'11 Tulane week
Rice 19, Tulane 7

HOUSTON (Sept. 19) – It’s nothing less than appropriate to view Rice’s 19-7 victory over Tulane this Senior Day through the looking glass of an optimist.

With the wind gusting and swirling and making mischief for both teams’ passing games, it was senior Rice running back Tyler Smith who hoisted the mail bag for the Owls and provided the offensive spark that got them in or near the end zone enough times to cruise to a non-nail-biting win.

And with Tulane’s apparent conclusion that they had the superior athletes in order to win by going right straight at the Owls on both sides of the ball, the Rice defense stood tall and continuously repulsed what the Green Wave threw at them, rendering bowling-ball running back Orleans Darkwa largely ineffective and putting enough pressure on Tulane quarterback Ryan Griffin to keep him off balance for most of the game.

Too, one mustn't fail to mention prominently the efforts of Chris Boswell, Rice’s sophomore Mr. Ice Man place-kicker, who boomed two laser-shot field goals of 51 and 54 yards, both into the roiling wind, making the margin of victory a bit more comfortable.

Nevertheless, although we all know that there are lies, damned lies and statistics, today's stat sheet must give pause to even the most pollyanna of Owl fans.

On the day, Tulane outgained the Owls in total yardage, 289 to 237, and in first downs, 17 to 14. Rice quarterback Nick Fanuzzi threw for a total of 88 yards passing, making this his second straight sub-100-yard day after amassing over 400 in the Owls' most recent previous home win over UTEP.

The Rice offensive line allowed ten tackles-for-loss and three sacks, and this by a Tulane defense that had been allowing big points to virtually every opponent, most recently 73 last week at home in the Dome against the Houston Cougars. It was an OL that appeared a shadow of its former self, when compared to the efforts put into early-season games against Texas and Purdue.

But a win’s a win, and the hard-core Owl fans who braved a pervasive air of ennui to come out and support the team in the flesh, were able to see the Flock prevail for the fourth time in five outings at Rice Stadium this season. That counts for something.

"I think defensively, we did some really nice things," Rice head coach David Bailiff said afterwards. "I think the team played exceptionally well. I think Kyle Martens punted the ball well. I thought Chris Boswell was unbelievable with his kickoffs and field goals."

"Offensively, we're tring to establish the running game and couldn't get it really going other than 'Mr. Consistent,' Tyler Smith," the Rice head man added. "If we put the ball in his hands, he's really going to make something happen. Coming up in the fourth quarter, he really played big for us. I don't think we had any turnovers for the game. We won the turnover battle and got out of here with a win. To have four wins at home was very nice."

Not an artistic gem, but....

 The result of the afternoon’s tiff was indeed nice  enough to behold, but the game itself won’t go down in Rice annals as one of the Institute Boys’ more artistic endeavors. Offensively, it looked as if Rice coaches were saving their more creative efforts for more challenging opponents, later in the season. Boy, that means SMU’s going to have to be ready for some wild and crazy stuff.

The Owls did get a first-quarter score when Tyler Smith ran it over from five yards out with 1:20 to go in the frame. That culminated a nine-play, 52-yard drive, the relatively short field set up by 48-yard punt downed by the Owls at the Tulane five, followed by a three-and-out forced by the Rice defense.

The drive was saved when, on third and 17 from the Tulane 29, Nick Fanuzzi hit Mario Hull 23 yards downfield for the first down. Other than that one play, Tyler Smith provided all of the offense for the Owls on that possession.

Scott Solomon made the first of his several big plays on the day next Green Wave possession, when, on third and two from the Greenie 40, he met star running back Orleans Darkwa head on and stopped him for no gain.

In fact, the Owl defense thus set the table for its offensive cohorts several times in the first half, with minimal results showing up on the scoreboard.

First big play of the day was made by Kyle Prater, who chose an opportune time to nail Tulane quarterback Ryan Griffin for a loss of nine when the Green Wave had gotten as far as the Rice 25 on the opening possession of the game. With a fourth and 18 from the Owl 34, Tulane decided to punt it away, obviously lacking a Chris Boswell- quality place kicker -- not to mention a go-for-broke coaching philosophy.

The Owls narrowly missed a quick pick-six when Xavier Webb choked off a brief Tulane drive by picking off a pass in the deep flat after  Tulane had advanced as far as the Rice 42 early in the second quarter.

At first, it appeared as if the senior defensive back had nothing but green real estate ahead of him, but a Tulane wide receiver criss-crossed the field to gain the angle on the X Man. Still, Xavier turned it upfield and managed a 30-yard return.

The set up the Owls at the Tulane 44. Moments later, though, they had a third and three and failed to convert, Nick Fanuzzi first tossing incomplete to Luke Wilson, and then the offensive line utterly failing to hold off a student body blitz that sat Nick on his seat for a ten-yard loss on fourth and three.

Scott Solomon came up big on the very next play when he solo sacked Tulane QB Griffin for a loss of four, setting up a three and out for the Greenies.

Rice had to start the next series backed up to its own ten yard line, and wound up punting the ball right back to Tulane when Vance McDonald caught one for nine yards when he needed ten on third down – isn’t that a coaching issue?

But on the ensuing Kyle Martens punt, the Greenies’ Carlos Wilson muffed the pill, and after a mad scramble, Rice’s Jaylon Fenner wound up at the bottom of the pile on the Tulane 45.

Another golden opportunity set up by the defense, but...

Once again, exasperatingly, the Owl offense went nowhere. On fourth and five at the Tulane 40, Rice lined up for what appeared to be a 57-yard Chris Boswell field goal attempt. But instead, he punted out quite nicely so that the downfield Owl defenders could deaden the ball at the Tulane two yard line.

