The Rice Preview
Last year’s game against Rice was probably the low point of the season for Navy. The Mids’ on-field performance (and getting shut out) against Tulane was arguably worse, but at least Tulane was a conference contender. Rice was most assuredly not, and their 24-10 win in Houston remains a sore spot for Navy fans when they look back on an otherwise stellar 2024 campaign.
When one thinks of that game, the first thing that comes to mind is usually the weirdness. It was Navy’s first game after their downer against Notre Dame. Thunderstorms in the area led to five hours of weather delays and a slippery field that the Mids had difficulty handling. But there was another factor that day that, in my opinion, is under-appreciated. The Navy game was Rice’s first after the firing of head coach Mike Bloomgren, and it’s never clear how a team will react to its coach being let go. The remaining coaches on staff had nothing to lose, and they called the game accordingly. It added a layer of unpredictability that forced Navy to adjust early on, but by the time they did, it was 17-0. The Mids never recovered.
I can make no promises about the weather when the Owls visit Annapolis on Saturday, but one thing I do know is that there won’t be any coaching uncertainty. To replace Bloomgren, Rice turned to former Davidson head coach Scott Abell, who has his team off to an impressive 3-1 start.
Rice is a program where it is historically difficult to win; their 2006 trip to the New Orleans Bowl was their first bowl appearance in 45 years. They’ve been to a few since then, but it’s still been a decade since they finished a season with a winning record. In an era when nobody goes to college to “play school,” being one of the finest schools in the country isn’t the selling point it once was. Given the success that the service academies have had with option offenses, many college football observers wonder why programs in Rice’s position haven’t done the same. Running the option is far from a guarantee for success, but at least there’s a template to follow.
With the hiring of Abell, Rice finally took the plunge. One could argue that it’s actually a return to their roots, since the Owls were one of the last true wishbone holdouts in college football under Ken Hatfield. But while it is an option offense, Abell’s scheme is a far cry from the wishbone. It isn’t even an evolution of the Paul Johnson spread option. It’s his own concoction, one that has evolved over a 30-year career.
And it works. Before Abell arrived at Davidson, the Wildcats had suffered through a decade of losing seasons. They never had one under Abell, who led his team to two conference championships and three FCS playoff appearances. At the heart of that success was an offense that led the country in rushing in six of Abell’s seven years in charge. In 2023, Davidson led all of FCS in scoring offense, too, averaging 40 points per game. In 2018, Davidson had 789 rushing yards against San Diego. As the head coach of Division III Washington & Lee, he won the conference three times in six years, including an undefeated regular season in 2015.
Abell hasn’t missed a beat in his latest stop. Rice’s 3-1 start is their best since 2001. So what makes this offense tick? How is it different from other option offenses? There are a few differences between Abell’s offense and what Navy fans are accustomed to seeing, both in terms of scheme and philosophy.
Abell calls his offense the “gun choice,” which hints at the most obvious difference: Rice will always line up in the shotgun. Fourth and one? It doesn’t matter. Shotgun is what they do.
There’s a tradeoff when it comes to lining up in the gun vs. under center. When the quarterback is under center, the plays hit faster. When a fullback dive is executed correctly, you’re guaranteed 2-3 yards every time. But Abell has no interest in clock-eating, 12-play drives. He wants to be explosive, and he likes the eye candy that’s possible in the shotgun. Slower-developing plays are also more acceptable in zone-heavy offenses, where patience and vision are emphasized. That brings up another important distinction. While service-academy-style option offenses are traditionally based on the inside veer, Abell’s core play is the inside zone. It’s hardly zone-exclusive (as we’ll see), but that’s the bread-and-butter play.
Abell also takes a different approach to passing. When Navy throws, they’re looking to get maximum bang for the buck, as reflected in their conference-leading 11.1 yards per attempt (5th nationally). Rice, on the other hand, prioritizes efficiency and averages only 5.8 yards per attempt (123rd). They take shots downfield like anyone else, but the bulk of their passing game is about getting the ball to receivers in space as quickly as possible. It’s a complement to a zone run game that forces linebackers to stick to gap assignments, slowing down any would-be tacklers coming from the inside.
Abell’s track record speaks for itself, but when a new style of offense is introduced to a team, it can sometimes be a mismatch with the existing roster. That doesn’t seem to be the case with the Owls, though, with a trio of runners who fit perfectly with what Abell wants to do. Running backs Quinton Jackson and Daelen Alexander both average more than five yards per carry. Jackson is built like Reggie Campbell and remarkably quick, while Alexander looks like a prototypical running back. Quarterback Chase Jenkins can turn on a dime. All of them had the chance to show what they can do last week when the Owls topped Charlotte, 28-17.
One thing that all option offenses have in common is that they basically boil down to numbers and blocking angles. Rice’s win over the 49ers was a great example of this. One of the key components of Charlotte’s defense in that game was the alignment of their linebackers. Charlotte lined up in a 4-3, but the linebackers constantly shifted toward the strong side of the formation, like so:
In response to this, Rice started lining up with trips receivers to draw the LBs, but running the ball the other way. They pulled the center and playside tackle to get numbers away from the linebacker shift. It looks a lot like the Wing-T Buck series, just shifted one place on the line (the Buck series involves both guards pulling).
They started by running sweeps out of this look.
Eventually, Charlotte figured out what was going on and started shifting their linebackers to the field.
