The Rice Owls (5-4, 3-2 C-USA) crave bowl eligibility. No active player on the roster has qualified for the postseason in an Owl uniform. Rice owns the longest bowl drought in the C-USA, most recently attaining a bowl bid in 2014. But Saturday is an opportunity to snap that streak and play late December or early January football for the first time in the Mike Bloomgren era.
Rice doesn’t have an easy path to get there, though. The three remaining C-USA teams hoping to obstruct the Owls’ from win No. 6 are the three teams situated above Rice in the conference standings.