Rice's last outing wasn't much prettier. North Texas beat the Owls 52-23 behind 141 rushing yards and 3 touchdowns from Jahiem White, the Mean Green's 6th win in a row. The losing streak has looked different from week to week, though. Rice lost to UTSA by 2 and lost a 51-49 shootout at Florida Atlantic, and it has also been blown out by Tulsa and North Texas. The Owls can hang around for a while. Their problem is finishing.
Common opponents give you the best comparison. Both teams lost to Tulsa and both lost to UTSA. Rice took UTSA down to the wire in a 16-14 home loss, while Tulane lost 42-19 to the Roadrunners at home. Against Tulsa, Rice lost 38-17 and Tulane lost 60-10. Tulane's wins over Memphis and at Charlotte show a ceiling Rice hasn't come close to since August. Still, on the opponents both have played, the Owls have actually held up a little better.
Tulane has a lot riding on this one. At 4-5 with 3 games left, the Green Wave need 2 more wins to reach bowl eligibility, and a trip to the American's only winless team is the most obvious place to find one. Lose it, and the Tulsa result stops looking like a bad afternoon and starts looking like the direction of Hall's first season. For Rice there's nothing in the standings left to chase. The Owls are playing to end an 8-game skid in front of their home crowd, and Tulane's run defense just gave up 224 rushing yards to Tulsa.
So the matchup comes down to which team has more fight left. Tulane has more talent on paper and the better wins on its résumé, but it's coming off the worst loss of the year. Rice has played some close games during the streak and gets Tulane at home. If the Green Wave fall behind early, it's fair to ask how much they still believe in the plan.
