VOLUME 109, ISSUE NO. 28 | STUDENT-RUN SINCE 1916 | RICETHRESHER.ORG | WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 2025
COURTESY CHRIS PARENT / RICE ATHLETICS Rice football coach Scott Abell speaks to the team at their game against the University of Louisiana at Lafayette on Aug. 30. The Owls won 14-12 over Louisiana.
Rice football wins season opener under new coach ANDERSEN PICKARD
SPORTS EDITOR
For the first time since 2018, Rice football opened its season with a victory. Scott Abell was soaked with yellow Powerade following a 14-12 win on the road Saturday against the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, which won 10 games and made it to the Sun Belt Conference championship last season. “It’s one of the best road wins I can remember in my career,” Abell, the Owls’
first-year head coach, said. “If I sit here and reflect, you’re talking 32 years, most of those as a head coach. You think about your road wins as a coach [and] there’s only a couple that match it.” The Owls’ victory represents their first road win since 2023. They were two-touchdown underdogs earlier in the week, with the spread moving to Rice +9.5 by kickoff. “You’re a two-score underdog on the road, and we just went toe-to-toe and had control most of the game,” Abell said.
Rice opened the game with the ball and immediately showcased the intricacies of Abell’s “gun-choice” offense with a blend of touch passes and options. Although Rice went three-and-out on the opening drive and Louisiana pulled ahead with an early field goal, the Owls were able to respond by executing options, hand-offs and tosses. Redshirt sophomore running back Daelen Alexander broke tackles on several runs and helped get the Owls into scoring position before redshirt junior
Over 1,000 students petition against new meal plan
FRANCESCA NEMATI / THRESHER Students enter West Servery for dinner. A new meal plan announced by H&D July 31 has prompted backlash due to a new limited number of “guest swipes.”
KRISTAL HANSON
THRESHER STAFF
When Konstantin Savvon opened the Housing and Dining email announcing the new unlimited meal plan, he was instantly concerned about the impact on off-campus students like himself. Savvon recognized that the change from a previously finite number of meal
swipes would make it difficult for oncampus students to share their meal plan with off-campus students, signaling a financial burden for those who had been counting on their friends’ swipes. “I saw the email about the changes to the meal plan and immediately crashed out,” said Savvon, a Duncan College sophomore.
Editor’s note: Savvon is the Thresher’s assistant photo editor. Right then, on a bus ride back from the BioScience Research Collaborative, Savvon drafted a petition that now has over one thousand signatures. Savvon said he figured he would try to turn students’ frustration into data. Even with the signatures, Savvon said he doubts that administration will act on the petition’s call to change the new meal plan. “I don’t see [change] happening due to the rhetoric coming from H&D,” Savvon said. Other students echo Savvon’s sentiment. Martel College Chief Justice, Orion Pope, wrote to H&D outlining inefficiencies he saw with the new meal plan and urged them to meet with student leaders. However, he said their response offered only polite acknowledgement and no meaningful engagement with the concerns he had raised. “We appreciate students voicing their perspectives,” wrote interim Vice President of H&D Beth Leaver, when asked to comment on the petition. “Our goal is to listen, engage and continue improving dining together.”
SEE H&D PETITION PAGE 8
running back Quinton Jackson punched the ball in from one yard out. The offense had a nearly nonexistent passing attack and leaned on the rushing attack. Jackson carried the load with a career-high 22 carries and 119 rushing yards. The Owls possessed the football for 10:39 in the first quarter, while Louisiana’s offense was only on the field for 4:21. Abell said part of Rice’s strategy was a slow, methodical approach of running the football.
SEE RICE FOOTBALL PAGE 14
Acting like an athlete: Rice basketball alum takes on Broadway CHI PHAM
ASST. A&E EDITOR Underneath Chadd Alexander’s Broadway costume, there’s ankle tape and wrist braces — the same protective gear he wore as a walk-on basketball player at Rice, though he’s now performing eight shows a week in the ensemble of “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” instead of running conditioning drills in Tudor Fieldhouse. “It’s bizarrely similar,” Alexander ’10 said. “When you’re in the dressing room getting ready to perform, it’s like being in the locker room and getting ready to play.” Alexander transferred to Rice from NYU and walked onto the basketball team, playing for two years while studying English literature. Theater wasn’t on his radar; though he had performed in Hal Prince’s “Show Boat” Broadway revival as a child, he’d abandoned acting in middle school to follow his brother into athletics.
SEE CHADD ALEXANDER PAGE 11