Tulane v. Rice Preview

BY JAKE WEINSTOCK 

Today, Tulane 4-2 (2-0) attempts to win their 13th consecutive AAC regular season game, dating back to November of 2022, when they host Rice 2-4 (1-2), who are fresh off their first FBS win of the season, taking down UTSA 29-27 last weekend, in Houston. The Green Wave will hope to remain elite on offense, having generated 116 points through their first two AAC games (USF, @UAB). For context, and to understand just how far the program has come, Jon Sumrall’s last season as an assistant at Tulane was in 2014, the school’s first as a member of the AAC. Across 8 conference games that season, the Wave mustered a total of just 86 points. Leading the charge is the three-headed monster of quarterback Darian Mensah, running back Makhi Hughes, and quarterback/red zone/short yardage specialist Ty Thompson. While the Wave are favored by 22 points at the time of this writing, it’s worth remembering that last season under a different head coach, Tulane played Rice on the road as a 10-point favorite, and narrowly escaped with a 30-28 victory.

Rice is quarterbacked by E.J. Warner, son of NFL Hall of Famer Kurt Warner, who transferred to Rice after two seasons as the starter at Temple, another AAC foe who the Green Wave will host in November. Warner’s average depth of target has dipped rather dramatically this season, slipping to 7.1 yards beyond the line of scrimmage. For context, he was above an ADOT of 8.5 both seasons at Temple. What he lacks in attempts to take shots down the field (only 9% of his throws have traveled 20+ yards beyond the line of scrimmage, a rather low such percentage), he attempts to make up for in being a “point guard” that distributes the ball quickly. The trouble, as evidenced by their record, is that he simply hasn’t been very successful at doing that. His completion percentage is hovering right around 61%, and it dips to 57% if you extract from the calculus that he is 23/23 on screen passes. Recall that a common criticism of Bo Nix’s Heisman candidacy, last season at Oregon, was that his average depth of target was similarly under 7.5, but for much of the season his completion percentage hovered around 80%.

The Owls have not been terribly prolific or efficient, through the first half of the season. Out of 134 qualifying FBS schools, Rice ranks 114th in points per play, 108th in yards per game, and 118th in points per game, though they have been slightly better in the yards per play department, checking in at 87th in the country. The ever so slight disconnect there is that they’ve averaged 1.4 turnovers per game, and are near the bottom of the country with an average of 1.0 punts per offensive score. Warner’s passing offense ranks just 115th in yards per pass attempt, nationwide, but they do and will try to use the passing game as the generator on offense. No team in the entire country has dedicated a fewer percentage of their offensive snaps to designed runs than Rice.

While they don’t rely on the running game to be a tremendous driver of their offensive success, perhaps they should. Dean Connors is a force; on 63 carries he has totaled 396 rushing yards, 6 touchdowns, and 0 fumbles, together with an astonishing 4.46 yards per carry after contact total (6.3 yards per carry, overall), but through 6 games they’ve handed him the ball just 63 times. He has unsurprisingly turned 34 of his 46 targets into 248 yards and another touchdown. Recall that I mentioned Warner has been 23/23 in the screen game? Well Connors’ average depth of target is 0.0. He’s the guy. Outside of Connors, Matt Skyes has often been Warner’s first-choice, having been targeted 48 times (31 receptions, 379 yards 3 touchdowns). Curiously, the Owls don’t move him around a ton, and haven’t tried to get him isolated against smaller slot corners (Skyes is 6’4”), as 86% of his snaps have come out wide.

The Rice defense has done a nice job of generating pressures, having accumulated 71 through those 6 ballgames (11.3 per contest), and making the task of protecting Mensah a little more challenging is that it hasn’t just been one or two game-wreckers. To the contrary, it has been a true team effort, as no Owl has double-digit pressures, yet. Rice is allowing 30.4 points per game to opposing offenses, which is the 98th lowest such average. Opposing offenses have gained 4.4 yards per rush attempt (70th best average, in the FBS) and 7.0 yards per pass attempt (52nd best average, in the FBS). Mensah would be wise to not test Max Ahoia in tight coverage, as opposing passers have just a 78.0 quarterback rating when throwing in his direction. For context, opposing quarterbacks have a 102.0 quarterback rating against Rice, as a whole.

PREDICTION: Jimmy Ordeneaux and I wound up in the same ballpark, as he picked Tulane 48-14. I too just have a hard time seeing Rice being able to score enough to keep pace with a Green Wave offense that is humming better than any we’ve seen since at least the second half of the 2022 season. I apologized on X two weeks ago for only picking Tulane to score 42 points against UAB, so I’ll try to make amends, today: Tulane 52-24