The Rice Owls will be playing in front of their home fans against the UConn Huskies at 5:00 p.m. ET on Saturday at Rice Stadium. The timing seems to be in Rice's favor as the squad sits on three straight wins at home while UConn has been banged up by three consecutive losses on the road.
Rice gave up the first points last Saturday, but they didn't let that get them down. They walked away with a 24-17 win over East Carolina.
JT Daniels looked great while leading his team to the win, throwing for 232 yards and two touchdowns.
Meanwhile, UConn missed an extra point against Utah State on Saturday and it came back to haunt them. UConn and Utah State were almost perfectly matched up, but UConn suffered an agonizing 34-33 loss. UConn was up 17-0 in the second but couldn't hold on to the lead.
Even though the team lost, they still saw several impressive performances. One of the most dominant came from Ta'Quan Roberson, who threw for 255 yards and two touchdowns while completing 71.9% of his passes. Those 255 passing yards set a new season-high mark for Roberson. Jelani Stafford was in the mix too, providing UConn with two touchdowns.
Rice has been performing well recently as they've won three of their last four games. To be fair, it's not like the team was facing the toughest opposition over that stretch, as it included 1-4 East Carolina (Rice's opponents had an average overall winning percentage of 30% over those games). UConn's defeat on Saturday dropped their record down to 0-5.
While only Rice took care of their fans the last time they played, both teams pleased bettors by covering the spread. Looking ahead, they are the favorite in this one, as the experts expect to see them win by ten points. For those looking to play the spread, keep Rice in mind: they have a solid 4-1 record against the spread this season.