After winning 18 games in their previous two seasons, the Rice Owls fell to a 5-7 record in 2015 to the confusion of most college football analysts who predicted the Owls to finish in the top two of Conference USA West.
The Owls didn't fare much better on the recruiting trail as their 2016 recruiting class wrapped up with a national ranking of 128. David Bailiff and his staff managed to finish in last place in CUSA recruiting despite three CUSA programs losing their head coaches and several others losing the majority of their assistant coaching staff.