McNeal scores twice as SMU beats Rice 31-28 (AP)

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 15:48:42 PST

Shawnbrey McNeal rushed for 88 yards and two touchdowns to lift SMU to a 31-28 win over Rice Saturday afternoon. The Mustangs (5-4, 4-1 Conference USA) blocked three kicks. After Sterling Moore blocked one as time expired in the first half, Bryan McCann returned the ball 74 yards for a score, giving SMU a 21-20 halftime lead.

Rice Team Report (Yahoo! Sports)

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 22:15:26 PST

All season long, Rice (0-8, 0-5) has had to deal with the wrong things happening at the wrong times—costly turnovers, special-teams errors, missed tackles.

Rice coach David Bailiff has watched things snowball as the Owls' season has gone from bad to worse. With a week off to try to identify and fix the major leaks in the system, Bailiff is hopeful his staff and players can start turning things back in the right direction this weekend against SMU (4-4, 3-1).

The Owls have surrendered an average of 54 points over the past three games. Offensively, the team is desperate for some sort of rhythm from quarterback Nick Fanuzzi and backup John Thomas Shepherd.

"After that Oklahoma State game, we felt pretty good about the direction of the offense," Bailiff said.