Rice Game Notes
11/7/2009 12:00:00 AM | Football
Nov. 7, 2009
- Rice captains for the SMU game were WR Toren Dixon, LB Terrance Garmon, RB Jeramy Goodson and DL Scott Solomon. SMU won the toss and elected to receive to begin the game.
- True freshman Kevin Gaddis made his first career start at one of the cornerback positions for the Owls. He became the 22nd Rice player to start his first career game during the 2009 season. Gaddis snared his first career interception to stop SMU's second series. He finished with a career-high matching two tackles.
- Rice opened in its version of the `Wildcat' offense and ran out of the formation the first two downs of their opening series. With Rice opening in the formation, senior running back Marcus Knox made his first career start.
- Rice started just four seniors against SMU - three on offense and one on defense. The rest of the Owls' starting 22 broke down - 6 juniors (2 offense / 4 defense); 7 sophomores (5 offense / 2 defense) and five freshmen (1 offense / 4 defense).
- All five of the freshmen to start for Rice are true freshmen - LB Trey Briggs made his second start; CB Kevin Gaddis made his first career start; CB Phillip Gaines made his sixth career start; DL Alex Lowry made his sixth straight career start; and RB Charles Ross made his second start of the year.
- Junior wide receiver Patrick Randolph registered his second, multi-touchdown game of the season and his career. Along with touchdown receptions of 11 and 33 yards, Randolph caught a career-high eight passes for 93 yards. The Tuscaloosa, Ala., native had two touchdown receptions in the Owls' game against the Naval Academy. Randolph had six catches for 58 yards against Navy, both previous career marks.
- Toren Dixon had seven receptions for 32 yards. He extended his active streak to 35 consecutive games with his first catch of the game. Dixon entered the game ranked seventh on the NCAA's longest active streak for games with a reception.
- Scott Solomon registered his second multi-sack game of the season. Solomon was credited with 2.5 quarterback sacks against SMU. He began the day ranked sixth in career sacks at Rice with 13 before passing Matt Sign (1989-92) & Courtney Gordon (2003-06) and later moved to within a half sack of John Syptak, who had 16 sacks during his career from 2002-05) and ranks third. Solomon now has 15.5 career sacks.
- Solomon also climbed the Rice career tackles for lost list. With three tackles for loss against SMU he moved up to eighth on the career chart. For the game, Solomon had eight total tackles and also forced a pair of fumbles.
- Sophomore defensive back Travis Bradshaw registered his third straight double-digit tackle game and fourth of the season during a career day. It was also his ninth double-digit tackle game of his career. Bradshaw, who had finished with 12 tackles in five previous career games, had 14 stops (all unassisted) including one for lost yards.
- Clark Fangmeier had a streak of 100 straight PATs come to an end when Margus Hunt blocked the Owl place kicker's second point-after attempt of the game. Fangmeier entered the game having made 168 of 169 attempts. Fangmeier's last missed PAT came on his first attempt of the Owls' game at SMU on Nov. 10, 2007. That miss ended a streak of 68 straight PATs to start his career.
- When Nick Fanuzzi hooked up with Patrick Randolph for a 33-yard touchdown pass with 1:24 to play in the first quarter it was the first time the Owls enjoyed a lead in a game since a 42-yard Clark Fangmeier field goal gave Rice a 10-7 lead over Tulsa with 47 seconds to play in the first half of Game 5.
- Rice entered the game with a 31.5 percent success rate on third-down conversions. Against SMU, the Owls converted on 8 of 14 attempts (.571). The previous season high was 43.8 percent (7-of-16) at Oklahoma State.
Players Mentioned
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