Posted by ESPN.com’s Graham Watson

Rice used two quarterbacks in Saturday’s 44-24 loss to UAB and coach David Bailiff said he doesn’t plan to change that.

Bailiff announced during his Monday press conference that sophomore Nick Fanuzzi would start this week’s game at Texas Tech, but that both he and senior John Thomas Shepherd would play in the game. Shepherd started against UAB but both quarterbacks played.

“We’re going to start Nick this week, and if he leads us down the field and scores on the first couple possessions, we’ll probably leave him in, but I think for the good of this football team, we’re going to continue to use two quarterbacks right now,” Bailiff said. “The easy thing is to look at the stat sheet and see that Nick threw for 154 yards, but when you watch the film and grade their decision-making, we know that John Thomas did a lot of good things too.”

Fanuzzi completed 12-of-20 passes for 154 yards and a touchdown and rushed for seven yards and a score. Shepherd completed 10-of-22 passes for 81 yards and an interception, but led the team in rushing with 48 yards.

Bailiff said he was pleased with Fanuzzi’s play in the passing game, but that he needed to work on some things in the running game. He had the opposite praise and criticism for Shepherd.

Rice, which was coming off a 10-3 campaign last year, is still looking to replace the majority of its offense which either graduated or left early for the NFL. The team had hoped to get more production out of the running back position, but its top two statistical running backs, Tyler Smith and Charles Ross, had 37 yards apiece and no touchdowns.

Bailiff has maintained all along that if one quarterback separates himself, he’ll be the team’s starter for the foreseeable future.

“Nick did look off some defenders and came back to receivers, which is something he had not done in practice,” Bailiff said. “But for him to be the total package quarterback, we’ve got to work on the running game with him.”