Notre Dame To Cook Rice Today At 3:30 PM ET

The #3 Notre Dame Fighting Irish play the Rice Owls in South Bend at 3:30 pm ET, Saturday, 12 September 2026. ND is favored to win by 44.50 points.

ND–Rice Game Time Confusion

I mention the game time because there has been, and perhaps still is, confusion because Rice University published a game time of 2:30 pm — but that’s probably its local time, which is currently Central Daylight Time, one hour before Eastern Daylight Time.

Rice University—based in Houston—is on Central Time

Miami Hurricanes Beat Florida A&M

Leading into this weekend, there’s been a lot of talk about the #7 Miami Hurricanes (2–0) beating the Rattlers of Florida A&M on Thursday (10 Sep.), 77–7. Even the good governor of Florida, Ron Desantis, is blowing hot/muggy Florida air to help magnify the hype, not understanding the quality of Miami’s past two opponents (Stanford and FAMU)!

Heisman officially on the radar.

Governor Ron DeSantis on X

As for me, I’d temper my enthusiasm a bit, since Data Don’t Lie.

For instance, when Ohio State played that same team back in 2013, The Buckeyes didn’t even let the little Rattlers of Florida A&M score: 76–0. The starting QB, Kenny Guiton (Remember that “Heisman Hopeful?”), under second year coach Urban Meyer had these stunning stats, and he only played the first half:

Meanwhile, the newest anointed “Heisman Hopeful,” after playing the Rattlers, Darian Mensah,¹ according to “talking heads” and Governor DeSantis, had these stellar stats, presumably just in the first half as well against the notorious FAMU²:

How did the QB and Ohio State fair against stiffer competition? Well, the QB returned to the bench, and The Buckeyes went on to lose the Big 10 Championship game followed by a loss in the Orange Bowl. This was after finishing the regular season 12–1.

The Great Divide of Division I College Football Tiers

Furthermore, duly note, Florida A&M is a Division I college football program, but it’s in the second tier of the Division, which has two tiers:

1. FBS (Football Bowl Subdivision), and 
2. FCS (Football Championship Subdivision)

They differ mainly by their postseason/playoff structure, financial resources, and scholarship limits. Moreover, Miami, and its big-name Florida siblings, embrace scheduling FCS teams. In a typical 12-game season, Miami has scheduled an FCS team every year.

In contrast, Notre Dame has only scheduled one FCS team in the past ten years — only God knows why! — and that was the first time in its history of doing so. It won, of course, 56–3.

Ohio State is another school that typically frowns upon scheduling FCS teams.³ It’s done so only twice in the last ten years:

• 2023: Won 35–7 versus Youngstown State Penguins⁴
• 2025: Won 70–0 versus Grambling State

FCS Scheduling Volume of Select Power Four Teams

Let’s take a look at a select group of FBS teams from the so-called “Power Four,” which consists of the four major, wealthiest conferences in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS):

1. Big Ten (Ohio State’s conference)
2. Southeastern Conference (SEC)
3. Big 12 Conference
4. Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC)

Chart | Select Power-4 Programs

As the chart above indicates, Notre Dame and Ohio State choose to avoid scheduling FCS teams.

Table | FCS Scheduling Volume

The overall approach (as depicted in the below table):

• Miami, Florida State, Clemson, and Alabama maintain a consistent baseline of scheduling one FCS team per year alongside regional G5 and marquee P4 matchups.
• Ohio State leans heavily into G5 scheduling while largely bypassing FCS games.
• Beloved Notre Dame stands entirely apart by avoiding FCS competition completely in favor of a heavily loaded P4 slate.

Spreadsheet | 10-year Review

And, here’s an image from LibreOffice Calc that may be shared with fans of the Miami Hurricanes, since they probably love data and facts:

Closing Words

By the way, I root for all of Notre Dame’s opponents (locker-room talk aside), since their wins help boost the strength of schedule of ND.

Speaking of which, Jeff Sagarin’s College Football Ratings, through games of Monday, 7 September, has Notre Dame, which played Wisconsin, with a #26 strength of schedule;⁵ Miami’s is #61 (they played Stanford). However, one would expect Miami’s strength of schedule rank to drop next week, since they played an FCS team on Thursday, 10 Sep. (this is what happens when you schedule FCS teams).

Regardless, I’m rooting for Miami and want them ranked very high by the time they come strolling into South Bend to play the Irish on Saturday, 7 November (7:30 pm ET). I even talked a bit of smack a month or two ago saying, very friendly and lightheartedly:

I think Notre Dame is going to give Miami a “beat down” in South Bend.

That ruffled some feathers!

Right now, Notre Dame is favored to win by 7.50 points against Miami, according to the Draft King odds-makers (but the season is still young).

As for ND’s upcoming game later this afternoon, the Rice Owls are among the G5 (Group of 5) of the FBS, in the American Athletic Conference (AAC).

In closing, I’m looking forward to enjoying some “Cooked Rice” for dinner.

Footnotes

1. Don’t get me wrong, Darian Mensah is a talented QB and athlete. I praised him when he was named the starter at Duke in 2025, two seasons after Riley Leonard transferred from Duke to Notre Dame in 2024. ↩︎
2. “Pay Us, to Play Us—and we’ll make your team look like a budding National Champion and your quarterback look like a Heisman Hopeful!” — Probably Florida A&M. ↩︎
3. USC is the only FBS team that has never scheduled an FCS opponent, based on my cursory research. However, I don’t like tooting the horn of the Trojans of SoCal. ↩︎
4. Ohio State began scheduling YSU in 2007 several years after its then head coach Jim Tressel began coaching at OSU (2001–2011). Prior to OSU, coach Tressel was the head coach of YSU (1986–2000). ↩︎
5. Here’s Sagarin’s archive of the most recent rankings, for posterity’s sake. ↩︎