Upward swing

Three seasons ago, the Rice Owls were 1-10 and saw Ken Hatfield step down as head coach.

The next year, Todd Graham led the Owls to a 7-6 mark and landed the third-best Oklahoma line prospect in Ardmore’s Tyler Parish. Graham left shortly after that, and so did the turnaround in Owls football.

But Parish has just experienced his own upward swing at Rice. Following a 3-9 season he redshirted, the 6-foot-4, 285-pound offensive lineman helped the Owls put on the points and victories with a 10-3 Conference USA West co-championship. Rice beat Western Michigan 38-14 in Tuesday’s Texas Bowl on the Houston Texans’ turf.

“It was wonderful,” Parish said Friday. “An awesome experience from being on a team to bowl activities to playing at Reliant Stadium.”

Maybe just as wonderful: Rice completed its first 10-win season since 1949 and won its first bowl game since the 1954 Cotton Bowl. Its winning streak now stands at eight.

If you think Parish and the Owls weathered a storm with a 2-3 start, they basically had to evade hurricanes Gustav and Ike in September.

“We had to stay in one of the dorms during the first one (Gustav),” Parish said. “That ended up just a lot of rain for us.”

When Ike hit Houston, the Owls stayed in Nashville, Tenn., after a loss to Vanderbilt for two extra days.

“There were some windows blown out from the wind, but there was a lot of tree damage,” Parish said.

Then the sun started to shine on the Owls.

Under second-year head man David Bailiff, Parish was called to step into a starting role and help protect a player who ranks higher in pass efficiency than Texas Tech’s Graham Harrell and Southern California’s Mark Sanchez — Chase Clement.

“It wasn’t something I’d expected, but I knew I’d have to step in (some way),” Parish said of starting. “At the first spring ball (practice), they told me I had to step up.”

No problem for Parish and Co. The line allowed Rice to average 472.2 total yards and 41.6 points per game this season and gave Clement time to pass for 3,812 yards and 41 touchdowns against seven interceptions.

“It was an awesome experience just to be around him, to see how he has these long drives,” Parish said. “Chase is quick, very elusive. It was difficult at times (to protect), but Chase has the ability to scramble and makes a lot of plays.”

For someone who was highly ranked as a college prospect in Oklahoma, Parish didn’t mind going to a school that isn’t known as a football powerhouse.

“It was just an absolute family atmosphere,” Parish said of Rice. “A chance to get a great education, one of the best available.”

Parish has done well in the classroom with a 3.3 grade-point average in — get ready for this — mathematical economical analysis.

“We look at the market and we see what we can do as far as the market goes (with math skills),” Parish said. “We see stock trends and how they go up and down and try to determine what’s the best thing for the economy.”

A Rice education more than pleases his father Mark Parish of Ardmore.

“We’re thrilled to death he can go to Rice and compete at a D-I level,” Mark said.
The elder Parish added Tyler had offers from Tulsa, Army and North Texas and was contacted by Ivy League schools. Even when Graham — who Tyler said recruited him — left for Tulsa, Parish stayed committed to the Owls.

And he’s seen improvement in his game from his Tiger days.

“I say I’m a lot better pass-blocker … a lot better,” Parish said. “I’d say a lot of it has to do with technique.”

After its most victorious season in 59 years, don’t expect Rice or Parish to change the game plan.

“We just keep doing what we’ve been doing, keep working hard and trying to improve,” he said.
All he’s waiting for now is his Texas Bowl ring.

I.C. Murrell,
(580) 221-6527
ic.murrell@ardmoreite.com