Rice accepts bid to face Air Force in Armed Forces Bowl

The opponent for the Air Force Falcons at the Armed Forces Bowl has been announced, and it will be the Rice Owls out of Conference USA. Rice is just 6-6 on the year and needed to get past UTEP in their season finale to become bowl eligible. While the Owls are just 6-6 they are playing well and have won five of their last six games. However, it should be noted that they did lose to Memphis earlier in the year.

This is Rice's 10th ever bowl trip and their first since 2008, and of course they are excited to get to the post season:

"There's an enthusiasm and pride right now with everybody associated with Rice," coach David Bailiff said. "I've never been more proud of a bunch of young men that stuck together and made this possible. They refused to lose."

These two schools have played six times prior, Air Force holds a 5-1 record over Rice, three of those came when the two schools were in the WAC from 1996-98. Rice is a balanced offensive attack that throws just slightly more than they throw. They average 421 total yards per game which is good enough for fourth in C-USA, and 50th in all of FBS, so basically they are an above average offensive team.

Rice is led by dual-threat quarterback Taylor McHargue and so far this season he has thrown for 2,178 yards, 11 touchdown, five picks and completes 59 percent of his passes. On the ground he is second on the team with 628 yards, but leads all with 11 rushing touchdowns.

The running attack for Rice is balanced as they have three players who have rushed for over 500 yards, and their leader is Charles Ross who has 743 yards and five touchdowns.

The issues that Rice could have will be stopping Air Force's rush option attack, the Owls give up 193 yards per game on the ground. They will need to use this time off to try to figure out the Falcons' running attack, because if they don't this game could be ugly.