Renaissance at Rice Stadium

For generations, historians have debated exactly when the Renaissance began, what it encompassed, or even whether such an event occurred. But for Rice football, there is no debate: its renaissance began on January 1, 2006, when 41-year-old Todd Graham became the head coach of the Rice Owls.

Todd Graham

For Graham, the Rice renaissance is a far-reaching effort that touches every aspect of the football program. It began with an overhaul of Rice stadium, from the field up. First, the 9-year-old AstroTurf was replaced by FieldTurf, an artificial grass that provides a safer playing surface than the woven carpet of AstroTurf but has similar durability. The turf replacement also offered a chance to eliminate the 18-inch crown on the Rice field by raising the sidelines to form a flat playing surface. As Graham notes, “Now our quarterback won't have to pass to a receiver who’s a foot shorter when he runs a sideline route.”

Surrounding the field, aluminum benches have replaced the old and splintering wooden benches in the lower bowl, while the field fence is painted with an eye-catching blue and gray design. And looming above the field in the north end zone is a high-tech scoreboard and video display worthy of an NFL stadium. The video screen alone stands 20 feet high by 35 feet wide and provides an opportunity for advertising revenue as well as displays crystal-clear replays and other visual information for fans.

The renaissance also means new technology and equipment for the team, including digital video and plasma screens in the team’s classrooms. “Our greatest asset here at Rice is that we have smart kids,” Graham says. “We want to take advantage of that by using the latest teaching technology.”

On the academic front, players now can take summer school classes at Rice on scholarship, which is something that nearly every other Division I university has allowed for years. Earning up to six credit hours in the summer helps student-athletes maintain a more manageable workload during the year and graduate on time, further enhancing the university’s already sterling graduation rate for athletes. While formal practices are not permitted, players can study and work out together rather than scattering to their hometowns.

“The summer school program gives us the opportunity for a year-round speed and conditioning program, which means fewer injuries and faster recovery time for the players during the season,” Graham explains. “The number one thing for this team is that we don’t have a lot of depth, so we have to stay healthy.” The summer program is part of that effort, as is new strength and conditioning equipment in the John L. Cox Fitness Center. Graham also has all linemen wear protective knee braces during practice. By late August, the results of the summer program were evident: the players reported to practice stronger, faster, and more cohesive than ever.

From a marketing perspective, the renaissance aims to make the Rice Owls, in Graham’s words, the “neighborhood team” of Houston. As soon as the players arrived on campus, Graham and the team spent several days knocking on doors in the neighborhoods near Rice, introducing themselves and inviting folks to come enjoy Rice football.

Student involvement also is key to the program’s renewal. A couple of days before the first game of the season, Graham held a pep rally at Rice stadium attended by nearly half the student body. And at home games, the team is led onto the field by students from each college carrying their college banners. Such initiatives have been warmly received by Rice students, who have responded with an enthusiasm for Rice football not seen in several years.

Perhaps most crucially, the football renaissance is sparking a renewed energy in fundraising, led by Graham himself. One of his first priorities was to create the Extra Point Club, a football-specific fundraising group. With support from President David Leebron, Graham took personal charge of the aggressive campaign that, by September, had raised nearly $6 million for Rice football. “We knew there were people who care a lot about this program,” Graham says. “People at Rice are passionate about Rice, and we show them we have a vision and then ask them to help us achieve it.”

Graham may be new to Rice, but he has at least three qualities that made him the ideal choice to lead the Owls’ head coach. First, as someone who coached in Texas high schools for eight years and recruited extensively in Texas for three years while at the University of Tulsa, Graham is steeped in Texas high school football. He agrees with baseball coach Wayne Graham that, while Rice actively seeks the best student-athletes from every part of the United States, Texas is inevitably the primary recruiting well.

Second, Graham has a history of engineering remarkable turnarounds. While serving as coach and athletic director at Allen High School near Dallas, he took over a team that had been winless in its district and led it to five playoff berths in six seasons. At West Virginia University, Graham helped the Mountaineers improve from a 3–8 mark to a 9–3 record and bowl appearance in his second season. At Tulsa, Graham helped a team that had been 1–11 the previous year achieve two bowl appearances in three seasons and win the 2005 Conference USA championship. Graham’s aggressive, efficient defenses were major reasons for the sharp improvements at West Virginia and Tulsa.

Finally, Graham brings to the job incomparable energy and drive. Indeed, “energy” is the word nearly everyone uses to describe him, and he combines that energy with a firm belief that Rice can excel in football as it does in other fields. Graham declares to anyone who will listen, “Anything less than being conference and bowl champions is unacceptable.” And he told the Houston Chronicle, “We have to believe that we can win. I want us to get better every day. It takes energy and work, based on foundation and belief.”

Major Applewhite

On arriving at Rice, Graham quickly assembled a coaching staff whose commitment matches his own. Like Graham, the staff is young—averaging 36 years of age—and driven. His biggest coup was hiring former University of Texas at Austin standout Major Applewhite as Rice’s quarterbacks coach and offensive coordinator. Applewhite was a fiercely competitive and immensely popular quarterback for the Longhorns, compiling a 22–8 record as a starter from 1999 to 2001. Applewhite served two years as a graduate assistant at his alma mater before becoming the quarterbacks coach at Syracuse University in 2005. “Hiring Major brought us instant credibility in terms of where we want to go offensively,” Graham says. “We want to spread the field and throw the football, and every quarterback and receiver in this state will be interested in Rice with Major as our offensive coordinator.”

