Rice at North Texas
Rice (1‑7) travels to North Texas (6‑2), with North Texas favored by 16.5. The model gives North Texas a 76% shot. North Texas’s offense is at the 97th percentile on efficiency; Rice’s defense is at the 19th.
How they got here
Last three games
Rice · 1-7
Rated 181st in our preseason ratings, 161st now, up 20 spots.
Three straight losses.
Last three games
North Texas · 6-2
Rated 135th in our preseason ratings, 55th now, up 80 spots.
Three straight wins — but still hunting a ranked opponent.
Biggest mismatch: North Texas’s EPA/play against Rice, 78 points
Each row ranks the two sides among all teams. The longer the line, the bigger the mismatch.
North Texas’s EPA/play against Rice’s defense
North Texas offense, 97th percentile · Rice defense, 19th
North Texas’s explosive plays against Rice’s defense
North Texas offense, 88th percentile · Rice defense, 24th
North Texas’s passing EPA against Rice’s defense
North Texas offense, 98th percentile · Rice defense, 36th
What’s at stake
Rice
- Rice hasn’t beaten a ranked opponent since 2020.
North Texas
- North Texas controls first place in American Athletic with 3 games left — 27% to win it with a win here, 13% with a loss.
- North Texas hasn’t beaten a ranked opponent since 2021.
The series
North Texas leads the series 9-5
14 meetings since 1988 · North Texas has won the last 4
- 2025North Texas 56-24
- 2022North Texas 21-17
- 2021North Texas 30-24
- 2020North Texas 27-17
- 2019Rice 20-14
Each line is North Texas’s chance to win through that meeting. North Texas is 1-1 in the meetings since 2018 that were still close in the fourth quarter. Older meetings have no play by play, so no line.
Face-off
What each fanbase carries into this one.
Rice
The chipRice fans carry less of a grudge than a knowing smile: they will tell you their Owls graduate, beat schools ten times their size on a good Saturday, and answer to a standard nobody else in the sport even attempts.
What this game touches
The shrinking — from SWC charter to the smallest room in the AAC. Rice helped found the Southwest Conference and was a national name in the 1940s-50s; the league dissolved in 1996 and the Owls have spent the years since as the smallest enrollment in every conference they join. The 2025 reset under first-year coach Scott Abell went 5-7, reaching the Armed Forces Bowl only because bowl-eligible teams declined, then losing it 41-10 to Texas State.
North Texas
The chip · vs the blue bloodsFans note that the moment North Texas finally got good — the first ranking since 1959, 12 wins, a Burlsworth Trophy quarterback — a power-conference school simply reached down and took the coach and the QB, the way the big programs always do.
What this game touches
Built it, then watched it leave. Eric Morris took the Mean Green from afterthought to 12-2, a No. 24 ranking, and an American title-game berth — then left for Oklahoma State after the regular season, taking Burlsworth-winning QB Drew Mestemaker with him to Stillwater. Denton's best season ever ended with the architects walking out the door.
Best players
Rice
- AJ Brown (S) · 60 tackles
- Austin Harnetiaux (LB) · 53 tackles
- Stone Combs (LB) · 52 tackles
North Texas
- Jahiem White (RB) · 1,043 rushing yards
- Justin Stevenson (WR) · 781 receiving yards
- Tayven Jackson (QB) · 2,568 passing yards
What to watch
Player to watch: Tayven Jackson (QB) — North Texas’s leading passer (2,568 passing yards) takes on Rice’s pass defense (36th percentile allowed).
The betting line, and the fans
North Texas fans are feeling it more than most fanbases this week (66th percentile among FBS fanbases), in line with the numbers.
- Model · 76%
- Line · 91%
- North Texas fans · 66th
- Rice fans · 65th
North Texas favored by 16.5 · Total 64.5
North Texas by 16.5: where a favorite like this usually runs
Half of games8 in 10 games
North Texas’s chance through the game, if this goes like the 275 games since 2025 with a favorite of 14.5 to 21.5 points.
Weather at kickoff
Typical at DATCU Stadium: 7:30 pm Saturdays score 93, 3:30 pm Saturdays 80
Rice at North Texas · Saturday, Nov. 7 · 4 pm ET · DATCU Stadium.
Weather score: 0 to 100, higher is better, for the first 3 hours and 20 minutes of the game. Ideal is 100, Comfortable 90 to 99, Mixed 75 to 89, Rough 50 to 74, Harsh under 50.
If it kicked off at
Typical at DATCU Stadium: noon Saturdays score 82, 3:30 pm 80, 7:30 pm 93.
- noon: 82, Mixed
- 3:30 pm: 80, Mixed
- 7:30 pm: 93, Comfortable
Typical weather score at each kickoff time.
Typical means the average of regular-season Saturdays at this stadium, 2018 to 2025. It is not a forecast for this game.
Home field
North Texas is worth +3.7 points (±4.5) more at home than on the road since 2018 — middle of FBS, 40th percentile.
59% at home, 46% on the road against FBS opponents (26-18 home, 23-27 away).
Our model gives every stadium the same flat 2.3-point home edge (why); the books use about 3. Against the closing line this stadium reads +3.4 at home vs. away over 103 games — inside the ±6.6 noise, so the flat number is the honest one here.
The visitors travel about 262 miles to get here.
Season profile
Week by week
North Texas
- Wk 4Wvs Houston Christian63-14
- Wk 5Wat Tulsa45-44
- Wk 6Wvs Charlotte50-10
- Wk 8Wat Navy49-39
- Wk 9Wvs Florida Atlantic48-41
Rice
- Wk 4Lat Fresno State24-38
- Wk 5Lvs UTSA14-16
- Wk 6Lat East Carolina12-28
- Wk 7Lvs Tulsa17-38
- Wk 8Lat Florida Atlantic49-51
Power rating by week
North Texas is rated 8.5 points ahead as of week 10. Our power rating by week; higher is better.
The market
The books’ cut: 4.3%, the margin built into the odds
Conference standings
Going into this game: place in the conference, then conference record.
- North Texas2nd4-0
- Rice14th0-4
Last meeting in our History pages
- North Texas 42, Rice 35Sep 24, 2016