Rice’s schedule, and bottom line, take hit

Rice’s football schedule — and bottom line — took a hit Thursday when its game with LSU was canceled.

The Owls were to face the reigning national champions at NRG Stadium on Sept. 19, but the Southeastern Conference decided to limit its teams to 10 conference games because of the coronavirus pandemic.

“We’re often able to go out and get autonomy conference teams to come play us in the city of Houston, and so the financial arrangement of the game actually was that we were to pay LSU a guarantee, and then we will recoup the ticket sales,” Rice athletics director Joe Karlgaard said. “So the lost ticket sales, we’ve been viewing that as a potential issue for several months.”

The Owls’ schedule has weathered increasingly turbulent winds as conferences have postponed or restructured their league schedules in recent weeks. LSU is the first game to be dropped. The Owls are set to open against the University of Houston on Sept. 3 at TDECU Stadium.

The SEC’s decision aligns with those of the Big Ten and Pac-12, which already announced plans to move to a conference-only schedule. The Atlantic Coast Conference announced a similar arrangement Wednesday. Commissioner Bob Bowlsby said Big 12 school presidents will meet to discuss their plans Monday, according to Karlgaard.

Karlgaard has weekly discussions with C-USA’s athletic directors. Rice president David Leebron does the same with his peers at other C-USA schools.

The meetings are partially meant to organize a unified position as the coronavirus pandemic shifts the tectonic plates of college athletics beneath them. For that reason, he doesn’t see Rice breaking from the conference in any significant way when it announces its fall plans, even if those plans eventually move football games to spring.

For now, Rice’s remaining non-conference schedule remains intact after Karlgaard spoke with the athletic directors at Houston, Army (Sept. 12) and Lamar (Sept. 26) this week.