On a September day in 1962, President Kennedy stood in Rice Stadium and told the country it would go to the moon "not because they are easy, but because they are hard." He made the point with a football joke about why Rice plays Texas. Sixty-four years later, the Owls know something about hard. They haven't won since the season opener. And yet when Tulane, a College Football Playoff team a year ago, comes to Houston on Saturday, the Owls are the ones expected to win.
That says more about Tulane's last week than about Rice's season. The Green Wave lost 60-10 to Tulsa on Homecoming in New Orleans, and they trailed 46-0 before Cooper Helmke's field goal early in the fourth quarter put them on the board. Tulsa piled up 562 yards and six sacks. Athletic director David Harris put out a statement that night saying he was "embarrassed by what transpired on the field" and calling it "unacceptable, and far below the standard that we have come to expect in recent years." Will Hall, in his first season after replacing Jon Sumrall, took it on himself. "It's definitely fixable," he said. "We've got to fix it and it starts with me." Asked days later about his boss's statement, Hall said he "didn't read it, knew it was coming."
Rice's last game was closer than the final score. The Owls trailed North Texas only 10-7 at halftime in Denton before the Mean Green scored a touchdown on every one of their six second-half possessions and won 52-23. Gael Ochoa threw a 36-yard touchdown pass to Will Swartz, and Tyvonn Byars ran one in. It was Rice's eighth straight loss since beating Houston Christian on opening night, a stretch that includes a two-point loss to UTSA, a 51-49 shootout at Florida Atlantic and a one-score loss to Western Michigan.
Both teams are leaning on young quarterbacks. Ochoa, a freshman, took over after Jacurri Brown, Rice's leading rusher, hurt his ankle, and Scott Abell has confirmed Ochoa as the starter. His first start was the shootout in Boca Raton, where he threw for 325 yards and five touchdowns, a rare air show for an offense that almost never throws. Tulane has cycled through quarterbacks all season before settling on true freshman Trace Johnson in late October. Johnson threw for just 69 yards against Tulsa, and fellow freshman Dagan Bruno threw Tulane's only touchdown with two seconds left. Tulane hasn't named a starter.
The game comes down to one matchup. Rice runs a shotgun triple option built on the ground, and it ranks among the top handful of rushing teams in the country. Tulane has been gashed by the run all year, and only one team in the American allows more rushing yards per game. The Green Wave have seen something like this already. At Army last month, Black Knights quarterback Cale Hellums ran for 223 yards and two touchdowns in a 20-17 Army win. If Rice can stay on schedule and keep Tulane's offense on the sideline, the Owls get to play the kind of short, grinding game they want.
Tulane's best answer is to make Rice throw from behind. The Green Wave's offense has had trouble protecting its quarterback and running the ball, but Rice's defense has given up points to nearly everyone, and an early lead would take the option's patience away. Ball security matters here, too. Rice has forced only five turnovers all season, so Tulane can't afford to hand over extra possessions to a defense that rarely takes them.
Tulane has far more riding on this one. At 4-5, it needs two wins in its last three games to reach six, and the other two are against North Texas, still perfect in the league, and at South Florida. That makes this the one that matters most. Lose here and the Green Wave, who reached four straight conference title games before this season, would need to beat both. Rice can't reach a bowl, but it has a short week ahead, with a Thursday night trip to Temple, and a chance to beat a team that has had its number lately.
The series goes back to 1916, and Rice leads it 20-17-1. Tulane has won both meetings since Rice joined the American, 30-28 here in 2023 and 24-10 in New Orleans in 2024.
The projection is Rice 27, Tulane 24. The matchup favors the Owls, whose running game goes right at the weakest part of Tulane's team, and Tulane's confidence took a beating last week. But Rice hasn't closed out a close game all season, and as recently as mid-October Tulane beat Memphis by 14. A warm, nearly still afternoon in the low 70s gives neither side an excuse.
The market, for the record: Rice is about a 2.5-point favorite after opening as a small underdog, and the total is 48.5. The projection (Rice by 3) edges just past the line.
What breaks it: Rice's option chews up the clock, Ochoa makes a throw or two over a defense crowding the line, and Tulane's frustration from last week shows up in the fourth quarter. The other way it breaks: Tulane scores early, the Owls have to abandon the run, and the Green Wave find out last Saturday was one bad day rather than the start of a slide.