Rice responded by running the outside zone option into the shifted LBs. Doing so gave them inside leverage on the strong side OLB, giving the running back a chance to cut upfield.
That led the backside OLB and safety to over-pursue, and when the outside zone was strung out on the next play, nobody was waiting when the quarterback changed direction.
In the second half, Rice found that Charlotte still shifted their linebackers, even when the ball was in the middle of the field and the formation was balanced. That made the numbers even better for the Owls on the center/tackle pull sweep.
Now, you may have noticed that the pulling center left a defensive tackle unblocked most of these plays. Eventually, the quarterback read that DT and treated the play like a midline option. With the linebackers shifted to the field, the quarterback could pull the ball and run the opposite way.
Finally, when Charlotte was wondering if the play was going left or right, Rice hit them with the trap in the same look and ran up the middle.
It’s not the Buck series, but man, it sure operates like it.
This was a solid win for Rice, especially against a conference opponent. That’s the good news for them. The bad news is that I showed you the parts that worked, but there was a whole lot more that didn’t. The Owls ran for 255 yards in this game, but 152 of those came on only seven plays. On their other 39 runs, they averaged 2.6 yards per carry. Their average distance to gain on third down was 7.7 yards. Getting big plays is as much about what the defense does wrong as what the offense does right, and Rice will need better consistency against more disciplined opponents.
Indeed, that has been a theme for them so far this season. The Owls’ record is impressive, but some of their underlying numbers are concerning. Rice is third in the conference in rushing yards per game, behind Navy and Army, but in terms of yards per carry, they rank ninth (4.6). That’s below both Tulsa and Temple. They are second from the bottom in the American in third-down conversion percentage (37.74%). One contributing factor could be that they tend to have a long way to go on third down, thanks to a league-worst seven tackles for loss per game. Rice is also last in the conference in total offense and ahead of only Charlotte in scoring offense.
Then again, the fact that Rice is 3-1 despite these issues is a pretty good indicator of how well their defense is playing. The Owls are allowing only 304 yards per game, second only to North Texas. They lead the conference in sacks with 3.5 per game and had six in the second half alone against Charlotte. Only six of their opponents’ drives have entered the red zone. Defensive end Michael Daley already has four sacks, while linebackers Andrew Awe and Ty Morris both average seven tackles per game.
When it comes to Saturday, though, the most important element of the Rice defense is the way they handled Navy last year. The Mids put up only 260 yards in Houston, throwing an interception on their first play from scrimmage and going downhill from there. The defensive coordinator from that game, Brian Smith, is now at Temple. But Abell promoted the linebackers coach from that game, Jon Kay, to be his new defensive coordinator, so it’s likely that Rice’s plan against the Navy offense will incorporate many of the same ideas that worked so well before.
Of everything that Rice did well that day, the biggest factor in their success was their defensive line. It was tough to get movement from their defensive tackles. I suspect that this was why a large part of the Navy run game early on was focused on running off tackle.
When Navy runs off tackle, the player lined up on the end (either the snipe or the tight end) is supposed to load from the B-gap defender to an inside linebacker. That means they first help to establish outside leverage on the line before moving to a linebacker if possible. When it works, it looks like this:
That can also set up play action, with that end blocker faking a load block and running the other way.
The problem is that Rice’s defensive line was a handful. Getting leverage consistently was difficult, and that was when they weren’t also disrupting plays by getting into the backfield.
Rice’s superiority at the line of scrimmage kept blockers from reaching the linebackers, allowing them to be more aggressive.
In theory, there should be answers for this. Linebackers aggressively playing the fullback should open up counters. You should also be able to get outside leverage on defenders who are too occupied with inside runs. The Mids tried these things, but that’s where the field became a factor, since the Mids were tentative trying to turn upfield or change direction after losing their footing. While rain is in the forecast, that shouldn’t be an issue this year. I would expect to see a focus on counters and getting the ball to the perimeter on Saturday.
Something to consider, though, is that Rice’s defensive line was dominant against one of the most seasoned Navy offensive lines in recent memory last year. The Owls are just as good now, but Navy has a lot of new pieces up front. If the Mids get Cam Nichols back at center, they may finally have their true starting five on the field, which will help. But taking on a 341-pound leviathan in defensive tackle Blake Boenisch isn’t exactly easing yourself into the season.
That’s why I think the key to this game for both teams is at the line of scrimmage. Navy will have a revamped offensive line going against the league leader in sacks, which controlled the game against them last year. Rice gives up more TFLs than anyone in the conference, and they’re taking on a defense where two of their top four tacklers are interior defensive linemen. Something’s gotta give. Unless nothing does, in which case this game will be a mess.
Navy also has to be careful about giving up the big play. Communication in the secondary was a point of emphasis for the Mids over the bye week, and that’ll be put to the test against an offense that hands out eye candy like it’s football Halloween. Rice depends on explosive plays because they have trouble sustaining drives. If Navy doesn’t give them any easy ones, they will be in a good position to come out ahead.
This is a measuring stick game for both teams. For Rice, a win over Navy would be the difference between “nice start” and “conference contender.” For the Mids, there’s nothing they can do to change last year’s performance, but a win on Saturday would at least exorcise any lingering doubts the offense might have in its abilities. I’m not a big fan of “revenge” as a storyline for a football game, but redemption can be a powerful motivator. Saturday will show whether that, or Rice’s push for validation, carries more weight.
