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The Roost Podcast | Ep 215 – FAU Hands Rice Football Frustrating Loss

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Rice football fell back to .500 with its first truly disappointing loss of the Scott Abell era against FAU. We dissect how it happened and what it means going forward.

A home favorite against FAU, Rice football couldn’t secure a win, dropping their second consecutive conference games and falling to 3-3 on the season as a result. The offense showed some growth. The defense remained challenged on third down. What does this mean for the program with half the season ahead and a bye-week not close enough. You can find previous episodes on the podcast page. For now, give a listen to Episode 215.

Episode Notes

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Rice Football vs FAU Game Recap

  • Offense starts fast, shows improvement
  • Defensive injuries are starting to stack up
  • Bad breaks, bad officiating and make-or-break moments
  • Optics of a 3-3 start to the season
  • A looming bye week offers hope at the end of the tunnel

Where can you find us?

The Roost Podcast is part of the Dave Campbell’s College Podcast Network. You’ll still get the same content with the same hosts, but now under the DCTF banner. If it’s happening in college football in Texas, we’re talking about it. You can find this podcast and all of our partner podcasts on Apple, Spotify and wherever you get your podcasts.

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Rice Football comes up short against FAU

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Rice Football threw the first punch, but was unable to go the distance, dropping their home conference opener to FAU on Saturday, 27-21.

In a game that shared many similarities to previous contests, Rice football waded through sluggish offensive waters, surrendered some key third downs on defense and came up just short of what could have been a big win for the program. Sitting at 3-3 with a road trip to UTSA looming, here are a few immediate reactions from the game:

Offense Strikes First, but Remains Work in Progress

Getting the offense going more quickly was the primary focus of Rice football practice all week long. They’d been slow out of the gate and forced to rally, an ill-advised strategy for a team committed to an option offense. Head coach Scott Abell backed up the talk by opting to receive the opening kickoff, a first this season after the Owls had deferred all four of the previous tosses they’d won.

Abell and the Owls were rewarded by a perfectly executed option play with quarterback Chase Jenkins correctly sticking the ball in the belly of Quinton Jackson, who did the rest, scampering 68 yards up the middle for the game’s first score.

Unfortunately, that one play would not absolve the Owls of their struggles. Jackson would rip off a 20-yard carry on the next possession, giving the Owls 92 yards of offense on their first four plays. The problem was what came next; Rice tallied 96 yards on their next 34 plays, failing to add any more points to their total in the first half.

Things did get better, including another resurgent second half performance. Rice converted 10-of-16 on third down and did not post a single three-and-out for the duration of the game.

“I hate it for our older guys, our seniors,” Abell said, reflecting on the disappointing result amidst an offense in media res. “Our younger guys, we talk about it all the time, we’re building something. A build doesn’t happen overnight, so you recognize that. But for older guys, their future is now. And we recognize that.”

Negative Plays Persist

Those growing pains have been exacerbated by the ease with which opposing defenses have been able to break plays in the trenches. Some of the Owls’ scheme allows for unblocked linemen, so a free rusher isn’t always the chief concern. What is problematic, however, is the frequency with which Rice football is being struck behind the line of scrimmage.

“It should be the opposite. When you run the football you should have few tackles for a loss,” Abell quipped. “It’s a stat we gotta improve on because we can’t play behind the sticks.”

FAU tallied eight tackles for a loss on Saturday night, a number that will only add to the Owls’ league-worst mark in that regard. No offense has allowed more TFLs per game than Rice, an indication that either the blocking or the keep-give decisions being made in the backfield are not operating as optimally as they should.

Much of this is supposed to get better over time. That’s good news for the future of Rice football, but the current 2025 team needs to find answers now. Rice showed a remarkable amount of resiliency to overcome so many of those negative plays, but it’s not a pattern that can continue if the team wants to turn the corner on offense.

To the Skies?

The passing offense has grown by leaps and bounds since the season opener against Louisiana. For most traditional offenses, 137 yards through the air won’t trigger any celebratory response, but for a Rice football offense devoted to the ground game, this represented a season-high in passing yardage.

Quarterback Chase Jenkins completed 71 percent of his passes and looked sharp on throws down the field. Outside of a trick play that resulted in a throw into triple coverage, the rest of the looks were clean.

Frankly, Rice was much more consistent in their passing attack than they were in their running game. And without the commitment to the running game, plays like Drayden Dickmann’s streaking score probably aren’t available to the same degree:

Still, it might be worth exploring the question. How can Rice incorporate a growing passing game as they work to establish an option attack that’s in its fledgling stages of development?

