The Worst Team in FBS: Rice
Rice University boasts about being named the No. 1 school for “Quality of Life” on a page designed to lure future Owls to Houston. Smartly, that page does not feature the Rice football team, which is currently making cliff-diving look like jumping off a footstool.Last year, David Bailiff’s Owls went 10-3, losing only at Vanderbilt, Texas, and Tulsa, and won the Texas Bowl over Western Michigan. This year, after the graduation of Chase Clement, who was Rice’s career leader in basically every significant passing category, the Owls may go 0-12, not be close to any one win, and are almost assuredly the worst team in college football’s Football Bowl Subdivision.
That’s what happens when a team allows 44.3 points per game: You get carnage that is absolutely staggering.
That scoring defense ranks last in the nation, but it doesn’t matter, really, because the scoring offense comes in at 113th, scoring just 16.5 points a game. That’s mostly because they can’t run the ball (111th at 86.67 yards per game) or stop the run (111th at 215.33 yards allowed per game); they’ve allowed 49 tackles for loss (118th nationally), too. But the pass defense isn’t great, either: Rice has defended just 16 passes (103rd), and is one of two schools (Nevada is the other) to have just one interception this year. The offense converts 31.1 percent of third downs (104th) and scores on just 61.1 percent of its red zone trips (117th); the defense gives up 23.7 first downs a game (115th) allows a 41.6 percent third down conversion rate (87th) and has allowed more red zone touchdowns (24) than any school not named Toledo.
The Owls have scored just once in the first quarter this year, and only against Vanderbilt, which scored more points against Rice (36) than it has against the four other FBS teams it has played combined (32). Rice outgained the only ranked team it played, Oklahoma State, 377-351 -- and lost by 17, which is the closest Rice has been to victory all year. Last week, against Navy, the Owls allowed 471 yards rushing and permitted Middies QB Ricky Dobbs to score more rushing touchdowns, four, than he attempted passes, three.
Possibly the lone bright spot in Rice’s year came when the Owls took the lead against Tulsa near the end of the first half, kicking a field goal for a 10-7 advantage with 47 seconds remaining.
The Owls promptly gave up a 75-yard kickoff return that led to a tying field goal. That lead was the only one of the Rice season so far. It lasted 43 seconds.
Rice fans, you would be forgiven for not giving this team even that much of your time for the rest of the season.
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This post originally appeared on the Sporting Blog. For more, see The Sporting Blog Archives.
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