Applewhite admits that coming to Rice was not an obvious decision, and in fact, Syracuse gave him a very attractive offer to stay. But what Rice offered was even more attractive: the opportunity to be offensive coordinator at age 28, to help build a program from the ground up, and to move back to Texas.

One challenge facing Graham and Applewhite is to overhaul the Rice offense. Since the 1990s, Rice has run the triple option, an offensive scheme that relies on the quarterback as a primary ball-carrier, along with two or three running backs. When it works well, the triple option can be a nearly unstoppable weapon, as the Owls proved in their winning seasons in 1996, 1997, and 2001. But an offense focused almost entirely on the running game makes it difficult to recruit top-level high school players, who generally are used to a more balanced attack. In time, the scheme limited what Rice could achieve.

Graham’s mandate is to develop an offense that allows Rice to perform well on the field and to recruit successfully for the future. To that end, Applewhite has installed the spread formation, in which the offense lines up with three or more receivers, wide splits between the offensive linemen, and a single running back. The quarterback is typically in the shotgun position, five or so yards behind the line of scrimmage. By forcing the defense to cover many threats on a wide front, the spread creates gaps for both the running game and the passing game. Rice runs the spread as a no-huddle offense, which further keeps the defense off balance. “The key to our offense is that it spreads the defense out,” Applewhite explains. “They have to cover the full width of the field. And if they blitz, the blitz is coming from farther away, which gives our quarterback more time to read and react.”

The new scheme required adjustment by the entire team, especially at quarterback. On the strength of his stellar performance in spring practice, sophomore Chase Clement earned the starting role over junior Joel Armstrong. Armstrong, meanwhile, has emerged as a talented receiver as well as a valuable back-up at quarterback.

On the defensive side, Graham puts a premium on aggressiveness. The Owls blitz early and often—an admittedly risky strategy. “Our defense occasionally will give up yards in bunches,” Graham says. “But we also are going to make the big plays that stop the other team cold.”

If the first eight games of the season are any indication, the Graham renaissance is taking hold. The new excitement about Rice football brought more than 23,000 to the stands for the Owls’ opening game against the University of Houston. The fans saw Rice fall behind early and then regroup to score 30 unanswered points against the favored Cougars before falling 31–30.

The next week began a brutal stretch of four consecutive away games, the first three without Clement, who was injured against Houston. The Owls turned in a creditable showing in a 26–16 loss to the University of California at Los Angeles, a team that defeated Rice by 42 points in 2005. The Owls’ aggressive defense did indeed yield yards in bunches, but it also forced four turnovers and held four Bruin drives to field goals.

After lopsided losses to No. 8 Texas and No. 18 Florida State University, the Owls suffered a different kind of setback. On September 25, the day after the Florida State game, freshman defensive back Dale Lloyd collapsed on the field during a light afternoon workout. Rice’s emergency medical service responded immediately, and though Lloyd was quickly transported to Memorial Hermann Hospital, he was pronounced dead the next morning. The cause of death remains undetermined.

Lloyd’s death hit the team hard. Graham considered canceling the Owls’ next game at Army, but after speaking with the team captains and other veteran coaches and receiving the blessing of Lloyd’s family, Graham felt it was important to go forward with the game. “I think that is what Dale would want us to do,” Graham said at the time. “That’s the type of player he was.”

In the wake of the tragedy, the Owls turned in their best performance of the year, a resounding 48–14 victory at West Point. In his first game since the UH match, Clement threw a school-record five touchdown passes and was named Conference USA Player of the Week.

The Owls attended Lloyd’s funeral in Houston the next day. The team is honoring their fallen teammate this season by wearing his number 39 on their helmets. Rice also has established the Dale Lloyd II Memorial Scholarship, which will benefit a Rice student-athlete.

After stumbling at Tulane the next week, the Owls pulled off a last-second win at home against the University of Alabama at Birmingham, then knocked off conference runner-up University of Central Florida on the road. Rice entered its lone off week with a 3–5 record (2–2 in Conference USA).

Since returning to action, Clement has the Rice offense firing on all cylinders. In just five games this year, he already has thrown 14 touchdown passes, the third highest season total in Rice history. His primary target is sophomore wide receiver Jarrett Dillard. In eight games, Dillard has caught 60 passes for 769 yards and 12 touchdowns, shattering the Rice single-season record of nine touchdown catches held by Kenneth Roy since 1976. With 17 receiving touchdowns to date in his young career, Dillard is just one shy of the Rice career record.

Leading the ground attack is senior running back Quinton Smith, an all-conference selection and the Owls’ 2005 Most Valuable Player. So far in 2006, Smith has rushed for 667 yards in eight games and caught for 203 more. His 2,076 career rushing yards make him the fifth leading rusher in Rice history.

In a testament to how well the Rice players have adjusted to their new system, the Owls have averaged just six penalties per game, compared to 17 by their opponents. But the system itself is a testament to the energy, planning, and implementation behind it. The Rice football renaissance has begun not simply with changes but with promise, and the Rice community is eager to cheer it on.

By George W. Webb III