The 2023 ESPN FPI projections are out. What do the projections look like for Rice Football and how much stock should we put in those estimations?
ESPN recently released its 2023 Football Power Index (FPI), a statistic geared toward predicting team performance. Rice football (-9.3 FPI) checked in No. 11 in the American Athletic Conference, ahead of Navy (-9.3), Temple (-9.4) and Charlotte (-10.9). On the upper end of the conference SMU (4.7), Tulane (2.4), Memphis (1.3) and UTSA (0.2) stand above the rest.
2023 ESPN FPI
- SMU, 4.7
- Tulane, 2.4
- Memphis, 1.3
- UTSA, 0.2
- ECU, -3.0
- UAB, -3.7
- FAU, -4.1
- UNT, -4.4
- Tulsa, -7.4
- USF, -8.4
- Rice, -9.3
- Navy, -9.3
- Temple, -9.4
- Charlotte, -10.9
Looking Closer
Even though they rank near the bottom of the AAC, the 2023 projections are still rosier for the Owls than they’ve been in some time. The 2021 FPI for Rice came in at -11.7. That dropped to -14.5 in 2022. Now up at -9.3, Rice is expected to be more potent than either of their more stingy teams of the Mike Bloomgren era.
Those same projections this year give Rice a 0.2 percent chance of winning the AAC Title in their inaugural season (not likely) and 30.9 percent chance of reaching six wins/bowl eligibility. To put that bowl projection in perspective, it’s roughly equivalent of what the numbers expected for Rice at this point last season. With the (presumed) better team comes the (presumed) tougher road.
Had the six new arriving AAC members still been scheduled to play in Conference USA this fall, Rice would have been the eighth team in that league.
All things considered, Rice is within seven points of the majority of their 2023 opponents. They’ll be near a coin flip in their conference opener against USF and still be expected to be competitive against ECU in their first AAC home game. The path is challenging, but it’s not impossible.
