VOLUME 111, ISSUE NO. 03 | STUDENT-RUN SINCE 1916 | RICETHRESHER.ORG | WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 2026
Rice rushes to Week 1 home win
Will Rice’s Old Dorm floods after student misconduct, loses power ABIGAIL CHIU
NEWS EDITOR
CAYDEN CHEN / THRESHER Sophomore running back D’Andre Hardeman Jr. runs the ball in Saturday’s game against Houston Christian University. The Owls combined for 465 rushing yards as a team.
ANDERSEN PICKARD
SPORTS EDITOR
Rice football’s new quarterback room lived up to the test during Saturday’s regular season opener against Houston Christian University. The Owls cruised to a 31-3 victory over the Huskies, who went 2-10 last season. Rice’s three points allowed were the fewest in a season opener since the Owls shut out the Virginia Military Institute in 1970. Rice is a member of the Football Bowl Subdivision while HCU plays in the lowerlevel Football Championship Subdivision. Both are Division I programs. The Owls rushed for 465 yards as a team, which is the program’s highest mark since Oct. 9, 2004, when they rushed for 496 yards. Redshirt senior quarterback Jacurri
Brown, a transfer from the University of Central Florida, went just 2-for-5 passing, but he also rushed 13 times for 98 yards on the ground. Meanwhile, redshirt sophomore quarterback Gael Ochoa, a transfer from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, had four rushing attempts for 34 yards and a touchdown. Brown led two scoring drives in the first half before being temporarily replaced by Ochoa. The two quarterbacks continued to rotate in the second half, and redshirt freshman Patrick Crayton Jr. entered the game once Rice went ahead by four possessions. Head coach Scott Abell said the decision to rotate quarterbacks stemmed partly from the high temperatures. Several of Rice’s summer practices were held inside due to heat, so the Owls didn’t have many opportunities to acclimate to intense
temperatures. “I was concerned about, were we in game shape?” Abell said. “With the heat throughout August, we’re not allowed to be outside very much, and I was concerned about that. There was a plan to try giving breaks.” Quarterback was not the only position that saw a personnel change in the second quarter. Running backs D’Andre Hardeman Jr. and Quinton Jackson, who combined for 138 yards and three touchdowns, were relieved by a combination of Tyvonn Byars and Carson Morgan late in the second quarter. Hardeman and Jackson continued to play sporadically throughout the second half, but most of the workload belonged to Byars, who led the team in carries (16) and yards (104).
SEE FOOTBALL PAGE 14
Will Rice College’s Kitchen in Old Dorm flooded early Monday morning after a pipe burst, according to an email from former chief justice Emmie Casey. Students who were in Kitchen at the time were showered with sewer water. The dehumidifiers used to address the flooding led to a power outage Monday night. The power went out again Tuesday afternoon due inclement weather. Students were told they could not spend the night in Old Dorm until the Rice University Police Department had given clearance and the damage had been fully assessed. “After two hours when the water was finally shut off, there was no plan. Old Dorm smelled awful, and anyone who slept there risked another emergency with alarm systems that hadn’t been reset,” Casey wrote in an email to the Thresher. “So we came up with a wonderful solution: our Old Dorm residents slept on couches in the commons.” Ken Whitmire, the Will Rice magister, sent a later email to Will Ricers that said the sprinkler system had been repaired and the building was safe to occupy. “It appears that someone tried to do chin ups on one of the fire sprinkler pipes,” Whitmire wrote. “These are not intended to support that kind of weight and the pipe snapped as a result.”
SEE WRC FLOOD PAGE 3
Skyspace will reopen after 2-year closure MCKAY HATCH
FOR THE THRESHER James Turrell’s “Twilight Epiphany” Skyspace, located at the Suzanne Deal Booth Centennial Pavilion, will reopen to the public Sept. 15 for the first time since May 2024. The Skyspace was constructed in 2012 as the 73rd work in American artist James Turrell’s series of Skyspaces, which combine light and space to create immersive sensory experiences. Since then, the Skyspace has become a landmark on Rice’s campus and has drawn visitors from around the world.
The pavilion consists of a two-level pyramid structure, covered by a knifeedge roof with a square aperture which, when viewed from below, seems to flatten the sky into the plane of the ceiling. The space features a light system that, during sequences at sunrise and sunset, projects colors onto the roof, complementing the light of the sky. These sequences run seven days a week and are open to the public, with no registration needed. The space is also acoustically engineered to host musical performances and serves as an experimental space for musicians at the
CHEM121 capacity vs. undergraduate enrollment Fall 2021 to Fall 2026
Shepherd School of Music. In 2024, the Skyspace was closed due to nearby construction for Rice’s business school expansion — now the Asha and Farid Virani Hall — to ensure visitor experiences weren’t negatively affected by the noise and disruption. Erin Rolfs, senior director of marketing and communications at the Moody Center for the Arts, the organization that oversees public art on Rice’s campus, said the closure was a matter of protecting the effect of Turrell’s work.
SEE TURRELL PAGE 12
COURTESY EMMIE CASEY An exposed pipe burst in Will Rice Kitchen after student misconduct early Monday morning.
‘A giant administrative
nightmare’: Overenrolled classrooms strain STEM faculty, student education
SEE SPECIAL INVESTIGATIONS PAGE 5