Head coach Scott Abell led Rice Football to a five-win season and a bowl berth in Year 1 and his expectations are higher entering Year 2.
By many external estimations, the 2027 Rice Football season was expected to be the realistic true beginning of head coach Scott Abell’s rework of the Owls program. That accounted for his first campaign during the 2026 season to be treated as a “Year Zero”, a term once ubiquitous to coaches taking over challenging situations, affording a grace period of sorts as rosters are retooled and schemes are established.
Then Abell went and won five games and secured a bowl berth, overshooting what oddsmakers projected to be possible on South Main out of the gate.
Ahead of schedule in wins and losses — the metric that matters most — Abell and company must now thread the needle of elevated expectations despite still being rather early in a rebuild that was expected, even internally, to take some time to get up to speed. Getting the right people in place will be the most crucial part of that progression.
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“Last year we had 20 percent of the roster that fit who I thought we needed to be,” Abell said, alluding in part to a decision to honor all previous scholarships while choosing not to flip the roster through the Transfer Portal when he arrived. Instead, he did his best to instill his offense and his culture in the team he inherited.
“This year we’re a minimum of 60 percent to 70 percent,” he continued. “I don’t think we’re completely there, but we’re a lot closer to what the whole roster should look like for us.”
The improved roster features a veteran quarterback, Jacurri Brown, as well as several skill position players handpicked by the staff to operate Abell’s gun-choice scheme. The offensive line is more experienced and won’t be forced to lean on freshmen early, if at all.
The defense has some question marks, but high-profile transfers like safety Koa Akui and corner Jamir Benjamin are expected to add a jolt of talent and athleticism that was missing last fall.
Although he was quick to reiterate the team wasn’t a finished product just yet, Abell is happy with the progress they’ve made. “We’re bigger. We’re faster. We’re all the things you want to be as a football team compared to last year’s team,” he said.
The next step is translating those off-field improvements into further success, a task whose difficulty will be magnified when facing a schedule that includes nine teams who were bowl eligible last season, including College Football Playoff participant Tulane and a perennial Top 10 program in Notre Dame, as well as defending MAC Champion Western Michigan and a pair of 9-win teams: Fresno State and East Carolina.
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It’s a daunting task. But for a coach in Abell who has won everywhere he’s gone despite seemingly impossible odds, Rice shouldn’t be counted out.
Abell isn’t content to fall back on a strong debut season. He wants more.
“What does success look like?” he mused. “I hate to talk big numbers, but can we have the first bowl win in the program in the last 12 years? Can we pop the first true winning season in 12 years?
“I think that’s real attainable. I think those are goals that we can reach and we should reach. And for a program that hasn’t done that in 12 years, that would be a huge success if we can get there.”
Fall camp kicks off in August. The season begins in September. Can this reinvigorated Rice football program reach the heights Abell and his staff hope for? We’ll see, soon enough.