Week One: Rice versus UCLA

Rice versus UCLA--The Rice Owls and the UCLA Bruins meet on August 30th matching up a group of underachieving teams. Rice went 4-8 in 2011 and struggled by being outscored by 10 points per game. UCLA went to a bowl game but ended the season at 6-8 following the loss to Illinois. The Bruins had a special waiver to play in a bowl game last fall even though they had a losing record.

Offense: UCLA struggled on offense in 2011 although the Bruins were very effective running the ball. The Bruins ran for 174 yards on the ground but only managed 198 yards in the air, good for the 81st ranked passing offense in the nation. The Bruins also struggled at putting the ball in the end zone only scoring 23.1 points per game on the season. That was good for 88th in the country. Rice struggled to move the ball successfully on offense in 2011 with only 218 first downs on the season. The best method the offense had for moving the ball was running although the Owls only averaged 3.9 yards per carry. The passing offense added 196 yards in the air but only 6.1 yards per pass attempt. Those numbers added for a low scoring offense that scored only 23.3 points per game. EDGE: UCLA

Defense: The Bruins were not very effective on offense in 2011 giving up 31.4 points per game on the season. The Bruins gave up 28 or more points in 8 of their games including an ugly 50-0 loss to rival USC. Teams were able to run up and down the field versus UCLA and averaged 5.2 yards per carry versus the Bruin defense. Passing was better only giving up 226 yards per game with 14 interceptions but the defense allowed an average of 2 passing touchdowns per game. Rice had the 21st worst scoring defense in 2011 giving up 33.3 per game on the season. Opponents ran for 183 yards per game on the Owl defense with a 4.8 yards per carry average. Teams also threw for an average of 278 yards per game versus the porous Owl secondary. The Rice defense gave up 50 touchdowns on the season. EDGE: UCLA

Coaching: Jim Mora takes over the Bruins after the disastrous 6-8 season that ended with the only losing team playing in a bowl game. Mora has been in coaching since 1984 when he started as a GA for the Washington Huskies. After that, Mora coached from 1985-2009 with two stints as a head coach for Atlanta and Seattle. With at Atlanta, Mora went 26-22 with one playoff appearance which was a loss to the Eagles in the NFC title game. Mora's stint in Seattle went much worse as he went 5-11in his one season as head coach. After taking some time away from coaching, Mora took the job as the UCLA head coach and will be going into his first season as a college head coach. David Bailiff is the head coach at Rice and has been coaching since 1982 at New Braunfels HS. Following that, Bailiff coached at Southwest Texas State, New Mexico, TCU, Texas State, and Rice. Texas State was Bailiff's first head coaching stint where he took over in 2004. Bailiff went 21-15 at Texas State with a trip to the FCS semifinals during his second year. Following a 5-6 season at Texas State, Bailiff was offered the job at Rice and has been there for 5 years. Bailiff is 23-38 in his 5 years with one winning season (2008 was a 10-3 season with a win in the Texas Bowl). EDGE: UCLA

UCLA is 4-0 all-time versus Rice with games in 1952, 1966, 2005, and 2006. The Bruins have won by an average of 18.7 points per game in the previous meetings.

While UCLA was disappointing in 2011, the Bruins did get to play for a conference title as well as end the season in a bowl. The 6-8 record was not enough for Rick Neuheisel to keep his job. Rice had been struggling since an unexpected 10-3 season in 2008. The last three seasons have seen the Owls go 10-26 and put Bailiff directly on the hot seat. UCLA should get a confidence building win to start the season over a struggling Rice team that can't seem to be competitive recently.