Was the play the result of a last minute sideline signal? "No, they called ‘dagger’ right away," the young Mr. Boswell explained, "because that wind the very first time was really bad. As soon as the ball goes up its going to hang and then die, so I'm just doing what they told me to do."

Jared Williams, Paul Porras and Xavier Webb next made consecutive defensive stops, and then Mario Hull returned a Cairo Santos punt 10 yards to the Tulane 48. On first and ten, Nick immediately hit Mario Hull for 15 yards to the Green Wave 33, and it looked as if the Owl offense had shaken off its slumber.

But it hadn’t. Two pass completions out of three attempts resulted in a total of minus three yards. This time, Chris Boswell was going to get his chance, and, into a swirling wind, his field goal try from 54 yards out was straight and true; could’ve been good from 60.

"The wind was gusting," Coach Bailiff explained, "knowing that if it died-down we had him right there. The last thing we would do is kick a 60-65 yard field goal before we leave the field. The wind was gusting and knowing that we had him right there, we felt pretty confident that we could knock it through the wind and he answered twice into the wind."

The rest of the half, and the bulk of the third quarter featured series in which both teams traded a first down or two, and then played field position, exhibited with a sense of offensive imagination such that each side should’ve been wearing hard-shell helmets with a single-plexiglas face mask, with the Owls sporting those rather odd rounded off jersey numbers that they always had during the Jess Neely days. In other words, we’re talking about the days of 1950's, one-platoon football. Zzzzzz.

Tyler Smith once again toted the mail, but...

The Owls finally were able to put three more on the board late in the third after cranking up what loosely may be referred to as a ‘drive’ starting at their own 45 – this, after Matt Nordstrom had broken up a Ryan Griffin pass attempt on fourth and three for the Greenies.

In that ‘drive,’ Tyler Smith himself accounted for 39 positive yards. That was offset by a negative four on a Nick Fanuzzi sideline pass to Klein Kubiak, which probably shouldn’t have been thrown; in fact, Klein did a good job of keeping it from being intercepted.

Then on third and long, guess what. Tulane again, very predictably – in fact, very, very predictably -- blitzed the whole fam damily, and Nick was swarmed under for a loss of 14.

Never mind. Enter once more the Boz, and he nailed another laser shot like it was nothing -- again into the wind; this time from 51 out.

As the fourth quarter began, we overhead the Rice play-by-play man start talking shutout (for shame, David) and, sure enough, Tulane roared down the field for its only score of the day. And that turned the situation, all of a sudden, into a very losable one for the Owls.

It took the Greenies 16 plays, and nearly six and a half minutes, to go 75 yards. Things got going when, on third and 10 from the Tulane 43, the Owls blitzed and appeared to have Wave QB Griffin in their clutches, but he slithered out of a tackle and found green space on the weak side, scrambling 17 yards for the first down.

"That's the weakness of that coverage," Coach Bailiff noted afterwards. "If we don't make a play at the line of scrimmage and the quarterback scrambles, he's going to get some yards. That's the risk-reward."

Defense continued to make key stops, but...

Next, the Owls squandered an impressive  Justin Allen defensive gem when he blasted Orleans Darkwa on the numbers and sat him down for a loss of four on second and long. That made it third and 24, but next play, Tulane got 25, when Griffin hit Robert Kelly on an out pattern to the Owl 7.

After Cam Nwosu and John Gioffre stopped the same Robert Kelly for no gain on first and goal, Griffin found Xavier Rush wide open in the end zone to make it 13-7 with ten minutes left in the game.

The situation threatened to turn into a real fingernail-biter when the Owls failed to move the ball on their next possession. But facing fourth and 11 from the Rice 28, Kyle Martens came in to punt, and, this time with the wind at his back, simply blasted the ball 62 yards into the end zone for a touchback.

And hand it to the Rice defense – here they stood up and refused to bend. Credit matters to the usual suspects, Scott Solomon and Justin Allen. Solly got his second sack of the day, tossing Griffin for a loss of six on second down; with that play, by the way, Scott tied Brandon Green for the all-time Rice sack record.

Meanwhile Justin Allen made two big plays, forcing an incompletion on a first-down passing attempt to Warren Van Hooser; and then once again nailing his BFF, Orleans Darkwa for a loss of three on a quick pass coming out of the backfield.

"Looking back at it, it's amazing to have the seniors make those plays," Solly said after the game. "It's a lot of fun to have these kind of days, especially on a day like this. I'm glad it went like that."

"You want guys to rise up and make those plays," Coach Bailiff added. "Guys, especially senior guys like Justin and Scott, are the reason that we kept them out of the endzone and we got the ball back."

Tulane punted out of bounds to the Rice 40, and with 4:37 left to play, Tyler Smith once again grabbed his mail sack. Interspersed by one Fanuzzi completion to Vance McDonald for five yards, Tyler did all the rest of the work, carrying the ball eight times for 55 yards, getting the last 12 on a third and nine with a deft bit of sideline threading, and a leap over the pylon for the score.

"We knew we had to finish out strong," said Smitty in his post-game interview. "We had to push it in and score. That last play when I dove, I didn't know how I was going to land because (the defender) clipped my legs. I was afraid I was going to land on my neck – but it played out right."

Tallying it up, in addition to his 145 yards rushing, Tyler also picked up 41 receiving yards. In other words, he was 80 per cent of Rice’s offense this muggy, gray fall day.

And the cannon leg of Chris Boswell provided the rest.

--P.T.H.

Owls aim toward salvaging season, starting with win over Green Wave

The Owls sure could use a big game out of QB Nick Fanuzzi Saturday in aid of picking up a league win over Tulane (Mackenzie McCluer photo)