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Rice Owls Defeat Navy in Football
Rice Owls Defeat Navy in Football
On a beautiful fall night with 50,000 folks celebrating, in September of 1999, the Rice Owls came from behind to down the Navy Midshipmen. After Senator Phil Graham tossed the coin. It was an evenly matched game. Navy had 2 big plays in the first half. The first was a 42 yard run on the opening play. This led to a touchdown. The second was a 73 yard scoring romp (short video of run) right up the middle.
After that, Rice's defence stepped up and shut them down. Navy has an awesome field goal kicker who knocked one in from 55 yards to eXtend their lead. Rice, running a true wishbone, kept the preassure on with a solid combination of ground and air assualt. Their first touchdown came on a lob pass as the receiver broke to the outside.
Navy runs an option offense as well. However, they use the "I"
formation. This gives them one less blocker in the backfield.
In the beginning of the game, Navy
was able to shut the Rice offense down. Mainly because they practice
against the option every day. Soon, Rice started taking advantage
of the wishbone The
eXtra back gave them the counters and counter
traps that the Navy offense does not use. This was too much for
the Navy defense. Navy relied
heavily on the 4-4 to stop Rice. Rice stopped itself several
times deep in Navy territory choosing to go for fourth downs instead of
field goal attempts.
During half time, the MOB (Marching Owl Band) poked
fun at Navy and then led
by the Kingsman, performed Louie
Louie for the delighted crowd.
On this almost
perfect pitch, the Rice half-back lost the handle in a key turnover
that led to 3 of Navy's points. Rice's defense
used gang tackling to keep Navy from getting key first downs late in
the game. While the Navy
Cheerleaders tried to keep up the teams spirits, the cadets
could tell they were in trouble as Rice was relentless in the fourth
quarter drives. Navy tried but could not overcome the stone
wall of Rice's pursuit (short mpeg of defense).
