Head Coach: Scott Abell is entering his first season as the head coach of the Owls. He was previously the head coach of Davidson where he went 47-28, those who are not familiar with FCS football may not even realize the school known for Steph Curry had a football program. Davidson plays in the non-scholarship offering Pioneer League. Abell’s teams ran a very creative spread option offense that often led all of FCS in rushing yards and created issues for their Pioneer League foes. Abell led Davidson to the FCS playoffs 3 years in a row, they were the first 3 appearances in program history.
Program Outlook: This is lost amid all the realignment noise in recent years but with SMU headed to the ACC and Houston to the Big 12, Rice is now the last remaining member of the Southwest Conference to not make it back into a power conference. So how did Rice ultimately end up paying for SMU’s transgressions? Simply put Rice is one of the top academic institutions in the country, and naturally this leads to them having some of the highest academic standards in FBS, it dramatically reduces their recruiting pool. The last move Rice made was to hire Mike Bloomgren, he came from Stanford so he knew how to deal with the academic challenges but ultimately the pro style offense they ran was a strange fit in Texas. This time around, Rice was determined to think outside the box and get innovative. I’m fascinated to see where it takes them.
How does the 2025 Roster look?: As you could expect with an overhaul like this, Rice doesn’t return a lot of production and that’s ok. Rice ranks 109th in the country returning 42% of their production per Punt and Rally’s returning production rankings. That being said, you aren’t going to be able to bring in an influx of 30-40 portal players at Rice either. In fact, they only brought in 9. I’m intrigued to see how the QB position shakes out, Drew Devillier has some talent, he started against UConn last year but he’s more of a pro style QB making him an odd fit in the offense. As a result it’s possible that Chase Jenkins could end up being the guy as he’s more of a runner. RBs Quinton Jackson and Taji Atkins are small, quick backs who will fit well in this offense and Micah Barnett will act as the fullback for the offense. Aaron Turner is a speedy receiver who will be dangerous in play action and the offensive line returns some decent experience. On defense do-it-all LB Ty Morris returns, he’s a dawg. Andrew Awe will run things next to him and they’ll have room to work because up front they have an absolute mountain of a man in 332lb NT Blake Boenisch. S Daveon Hook is the leader of the backend and the Owls will be led by a good corner in Max Ahoia, the rest of the corners will consist of some portal players.
Screenshot from FBSchedules.com
2025 Schedule Thoughts: The schedule is pretty tough for Rice, they didn’t get the best of draws. The non-conference is a lot of fun with the Owls playing Louisiana just down I-10 in the opener, then comes what is unfortunately the last Bayou Bucket game for the foreseeable future hopefully we see it again soon. Rice will also play regional FCS foe Prairie View who is coming off a 5-7 season and the Owls wrap up the non-conference with UConn. The AAC draw is tough with Rice getting 5 of the better teams in the conference, and only facing 3 teams that are in a similar rebuilding position.
Final Thoughts: This is a complete shift and it makes Rice very unpredictable, what we do know is this team is going to be very fun to watch and that’s a huge plus already. For 2025, there’s no expectations just intrigue as we see them shift to this new offense. I do not envy the DCs on Louisiana or even Houston that have to figure out what this is going to look like. One key that can help Rice out is turnover margin. Scott Abell’s teams are extremely adept at taking care of the pigskin, they can gain a lot of ground if he establishes that quickly with this group. Rice was minus 13 last year. The other? The RedZone, the Owls were 135th in RedZone efficiency last year. That’s a lot of points left out there.
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