Abell credited a portion of that to looks that are more prevalent in those late game situations, but it’s something he and his staff will have to consider moving forward. An injury-plagued receiving corps won’t help those aspirations.

Make Your Own Breaks

Winning the turnover battle by two is usually a good sign, and while it was proof that not all the things broke the wrong way against the home team, it wasn’t enough good will for a team still learning as they go. This young program is going to need a few breaks. And while there is talent enough to overcome a few negative bounces, once again Rice seemingly came up short on the luck factor.

Where do we start? Jenkins being ruled an inch short of a first down on his second drive? And while it’s often not the officials fault for any particular result, that Florida Atlantic converting a massive third quarter third down on a pick play that left a wide receiver streaking wide open across the middle certainly did the home team no favors. Likewise, the same was true when the Owls’ opening third down conversion in the fourth quarter came back on a holding call.

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On mic, Abell said all the things he must and refused to gripe about some officiating decisions that did his team no favors. He did make this comment though, which rings true of the place this team is right now.

“Sometimes you want to get a break or you need to get a break but you also have to go make your own breaks. Especially when you find yourself where it’s hard,” he said. “Right now, it’s hard. No games are going to be easy. We shouldn’t expect it, and I don’t think our guys do. You hope to get a break or two, but more importantly you’ve got to figure out how to make your own breaks.”

Staring down the barrel of their first sub-.500 record if they drop their game to UTSA next weekend, Rice football desperately needs to find a way to generate that luck.

What’s more, the trajectory of this season feels like it’s hanging in the balance as Rice football faces one of the toughest remaining schedules in the conference after their bye week. A win this week would have given the Owls six tries to win two games and secure a postseason berth in Abell’s first season on campus.

As of now, it’s easy to readjust those pesky expectations and treat a bowl bid as an upside play for a season that began with very muted hopes. Yet it would be disingenuous to discard that zeal generated by a 3-1 start which faded to distant memory on Caden Veltkamp’s quarterback keeper to ice this game.

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Hanging Around

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The Roost Podcast | Ep 214 – Rice Football sunk by Navy

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Navy handed Rice football its first conference loss, winning in both trenches and controlling the game. Jason Metko joins us to react to the loss.

Rice football fell to 3-2 with a road loss against Navy. The game was rather one-sided, serving as an education for this program on just how far they have to go to reach the standard for option football as its being played in the FBS right now. Still, there were some encouraging nuggets to salvage from the defeat. Sideline analyst Jason Metko joins the show to help us dig into all of it. You can find previous episodes on the podcast page. For now, give a listen to Episode 214.

Episode Notes

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Homefield

We’re thrilled to partner with Homefield Apparel, the premier proprietor of college football clothing. First-time buyers can use the code ROOST for 15% off their order. The Owls hoodie is a personal favorite as is the Luv-Ya-Owls shirt. Make sure you check out the sailor hat (pictured below) as you shop the Rice collection or pick up something else (or both)!

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Rice Football vs Navy Game Recap

  • Crisis Averted: Owls avoid what could have been a blowout
  • Offense has some growing up to do, and that’s probably okay
  • Chase Jenkins could probably learn a lot from Blake Horvath
  • Defense has been great, in spite of their third down woes
  • A turnover check? And Plae Wyatt’s big moment

Where can you find us?

The Roost Podcast is part of the Dave Campbell’s College Podcast Network. You’ll still get the same content with the same hosts, but now under the DCTF banner. If it’s happening in college football in Texas, we’re talking about it. You can find this podcast and all of our partner podcasts on Apple, Spotify and wherever you get your podcasts.

Subscribe on Patreon for exclusive Rice football recruiting updates, practice notes and more.

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Rice Football comes up short against Navy

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A slow start proved too much for Rice Football to overcome as the Owls suffered their first conference of the season, falling to Navy 21-13 on the road.

First place in the American Conference standings was on the line when Rice football visited Navy on Saturday afternoon. The Midshipmen got off to a fast start and seized the momentum early, sinking the Owls’ upset hopes and handing Rice it’s first conference loss of head coach Scott Abell’s tenure. Here are a few immediate reactions from the game:

Dominated up front

By far the most concerning development of the afternoon was the Owls’ inability to get push in either the offensive or defensive trenches. The Rice offensive line, down their starting center and a rotational tackle could not handle the strength of Navy’s Landon Robinson on the interior. He routinely won at the point of attack and created negative plays, starting with a five yard loss on the Owls’ first snap from scrimmage.

The Owls’ base offense accounted for 19 total yards on 15 plays through four drives. The running game had been effectively silenced with the penetration on the interior and the Midshipmen’s ability to get to the edge on the handful of times Rice tried to win there. Chase Jenkins was sacked two times and Navy tallied seven tackles for a loss.

