how does rice's talent stack up to the niu, stanford, or the marshall teams nd lost to

In other words, winning the game by a big score will mean very little, whereas squeaking by or losing will be catastrophic.

Last year, even with their excellent running back (Quinton Jackson), they were a 5-7 team heading into their bowl game.

They got crushed by a Texas State team that was in the lower third of the Sun Belt.

Jackson is out for this game, and probably for a lot more.

Rice runs a run-heavy spread option offense where the QB isn't going to throw the ball more than 20 times a game. They're basically running a max protect scheme when they have to throw the ball.

In case if anyone is curious, Rice's offense last year was the 121st best out of 128 teams. A rather large chunk of that offense came against a FCS team (Prairie View A&M) and a truly terrible UNC Charlotte team.

Their defense was 124th best, against mostly AAC competition.