My sincere apologies to Name of the Week fans everywhere. Rice continues the bad streak we've had to start the year with an awful name class - just nothing original or fancy or even interesting.
Let's not let that take away, however, from the thrilling 41-30 victory Xzavier Stewart pulled over Tacius Pierre Louis. Congrats to Xzavier.
I was considering for the very first time adding a "No Confidence" option to the poll, but, I think I've found a few candidates who are worthy of name fame.
No. 8, Brent Hotard: Not an upper-tier name, but his last name is a combination of two things that 9th graders use as insults, if it is indeed pronounced "ho-tard." If it's pronounced "hot-erd", well, we're screwed. On the other hand, if by some stroke of majesty, it's pronounced "hot-turd", well, we have ourselves a winner. (File this under "paragraphs that will not help me get a job in journalism later in life".)
Brent is a tight end for the Owls, but he's never caught a pass for the Owls. His clear skill is holding: he's been the holder on placekicks since last year, but outside of that, he's had a journeyman career, starting out as a redshirt freshman QB, moving to safety, then being switched to wide receiver, and now playing as a tight end. I'd be happy just to play one position, but Brent is clearly a position-hog.
No. 26, Tolu Akinwumi: I'm not a big fan of pointing out various foreign-sounding names because they sound funny, firstly because I'm a tolerant, culture-respecting guy, and secondly because its much more fun to write about hot turds. Also because I take joy in the cleverness of names, not the things that are actually normal in other languages. But Tolu Akinwumi can pass for a good name any day of the week.
Tolu is a redshirt freshman safety who has been playing special teams for the Owls thus far this year.
No. 83, Andre Gautreaux: Gautreaux! As you can probably tell, Gautreaux is from Louisiana, and his last name is Gautreaux. Go go Gautreaux! Also, maybe I don't understand the racial breakdown of the cajun region of our nation, but I was way, way taken aback to find out Gautreaux is a white guy, mainly because I've been pre-conditioned to assume anybody named Andre, from Johnson to Miller to 3000, is a black guy, with the notable exceptions of Andre Agassi and Strawberry André champagne. Notable alternate spellings of his name are "Go-tro" and "Gawkstrawks."
Andre is a redshirt freshman wide receiver who has never taken a snap for the Owls.