There is no real way to sugarcoat this.

Rice has not been good for a long time.

The Owls went 5-8 last season and 2-6 in the American, and their last winning season came all the way back in 2014. That is a long stretch without much momentum.

Now Scott Abell enters year two, and the job is pretty clear.

Find an identity.

Build around the run game.

Fix a defense that gave up far too many easy points.

And maybe, just maybe, make Rice a tougher out in the American.

HEAD COACH

• Scott Abell, entering year two at Rice
• Rice went 5-8 last season.
• The Owls finished 2-6 in the American.
• Rice has not had a winning season since 2014.
• Rice averaged only 17.5 points per game last season.

The numbers were rough.

Rice averaged just 17.5 points per game, which ranked near the bottom of the country. The Owls averaged only 289 yards per game, also near the bottom nationally. They converted only 33% of their third downs.

And defensively, it was not much better.

Opponents averaged 34.3 points per game and 416 yards per game.

That is how you end up in a lot of trouble.

Rice was getting outscored by almost 17 points per game on average. The Owls ran the ball on nearly 73% of their plays, one of the highest rates in the country, but they still could not score enough to consistently control games.

That is the challenge for Abell.

Rice wants to run the football. That is obvious.

Now it has to run the football well enough to actually win.

QUARTERBACK

The quarterback job appears to come down to Jacurri Brown and Gael Ochoa.

Brown is the more experienced option, and he feels like the natural fit for what Rice wants to be.

He previously played at Miami and UCF, and while he has been inconsistent as a passer, he gives the Owls a real rushing threat at quarterback. Brown is a career 57% passer with six touchdowns and nine interceptions, but the running ability is the selling point.

He has more than 800 career rushing yards and eight rushing touchdowns.

That matters in this offense.

If Rice is going to run the ball this much, the quarterback has to be part of it. Brown gives the Owls that element. He can keep the ball. He can stress the edge. He can make defenses account for him on every snap.

That does not mean the passing game can be ignored.

Rice cannot be completely one-dimensional. Brown has to be accurate enough to punish teams that overplay the run. He does not need to throw it 35 times a game, but he does need to hit open throws and avoid turnovers.

Gael Ochoa is the other option, but he has barely played. He appeared in two games at UNLV, did not attempt a pass, and had two carries for negative yardage.

So unless something changes, Brown feels like the clear favorite.

And honestly, he makes sense for this team.

THE REST OF THE OFFENSE

The offense is going to revolve around the run game.

That starts with Quinton Jackson.

Jackson is back after carrying the ball 180 times for 889 yards and six touchdowns last season. For a team that wants to live on the ground, that is the most important returning piece on the roster.

If Brown wins the quarterback job, the Brown-Jackson combination could give Rice a legitimate rushing identity.

That is the optimistic case.

The offensive line has some pieces too.

Luke Miller and Patrick Valent are back, and Rice also added Ivy League transfers Scott Becker from Princeton and Leo Bloom from Yale. Those additions matter because if this offense is going to work, the line has to be able to move people.

Rice does not need to pretend to be a spread passing team.

That is not what this roster is built to be.

But the Owls do need to become more efficient. They need fewer wasted drives. They need more manageable third downs. They need to turn long possessions into touchdowns instead of empty yards or punts.

Last year, Rice only scored 20 or more points six times.

That has to change.

You can run the ball all day, but if it still ends with 17 points, it does not matter.

DEFENSE

This is the bigger concern.

Rice gave up 34.3 points per game last season, and opponents scored on all 41 red-zone trips against the Owls.

That is a brutal number.

You cannot give up points every single time an opponent reaches the red zone and expect to win.

Rice also forced only seven turnovers all season.

That is not enough.

If the offense is built to grind out long drives and shorten the game, the defense has to steal possessions. It has to force mistakes. It has to get off the field. It has to make opponents earn everything.

Last year, that did not happen often enough.

The defense brings back Dillon Botts and Joseph Mutombo up front, but the top seven tacklers from last season are gone through graduation or the portal. That is a lot to replace.

There are reinforcements.

Tariq May comes in from Eastern Washington. Jesus Machado comes in from Tulane. Bo Barton could take on a larger role. Davon Hook is back in the secondary after an injury-riddled season. AJ Brown comes in from UAB, and Jireh Benjamin comes in from UCLA.

So there are new pieces.

But the defense has to become more than a collection of names.

It has to be better immediately.

If Rice is going to be competitive in the American, the defense cannot keep giving up 30-plus every week.

SCHEDULE

The schedule gets serious quickly.

Rice opens with Houston Christian, then goes to Notre Dame on Sept. 12.

That is a huge jump in competition.

Notre Dame may be one of the best teams in the country, so that game is not really about judging Rice by the final score. It is about seeing whether the Owls can stay organized, protect the football and come out of that trip healthy.

After that, Rice hosts Western Michigan, then goes to Fresno State.

The American schedule includes UTSA, East Carolina, Tulsa, Florida Atlantic, North Texas, Tulane, Temple and Army.

The good news the Owls only have one true back-to-back road stretch with Florida Atlantic and North Texas.

The bad news is that this league is not easy.

Tulane is still a measuring-stick program. Army is going to be difficult to handle. UTSA is always physical. East Carolina and Florida Atlantic both have enough offense to cause problems.

Rice will have chances.

But it has to take advantage of the winnable games.

That means Houston Christian, Western Michigan, Tulsa, Temple and maybe a few swing games in league play.

If Rice loses those, it is hard to see the path to a major jump.

OUTLOOK

I think Rice can be better.

The Owls have a clear offensive identity. They have a proven running back in Quinton Jackson. They have a quarterback option in Jacurri Brown who fits the run-heavy approach. They have some offensive line pieces. They added help on defense.

That is the positive case.

The concern is that last year’s problems were not small.

Rice could not score. Rice could not stop teams from scoring. Rice could not force turnovers. Rice could not finish drives often enough. Rice allowed opponents to score every time they reached the red zone.

That is a lot to fix in one offseason.

The best-case scenario is that Brown wins the job, the run game becomes legitimately hard to stop, Jackson pushes toward another big season, and the defense improves enough to keep games close.

If that happens, Rice can be more competitive than people expect.

The worst-case scenario is that the passing game remains too limited, defenses crowd the line of scrimmage, the offense still struggles to score, and the defense does not improve enough to give the Owls a real chance.

My gut?

Rice will be tougher.

But I am not sure it will be good enough yet.

This feels like a team that can make progress without the record exploding. The Owls should be annoying to play if the run game works. They should be able to shorten games. They should be able to make some opponents sweat.

But until the defense proves it can get stops and the offense proves it can score more than 17 points a game, it is hard to call this a bowl team.

The path is there.

It just starts with one simple thing.

Rice has to turn all those rushing attempts into actual points.

Full disclosure: I use AI tools to format my research into an article encompassing all of the information.