no Tulsa fans will be reading this, we can safely lift an analogy from mythological reference in saying that young Mr. Smith appears to possess, then, an Achilles' Heel. Ah, but to get that shoe off, and exploit the heel.

"Tulsa is averaging 40 points a game offensively," Coach Bailiff said Monday. " We're averaging 37. Defensively we're giving up 42 a game, they're giving up 30."

"We've got to create some takeaways in this one."

Thanks in large part to Smith's typical pin-point passing this season, an inexperienced Tulsa receiving corps has stepped up to help produce the necessary passing numbers that Todd Graham's no-huddle, hurry-up offense needs in order to function as it's intended.

Three names are particularly noticeable on the stat sheets: wide receivers Brennan Marion and Trae Johnson and running back Charles Clay. The juco transfer Marion has 12 receptions for 40 yards-plus and 18 catches for 20-plus yards this season, while Johnson and Clay, both true freshman, lead Tulsa with 56 and 47 receptions each.

But the Hurricane boasts a consistent running back, too, in Tarrion Adams, who's only 74 yards short of achieving a 1,000-yard season, after rushing for 118 yards and two touchdowns last week in a 49-39 Tulsa win at Army.

With that kind of productivity, Todd Graham's -- or perhaps one should say, OC Gus Malzahn's -- offense has gone above the 600 yard mark in four games this season, and exceeded 500 yards in eight games. Given such numbers, it's not surprising that Golden Hurricane leads the nation in total offense with 544.6 yards per game.

Don't you know that Todd Graham is rubbing his hands and licking his chops at the prospect of going against Rice's 118th-ranked defense (that's out of 119, folks). Tell you what -- let's change the subject. Let's talk about Tulsa's defense.

The Golden Hurricane rank only 14 ticks above the Owls in total defense -- 104th, giving up 451 yards per game -- and 100th in scoring defense, at 34 points per game.

Though porous, the 'Cane defense, like Graham's Rice defense last year, is capable of rising up and making the big play. The big playmaker is linebacker Nelson Coleman, who has led Tulsa in tackles in each of the past two seasons and has been coming on strong in November.

He's joined at the linebacking position by Chris Chamberlain, who had a big game against the Owls at Tulsa last year. Going into the last game of the regular season, Chamberlain is second in Conference USA with 11.5 tackles per game at the outside linebacker spot, while Coleman is second on the Tulsa team, fourth in the league, with 10.5 per game.

A bit of intrigue appears to be stacking up in regard to Tulsa player personnel decisions in the defensive secondary, however. Last week, Coach Graham and DC Paul Randolph held out starting safeties Charles Davis and Anthony Germany against Army to give them time to heal various minor aches and pains. However, the Cadets rang up 39 points -- their season high thus far-- mostly by passing and running over, under, around and through their replacements, Josh Burris and Ty Page.

The Cadets picked 25 first downs and 491 total yards against Tulsa. The Hurricane secondary gave up 328 yards passing and three touchdowns through the air. And Army's known as pretty much strictly a running team. Still, the aforementioned greenhorn Tulsa DBs had big problems with Cadet,Jeremy Trimble, who had 11 catches for 167 yards and two touchdowns at Michie Stadium last Saturday.

With the game on the line, Graham stuck Davis back into the game to help quell the Army attack. Germany, meanwhile, paced the sidelines wearing a plastic protective sleeve on his ankle.

Graham also held out his ace linebacker Chris Chamberlain for a full half against the Army. He did tell press, however, that all three guys are ready and raring to go against the Owls. And we just know that Todd Graham never plays injured players -- and never prevaricates about their conditions.

Now don't be misled -- this Tulsa defense is capable of aggressive, sound, consistent play, despite possessing less than auspicious numbers on the stat sheets. That 56-7 score against the Houston Cougars tells a lot, in that regard.

If the Owls come out flat and give up a couple of early scores, they could just wind up in the same predicament as the Cougars. But it's germane to bear in mind that the Institute won last year's game at Tulsa, 41-38 in double overtime -- a contest in which wide receiver Jarett Dillard experienced perhaps his finest hour, hauling in eight receptions for 137 yards and three touchdowns, the final one providing the margin of victory in the second OT.

Nine of last year's offensive starters have returned to play again for the Owls this season, and, at least since the Southern Miss game, the Rice offense has run up comparable numbers. They can do it again on Saturday.

"The big challenge is for us to slow down their offense, and the challenge for them is to slow down our offense," Todd Graham succinctly pointed out " It will be a big challenge. It's a game that matches up a lot like Houston. You have Jarett Dillard, a big playmaker that, I don't know if you can stop him, but you have to be able to control him. We have to keep their offense off the field."

--PTH

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