Scott Abell
Also coached below FBS: Washington and Lee 2012–17; Davidson 2018–24
Career arc
Bowls and playoffs: 0-1
2025Armed Forces BowlL 10-41
As of Fri Oct 23
- Last gameL 17-38 vs. Tulsa Sat Oct 17
- This season1-6 lost 6 straight
- Hot seat22% 19th of 137
- On track for2-10 regular season
- Nextat Florida Atlantic Sat Oct 24
- Stature130th of 138 FBS programs
Win and he’s at 16%. Lose and he’s at 23%.
at Florida Atlantic, Sat Oct 24, 12 pm ET ESPNU · Florida Atlantic is 4-2 · Abell vs. Zach Kittley: 0-1 · Rice’s chance to win: 27% (the site’s model)
- If Rice wins: 16%, 28th of 137
- Now: 22%
- If Rice loses: 23%, 16th of 137
Is he getting fired?
22% chance he’s out after the season · 19th of 137 FBS head coaches · Hot
If he finishes…
Bar: how likely that finish isNumber: his chance of being out
- 1-1126%
- 2-1018%
- 3-913%
- 4-88%
Why his number is where it is
Our hot-seat model, on his record so far, the win chances for every game he has left, and his contract (a bigger buyout, relative to pay, makes a change costlier). Ranked against the 137 FBS head coaches with 3+ games this season.
Now hotter than at this point in 2025.
His hot seat, week by week
The chance he’s out by the end of that season, as it stood after every week of his tenure here, by today’s model.
Hottest: 2026, week 7 (22%, 18th-hottest of 137 FBS jobs that week). Top factor: ▲ Hotter 1-6, outscored by 84
Earlier seasons price the games left with power ratings rebuilt after those seasons ended.
What drives his number
The biggest factors, each against the typical FBS job today.
- ▲ Hotter1-6, outscored by 84
- ▲ Hotter5-8 over his previous season here
- ▼ CoolerRegional Program program · the bar going in
What happened to coaches like him, 2004–2025
A different comparison: past coaches, not today’s, grouped by one fact at a time. Neither line knows the games he has left or his contract, so they can sit above or below his chance.
- Were 1-6 after 7 games
- 21% pushed out over results · of 215 coaches
- Were in year 2, after 7 games
- 5% pushed out over results · of 473 coaches
How good is this number? Checked on every FBS coach from 2010 to 2025, with its percentages calibrated each season on earlier years only: they track what happened — coaches it put near 25% were out about a quarter of the time — and a version pricing the games left with the previous season’s ratings ranked jobs as well as the ranking this page used before. Each week it learns from coaches who were still on the job at that point, so a firing during the season counts. In the Boiling zone it has run a few points high. Every job, and the method.
No headlines named him in the last 7 days
Offense: 129th of 138 per play. Defense: 76th.
5 games left
- Sat Oct 24at Florida Atlantic (4-2)ESPNU27%
- Sat Nov 7at North Texas (4-2)10%
- Sat Nov 14vs. Tulane (3-3)23%
- Thu Nov 19at Temple (2-5)
30% - Sat Nov 28vs. Army (4-2)10%
Percent: Rice’s chance to win, from the site’s model. Records are through today. Networks as announced; the rest are set closer to kickoff.
How the season got here
Where Rice stood among 138 FBS programs by stature after each game (1st is the highest; the CFB Zeitgeist ledger).
- Oct 12–18L 17-38 vs. Tulsa0 headlines
- Oct 5–11L 12-28 at East Carolina1 headline · 83rd of 138
- Sep 28–Oct 4L 14-16 vs. UTSA0 headlines
- Sep 21–27 · rebuiltL 24-38 at Fresno State0 headlines
- Sep 14–20 · rebuiltL 21-28 vs. Western Michigan0 headlines
- Sep 7–13 · rebuiltL 0-52 at Notre Dame1 headline · 92nd of 138
Each week as this page showed it at the time. Weeks marked rebuilt came before this page existed: they were built afterward from only what was known by the end of that week.
5 stories about him in the last 60 days
Sat Oct 24: Florida Atlantic
from 3 outlets
Scott Abell continues to rebuild Rice in his vision | Opponent preview
On3 Sep 9 · 1 outlet
What they’re talking about
Press conference and quotes3 stories
6 stories about him this season
from 4 outlets
Scott Abell continues to rebuild Rice in his vision | Opponent preview
On3 Sep 9 · 1 outlet
What they’re talking about
Press conference and quotes4 stories
- Rice University AthleticsAbell Announces 2026 Team CaptainsAug 14
Houston ChronicleRice coach Scott Abell says opener vs. HCU will provide answers for OwlsSep 1- Scott Abell, Rice HQ, Weekly Press ConferenceSep 9
247SportsWhat Rice coach Scott Abell said ahead of his team’s trip to ECUOct 6
6 stories about him across 2 seasons
Is he on the hot seat? What has he said?
