Meet Your Insider
Hello, Owl family, and welcome to The Cover Window! I'm Odalys Chen-Moreau, your Rice insider. I'm finishing a bioengineering PhD, and I model football like a clinical trial: control group, treatment group and a very long methods section. I travel with this team and I live with this team. You should also know I'm basically a stats cop with a badge. If someone makes a sweeping claim off two games, I will walk over, flash the badge and say, "N equals too small." When we win, I shout "Statistically significant!" and do a dance worthy of any halftime show. When we lose, I say "N is too small to panic". and then I panic quietly in the lab. Every week you'll get the players, the coaches and the matchup, peer-reviewed.
The School in 60 Seconds
Rice Stadium is one of the most historic venues in American sports. On Sept. 12, 1962, President John F. Kennedy stood there and gave his speech recommitting the country to landing on the moon. On Jan. 13, 1974, the stadium hosted Super Bowl VIII, when Miami beat Minnesota 24-7. It's listed at 47,000 seats. Rice is a small private school playing big-time football in the American Athletic Conference, and that's a story worth telling every single week. Our hypothesis is that grit travels well. Let's test it.
The Coach and the Scheme
Scott Abell was named head coach on Nov. 26, 2024, after seven seasons at Davidson. The data are very clear on what this offense is. Rice runs on about 79% of its plays, gains 4.87 yards a carry and has 13 rushing touchdowns, against just 2 through the air. That's not a small sample. That's a whole identity. The challenges are just as clear: Rice averages 17.0 points and 318.6 yards a game and allows 29.0 points. Turnovers have hurt, with 10 lost against 4 forced. The defense has 10 sacks.
Players to Know
QB Jacurri Brown: 668 rushing yards and 6 TD on the ground, plus 471 passing yards and 2 TD. Against Tulsa he ran 11 times for 154 yards and two touchdowns. Statistically significant? I'd say so.
RB Tyvonn Byars: 372 yards and 2 TD.
DE A.J. Brown: a team-high 52 tackles, which is a lot for a defensive end.
Season leaders past these three were not in a free source I could verify, so I'm not listing more names.
The Conference Picture
Rice is 1-6 overall and 0-3 in the American, 1-3 at home and 0-3 on the road. Several of those losses were close: 16-14 to UTSA and 28-21 to Western Michigan, both at home. The goal now is to grow week by week. Yes, the record is the record. But I'd still call the season an incomplete dataset. The run game is real: 4.87 yards a carry is nearly identical to what our defense allows (4.88). Our pass rush has 10 sacks, and we've given up 13. The variable to watch is ball security.
This Week: Rice (1-6) at Florida Atlantic (4-2)
Saturday, Oct. 24 · Noon ET · Flagler Credit Union Stadium, Boca Raton · ESPNU. The forecast calls for 81 degrees, a 52% chance of rain and a 20 mph wind out of the northeast. For a team that runs 79% of the time, that's not the worst news.
Last week: Rice lost 38-17 to Tulsa at home, with Brown running for 154 yards. Florida Atlantic lost 56-24 at Army.
Our offense vs. their defense: here's a promising variable. Florida Atlantic allows 5.43 yards a carry and 31.5 points a game. Army just ran up 56 points on them.
Their offense vs. our defense: FAU throws for 307.3 yards a game. QB Caden Veltkamp has 1,743 yards and 15 touchdowns, and WR Kelby Valsin has 47 catches for 601 yards. Our pass defense allows 188.7 yards a game, but FAU will test it constantly.
Series: tied 3-3. FAU won the last meeting in 2025, though the score is in conflict: 27-21 per, 24-17 in Houston per FAU Athletics, and we trust the school. Rice won in 2023, 24-21. Most of these games come down to a handful of points: five of the six were decided by six or fewer, including Rice's wins of 27-26 in 2015 and 18-14 in 2013. That's a consistent effect across six trials.
Availability: I found no official availability report for either team as of Oct. 18, 2026.
What decides it: (1) Can our run game control the clock the way Army's did? (2) Can we win the turnover battle for once? We're minus-6. (3) Can we keep Veltkamp from hitting big plays to Valsin?
And to Kaia Brightwater, Florida Atlantic's insider: lovely to meet a fellow Owl. Our sample size together is small, so let's call this a pilot study.
Local Flavor (unsponsored, not an ad)
Watching in Houston? Pinkerton's Barbecue on Airline Drive. The brisket is statistically significant.
My call: Florida Atlantic Owls 33, Rice Owls 24.