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Rice

Owls · American Athletic

Head coach Scott Abell Year 1 with Rice

Year-1 HCs (2015-2024) averaged -0.19 W vs SP+ expected · n=83

Season Projection · 2026 W0

10,000 sims
2.9
Expected wins
3-7
Proj record
0 to 6
Win range (90%)
#121 (102–133)
Final rank (90%)
0%
Make playoff
0%
Win conference

Path to Glory

Tap a win or a loss on each pivotal game to see how the playoff probability shifts. Leave any game unset to average across both outcomes.

Make the playoff

0%

Baseline projection.

  • vs Houston Christian
    Home · Sep 5
  • vs UTSA
    Home · Oct 3
  • vs Tulsa
    Home · Oct 17
  • at Florida Atlantic
    Away · Oct 24

Pivotal games are the 5 with the largest playoff-probability swing, ranked by the model. Math: chained Bayesian log-odds update from the conditional simulation set; gets the directionally right answer but won't perfectly capture cross-game correlations until the full Monte Carlo pipeline lands.

Returning production · 2025

54 PCI
  • Quarterback 60% (3/5 players)
  • Offensive line 57% (12/21 players)
  • Skill (RB/WR/TE) 43% (16/37 players)
  • Front 7 (DL/LB) 58% (15/26 players)
  • Secondary 56% (14/25 players)
  • Special teams 43% (3/7 players)

PCI weights returning production by position group (QB/OL heaviest). 70%+ is healthy continuity; 45-70% is a normal rebuild; below 45% is a meaningful turnover.

If QB1 is out (Chase Jenkins)

GIE projects a -3.0 rating drop and a -11.8pp shift in playoff probability if Rice loses its QB1 for an extended stretch. (n=1 historical samples; pooled across recent seasons.)

Situational efficiency · 2025

FBS percentile rank
  • 3rd-down conversion 31.4% 21th — bottom tier
  • Red-zone TD rate 20.9% 90th — elite
  • 4th-down aggression 37.2% 56th — average
  • Late & close 3.2 yds/play 16th — bottom tier

Percentile is across all FBS teams with play-by-play data for the season. "Late & close" is yards per play in Q4+ with a one-score margin — a proxy for clutch offensive performance.

More coming

Per-team pages get the full treatment in Phase 3: current rating, season projection histogram, schedule with win probabilities, and live overlays on Pylon stream days. For now, this page exists so stories and news have a permanent home as content rolls in.