Technically Rice’s win was over UTEP Saturday, but it also in many ways was a win over Harvey.
Between the long trip to Australia, being evacuees in Fort Worth and then seeing what the hurricane did to Houston (not to mention the players’ homes and belongings), it’s been an emotional two weeks. Football, for obvious reasons, took a backseat.
"We talked to them all week that they were going to turn into men sooner than some of them had to," Rice coach David Bailiff said after Saturday’s game. "They had to learn to compartmentalize. They had to learn not only to rebuild what they had lost, but they had to come over and get better as a football team.