The Mid-Season Report Cards are a subjective look using objective numbers with a look toward the remainder of the season as well. Teams are being reviewed in random order once they reach 6 games.
Rice is, in all honesty, mired in a nightmare season. Last year, they contended for the conference title, finishing 2nd in the West, and this year they’re off to a dreadful 0-6 start. The report card, well, it’s not good.
- Wins: F. There are none. That’s bad. And worse yet, they haven’t been close- their best margin of defeat is at 17 points.
- Offense: F. It’s just not good. They’re totaling only 295 yards per game, 109th in 1-A, and Scoring Offense is a mere 16.5 ppg, 113th. Both stats are last in C-USA.
- Defense: F. Statistically, worse than the offense. Total defense is 115th, and Scoring Defense is 12oth- dead last, allowing 44.33 ppg.
- Special Teams: A-. Leading the conference in Net Punting, 4th in Punt Returns and 5th in Kickoff Returns. Unfortunately, it’s not enough to offset their struggles in the rest of the game.
- Turnovers: F. -7 overall, good for 107th in the country and 11th in C-USA. This of course leads to fewer points and short fields for your defense, which shows in the stats above.
- Grading Curve: No Change. Rice has faced the 39th toughest schedule in Division 1, and it was expected that they would drop off some. Not this much, but it won’t make a difference in the final grade…
- FINAL GRADE: F. Not to belabor the point, but this team is looking really bad right now.
Remaining Games:
- at East Carolina
- UCF
- at Southern Methodist
- Tulane
- UTEP
- at Houston
Best Case Scenario: Beat Tulane and surprise UTEP or UCF for 2-4, 2-10 on the season
Worst Case Scenario: 0-12.
Prediction: 1-11. I think Tulane is a winnable game for Rice- they haven’t lost every single player from last year’s successful season, somewhere along the way they’ll catch somebody off guard and avoid the 0′fer.