Rice Game Notes
9/4/2010 12:00:00 AM | Football
Sept. 4, 2010
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Rice game captains for the Texas game were Pierre Beasley, Chris Jones, Scott Mitchell and Cheta Ozougwu.
The Owls had two, first-time starters in the game. Red-shirt freshman quareterback Taylor McHargue and sophomore running back Sam McGuffie made their first career starts as Owls.
McHargue, a native of Cedar Park and graduate of Vista Ridge High School, began his career by completing 6-of-11 passes for 90 yards and a touchdown.
In his first career start, McGuffie carried the ball 14 times for a team-high 47 yards.
In addition to McHargue and McGuffie, making their career debuts as Rice players were Tolu Akinwumni, Turner Petersen, Justin Allen, Chris Boswell, Hosam Shahin, Cameron Nwosu, Alex Francis, Klein Kubiak, Taylor Cook, and Paul Porras and Donte Moore.
The Reliant Stadium crowd of 70,445 was the largest crowd to see a Rice home opener since Sept. 23, 1961, when 73,000 saw the Owls defeat LSU 16-3 in Rice Stadium. The game marks the sixth-largest crowd to see Rice and Texas play in Houston, and the eighth time in the series since Rice Stadium opened in 1950 that the two teams played in front of 70,000 or more in Houston. The game was the largest crowd for a Rice opener, home or road, since the Owls played in front of 94,379 on the road at Ohio State on Sept. 7, 1996.
Top Rice-Texas Crowds in Houston
1962 - 73,000
1964 - 72,500
1958 - 72,000
1960 - 72,000
1954 - 70,500
1970 - 70,500
2010 - 70,445
1950 - 70,000
Travis Bradshaw recorded his seventh consecutive double-figure figure tackle game as well as his 13th in 19 career starts for the Owls. Bradshaw kept the double-digit streak alive with a special teams tackle in the final minute.
When McHargue hooked up with Randy Kitchens for a 47-yard touchdown pass with four seconds to play in the first half (made score 24-10, the play marked the first touchdown pass and reception, respectively, for the tandem.
Rice red-shirt freshman place kicker Chris Boswell gave Rice an early 3-0 lead when he booted his first career field goal, a 42-yarder with 8:04 to play in the first half.
Kyle Martens, a Ray Guy Award candidate, began his junior season at Rice by averaging 45 yards on seven punts. He had two kicks downed inside the 20 and was credited with a 71-yarder (a career long).