Stories are headlines grouped by what they are about, counted through Oct 23.
In his own words
Awaiting signal — no quotes collected from this staff yet this cycle.
Hires into jobs like this
Hired into 8–8, Regional Program V. Rough match, not calibrated yet — ranked on what the job inherited alone. Coaches hired into this same job aren’t used as comps.
- Pete Alamar20242–2+1.4
- Mike Bloomgren20182–11-2.3
- David Bailiff20073–9-1.0
- Todd Graham20067–6-0.7
- Ken Hatfield19945–6+0.5
- Fred Goldsmith19892–8+0.0
- Jerry Berndt19864–7-0.4
- Watson Brown19841–10-1.6
Coaching career
Followed Mike Bloomgren (2018–2024).
| Season | 2025 | 2026 | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|
| Record & result | |||
| Record | 5-8 | 1-6 | |
| Postseason | L bowl | — | |
| Coordinators | |||
| OC | Vince Munch | Vince Munch | |
| DC | Jon Kay | Jon Kay | |
| Outcome — opponent-adjusted efficiency percentile | |||
| Offense | 2 | 8 | |
| Defense | 3 | 27 | |
| Tendencies — play-by-play, neutral script | |||
| 1st-down pass% | 18.7 | 18.6 | |
| Red-zone pass% | 17.5 | 3.6 | |
| 4th-down go%opp. territory | 46.9 | 55.6 | |
Underperforms his recruiting talent, on both sides of the ball.
Brings in smaller-than-position-typical players than most.
Recruits younger transfers than most — more of a development bet.
AI Narratives — “Rice — stat check”.
Big games
The big-game ledger
How he does in the games that matter most — rivalry record, performance broken out by real opponent tier, one-score games, and his toughest historical matchup.
0-1 against his rivals.
ATS is his record against the spread: did his team beat the closing betting line, winning by more than it or losing by less? Lines start in 2013; a dash means fewer than 6 of those games had one. One-score games carry no spread record: a big favorite that wins a close game has almost always failed to cover, so that number would say nothing about the coach.
Signature games
Tags describe each game; they aren’t scores. The weighting that picks these games is still being tested.
How he plays
Run/pass mix, by field position
Ran more than the situation called for under Munch.
814 run and pass snaps at Rice, 2025–2025, his own games, one row per offensive coordinator. Each cell is how much more often he passed than the rest of FBS did in the same situation (field zone, down, distance, score, quarter, same season), in percentage points.
Pass rate, stint by stint
Where each stint’s offense sat between run-first and pass-first, and how far it moved from one season to the next, against the FBS-wide average of 41% pass. The band is that stint’s real season-to-season range, not a fixed-width box.
How good is he so far?
Three numbers on how he actually stocks a roster, from signing day to draft day.
His recruiting, really
His one ranked Rice class of his own finished #104 nationally.
His class — he had the full signing cycleTransition — he was hired mid-cycle
Rank is each signing class’s national recruiting rank (#1 is best). Only a class he had a full signing cycle to build counts as his; inherited and mid-transition classes still show here, faded, but stay out of the average.
Roster ownership
Roster ownership
of his 2026 roster arrived on his watch — 79 of 103 players. The other 24 are holdovers from before he was hired.
Of his own players on this roster, 22% came through the transfer portal; the rest are non-portal arrivals (high-school signees, JUCO transfers, walk-ons).
Everyone he has brought in, 2025–2026Counting players who have since left: 23% of the 96 arrivals we can classify came through the portal.
“His own” means the player arrived while he was head coach; “inherited” means a predecessor brought him in.
Where he recruits
is his biggest recruiting state: 30 of 47 signees (64%) across his 2025–2026 tenure, drawn from 15 states in all. Next: CA (2).
72% of his signees come from TX and its 4 border states (OK 2, AR 1, LA 1).
Off this map: 2 signees to the west (CA 2).
- median hometown distance
- 241 mi
- within 100 mi
- 27%
- within 500 mi
- 64%
- beyond 1,000 mi
- 18%
The map counts signed recruits across his tenure; the distance figures cover his current roster, transfers and walk-ons included. Two different groups, kept separate on purpose.