Head coach Scott Abell didn’t shy away from that harsh reality. “I thought Navy won the battle in the trenches,” he said. “Offensively, we let their movement kind of dictate early what we were going to try to do… we overthought that.”

He went on to emphasize Navy’s offensive experience and execution as the biggest differentiator on the other side of the ball. Navy was routinely able to exploit the spacing of the Rice football defense, averaging a staggering 7.9 yards per play in the first half, finishing the game with a still robust 7.5 yards per play.

Ultimately, in a game pitting two option offenses against each other, getting pushed around on both sides of the line of scrimmage put this team in a place that proved too difficult to overcome.

Dealing with the First Negative Game Script

The trench woes contributed to a two-touchdown deficit for the Owls on the road. That their opponent scored first is nothing new — Rice entered the game 3-0 when falling behind after the first score — but the lack of a counter punch from the offense was quite different.

After scoring in nine consecutive quarters, Rice was shut out at halftime. At the break, Navy was outgaining Rice 308-51 and Rice had picked up just three first downs and was 1-of-6 on third down tries. Remarkably, because both sides had only exchanged a handful of possession each, Rice hadn’t really been forced to abandon their primary offensive philosophy to that point.

That’s largely been true of this team through five games. The Houston game was the only one-sided result, but even that contest was competitive in the fourth quarter.

“My [game] script changed, but it changed more because of schematics. I didn’t feel like we had to change our approach and start slinging the football around, but I knew we needed to find some ways to stay on the field offensively and give our defense some breaks,” Abell shared.

“We didn’t really change the approach until midway though the fourth quarter.”

That Rice was able to cling to their core offensive philosophy was a credit to the resiliency of the defense and just enough progression from the offense from start to finish. It’s also a positive sign of things to come for the future.

Passing Problems More Pronounced with Low Volume

A scattershot passing game was responsible, at least in part, for the Rice football offense being stuck in neutral for so long in this game. The Owls had the right approach with how the dialed up their shots, but their ineffectiveness — for multiple reasons — really hamstrung the Owls’ offense, particularly in the first half.

A wide open Braylen Walker dropped what should have been at least a 25 yard gain. That the pass came in a constant rain in Walker’s first game back after an extended absence didn’t help, but the results were the same. A little while after, Jenkins couldn’t connect on a deep throw that landed just beyond the reach of a streaking Aaron Turner.

Again, that any singular passing play failed isn’t the point. But when you only run 22 total plays in the first half and attempt seven passes — even fewer thrown down the field — you end up at the mercy of variance, perhaps more often than you’d like.

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Rice started to move the ball in earnest in the second half, but still saw the passing game thwart their momentum in key moments. Drayden Dickmann had the ball fall just out of reach in the front corner of the endzone. Rice settled for a field goal and kept the deficit at the time at two scores rather than pulling within a touchdown.

Jenkins did hit Dickman in the fourth quarter to set up the Owls’ touchdown on fourth-and-goal, but the effort would prove to be too little, too late.

If Rice hits a few more of those passing plays, the game might very well have gone differently. However, that they fell incomplete made it abundantly clear this offense desperately needed the boost they would have provided.

Wrestling with Elevated Expectations

The frame of reference for how we evaluate Abell’s program has shifted wildly in the span of a few short weeks. Fair or not, this team was projected to be a bottom dweller in the American Conference. That they started 3-1 and won their conference opener on the road made it clear they wouldn’t be keeping company with the worst teams in the league, but where was their ceiling?

A loss to a now 4-0 Houston team provided a glimpse of that upper bound. Saturday’s road tilt against Navy gave further clarity. Through five games, this 3-2 team has shown itself to be flawed, yet resilient.

“We’re still in the fight. As we get back to Houston, we’ve got to turn the page. We’ve got to see the film from right here and turn the page and get ready for FAU at home. One of the things I’m proud about this team is our fight and our grit. You can see it out on the field, every play, regardless of outcome, we fought. That’s something I’m proud of,” quarterback Chase Jenkins said after the game.

“We didn’t get the result we wanted, obviously, but going forward you’re going to see a team full of heart.”

Effort has never been in question with this group, they’ve mastered the want-to. Saturday’s result made it clear there is still work to be done on the how-to, on both sides of the ball.

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Third Down Woes

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Know Your Foe: Rice Football vs Navy

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Navy is next up on the 2025 Rice football schedule so we’re going behind enemy lines with Middies’ insider Mike James from The Mid Report.

Middies’ insider Mike James was kind enough to stop by and answer a few questions about the upcoming matchup between Rice Football and Navy. The answers below should shed some light on the Owls’ upcoming opponent.

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