When they boarded a flight in Australia on Sunday, the Rice Owls didn’t know where they would be sleeping that night.
It might be Los Angeles, where they were headed. Or, depending on what flights were available, it might be somewhere else.
But it sure wouldn’t be Houston, their home.
Both airports were closed, and the city was strained to a breaking point by the devastating effects of Hurricane Harvey.
Head coach David Bailiff and his players, fresh off a season-opening loss to Stanford in Sydney, knew all that. All he kept thinking was, “Just make it to Texas.