Beware the Owls? Horns ready for a bounce back at Rice

Don’t expect another upset from the Owls, who last beat the Longhorns 25 years ago

By Steve Habel, Senior Contributing Writer

AUSTIN, Texas – Beware the Owls. If the 1994 Texas football team has one thing it could tell this year’s Longhorns squad it’s to not even think about taking winless Rice lightly when the two teams square off Saturday night in NRG Stadium in Houston.

This year’s game is the 43rd time the two former Southwest Conference rivals will play since 1966 and the Longhorns have won 41 of the past 42 meetings with Rice.

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But there was that rainy Sunday night at Rice Stadium 25 years ago (the first season of this magazine’s publication) when the Owls rode a ball-control, run-first attack combined with happenstance and calamity from the Longhorns to pull off one of the biggest upsets in the series’ history, beating then-No. 12 Texas 19-17.

Never have so many future engineers and world leaders danced together for so long and with such intensity – groups of Rice students ripped down the goalposts and jumped up and down together for hours as the huge rain drops were falling.

It would be even more shocking if this year’s Texas team, also ranked 12th and coming off a back-and-forth slugfest of a loss last week to uber-talented LSU, were to suffer the 1994 squad’s fate.

A different challenge

The Longhorns will face a completely different offensive attack than was presented in its first two games of 2019. Heading into Saturday, Texas head coach Tom Herman was happy with his team’s preparation this week and the focus it’s shown after the loss to LSU.

“Really proud of our guys, for the level of energy, enthusiasm…their attention to detail,” Herman said Thursday in his final media availability of the week. “They responded really well.”

Herman dispelled any notion of a potential mental letdown as his team goes from the heavily-hyped battle at home against LSU to their first road game of the season, facing a team that’s 0-2 and should be much less of a challenge.

“We talked about it Tuesday in the team meeting,” Herman said. “We can have no lingering effects from the LSU loss. Because at the end of the day Rice doesn’t care whether we won or lost that game, and they’re going to give us their best shot which is pretty good. I was really proud of our guys for locking in.”

You won’t likely see the Longhorns’ ballyhooed “Cowboy” package of eight defensive backs against Rice since the Owls will stick mostly with a ultra-pro-set attack that employs two tight ends, two running backs and just one wide receiver.

Defense ready to ‘keep going, keep fighting’

Texas should be able to matchup well in the trenches with the Owls. Texas defensive coordinator Todd Orlando said he was pleased with his unit’s physical effort against the Tigers.

“I love this group – I love how hard they play,” Orlando said. “I love how much they care. I told them ‘just keep going, keep swinging, keep going, keep fighting, because you know, we’re really close to breaking through to the other side.’”

Saturday’s contest will mark the first time Texas and Rice have squared off since 2015, when the Longhorns defeated the Owls, 42-28, in Austin. The game marks the 95th all-time meeting between the two teams. Texas holds a 72-21-1 advantage in the series and has won 13 straight against the Owls.

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