It looked like Rutgers was going to get us to the window last week, but a late score from Ohio State handed the ‘Ugly Underdogs’ a third loss in a row, putting our record at 7-6 on the season. The goal all season has been to finish above .500, and it will be up to the Rice Owls to get us there. I wouldn’t want it any other way.
Something wonderful happened to the college football universe this spring, but since it happened at Rice, it barely made a blip on the radar.
New head coach Scott Abell decided that the best path forward for Rice was to install the triple-option offense. The decision was met with bemusement and some chuckles, but it made some sense when you think about it.
Rice has to compete with a dozen other FBS programs in Texas. There are about a dozen more in neighboring states along the Gulf Coast. Rice’s terrible record on the gridiron already puts it at a disadvantage against these schools, but it also has high academic standards, which makes recruiting talent even more difficult.
To find success in this situation, you need to think outside the box. You can’t just follow the same script as other schools, because those schools will execute it better, since they have more talent at their disposal. You need to find a way to level the playing field.
Abell, who was at Davidson before jumping to Rice, decided the way to do that was to throw a wrench into the system and do what the Service Academies do: Run the option.
The Service Academies, like Rice, are at a disadvantage when it comes to recruiting. In order to close the talent gap, they lean into a unique style of play that emphasizes toughness, timing and discipline over skill. It works.
Navy is terrific again this year. Army was great in 2024. And Air Force was regularly competing for the Mountain West Championship between 2019 and 2023.
Whether Rice can get to those heights remains to be seen, but the early returns in Houston have been encouraging.
The Owls (5-6) are just one win shy of becoming bowl eligible. The problem is that they’ve only got one more chance to get there, and they’re 27.5-point underdogs against South Florida (8-3).
And while a win over the Bulls on the road may seem like asking too much of the Owls, keeping this game within four scores seems more than reasonable.
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It all comes back to the triple-option.
Rice runs the ball more than any non-Service Academy. To date, the Owls have run the ball on 74 percent of their snaps, which means that the clock will be moving all night long. That makes it quite difficult for any team, no matter how good, to cover a spread of this magnitude. There’s almost no margin for error for the Bulls.
The clock should also be moving when South Florida has the ball. The Bulls don’t lean into the ground game to the extreme like Rice, but they rank 39th in rushes per game, and that number should tick up for this one, given the high likelihood that USF builds a lead and will want to bleed clock.
All of this sounds good, but we’ll still need Rice to score once or twice to get to the window. There’s reason to believe that the Owls can do that. They are 16th in the country in red-zone scoring percentage, so you can bank on them making the most out of any trips inside the 20-yard line.
It’s been quite a ride betting these ‘Ugly Underdogs’ with you. Here’s hoping that Rice can send us into bowl season with a win.
The Play: Rice +27.5 (-110, FanDuel)
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Michael Leboff is a long-suffering Islanders fan, but a long-profiting sports bettor with 10 years of experience in the gambling industry. He loves using game theory to help punters win bracket pools, find long shots, and learn how to beat the market in mainstream and niche sports.
