Army closes out its regular season in Houston with Navy looming two weeks later, and Rice is ready to see if its option experiment can beat someone who's run it longer than anyone else in the sport.
Bush’s Picks
ARMYRICE
ARMYRICE
OverUnder
Best BetArmy
Army's 12-4 American Conference mark over its first two seasons in the league, paired with 11 returning starters and a defensive staff that's coached against option football for over a decade, makes the Black Knights the more proven side here. Rice is trending up, but a first winning season since 2014 is still unproven at this level. Back Army to win outright.
Army
+12-4 in American Conference play last two seasons
+won conference title going 8-0 in league
+11 returning starters, 8 on offense
−must replace steady senior QB Bryson Daily
−new starter unproven running the option this fall
Rice
+added UCF transfer QB Jacurri Brown built for the scheme
+RB Quinton Jackson back after 889-yard season
+upset Louisiana and UConn during 5-8 debut year
−finished 5-8 in Abell's first season
−still installing a scheme from scratch in year two
−faces a defense with deep option-stopping experience
This one's a scheduling quirk worth noting: Army's Friday-after-Thanksgiving trip to Rice Stadium is the last tune-up before the Black Knights head to MetLife Stadium for Navy on December 12. Jeff Monken has run the triple option at West Point for 13 years now, and his program has posted a 12-4 mark in American Conference play across its first two seasons in the league, including a run to the conference title. Rice, on the other hand, is still building the plane mid-flight under second-year coach Scott Abell, who installed his own option-based scheme from scratch a year ago.
Army returns 11 starters overall, 8 of them on offense, which matters enormously for a program that lives and dies by execution and repetition in the option game. The exact quarterback picture behind departed senior Bryson Daily still has to sort itself out over fall camp, but the surrounding pieces — the fullbacks, the slotbacks, the offensive line — are largely back, and that continuity is Army's biggest asset heading into a long American Conference slate.
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ARMY Army
RICE Rice
Rice spent the offseason adding a piece that fits its scheme far better than anything on last year's roster: UCF transfer quarterback Jacurri Brown, a dual-threat option runner brought in specifically to run the shotgun-based system Abell calls "gun choice." Pair him with tailback Quinton Jackson, who's back for a fourth season after a career-high 889 rushing yards, and Rice has more juice at the skill positions than it did during a 5-8 debut season that still included upset wins over Louisiana and UConn.
Army Black Knights
Nov 21?vs East Carolina—
Nov 7?vs Air Force—
Oct 30?@ Memphis—
Oct 23?@ Tulsa—
Oct 17?vs Florida Atlantic—
Oct 10?vs Tulane—
Oct 2?@ Louisiana Tech—
Sep 25?@ Temple—
Sep 12?vs South Florida—
Sep 5?vs Bryant—
Rice Owls
Nov 19?@ Temple—
Nov 13?vs Tulane—
Nov 6?@ North Texas—
Oct 16?vs Tulsa—
Oct 9?@ East Carolina—
Oct 2?vs UTSA—
Sep 26?@ Fresno State—
Sep 19?vs Western Michigan—
Sep 12?@ Notre Dame—
Sep 5?vs Houston Christian—
Recent form.
The stylistic matchup is the real story here. Army isn't just facing another spread team it has to chase around the field — it's facing a Rice offense built on option principles the Black Knights understand better than almost anyone in the country, which could cut both ways. Defensively, Army's staff has decades of collective experience defending option looks in practice, and that rep advantage should translate to fewer explosive plays allowed even against a Rice attack with real speed at running back.
For Rice, the swing factor is simply how far the offense has come in year two of installation. Gun choice teams tend to take a leap once the quarterback is a true fit for the scheme, and Brown gives Abell exactly that after a debut season spent making do with pro-style holdovers. Whether that leap shows up by late November against a program with Army's option pedigree is the whole question.
Army's floor here is genuinely high: a veteran option attack, a defense that's seen every option wrinkle in practice for over a decade, and a head coach who has three conference titles worth of institutional knowledge running this exact style of football. Rice's ceiling is higher than it was a year ago, but ceiling and floor are two different things against a program this battle-tested in the run game.
