FAU vs. Rice 2025 Recap: Florida Atlantic Surprises on Road in 27-21 Win

Florida Atlantic will travel back to Boca Raton happy after pulling off a 27-21 victory against Rice Saturday night. After an extremely poor fourth quarter last week against Memphis, FAU was able to make the necessary plays in Week 6. The program showed a lot of grit and toughness through the contest, something they were severely lacking. Rice is a hard team to prepare for, and FAU was ready and focused under first-year coach Zach Kittley. What stood out from Saturday’s game? Let’s break it all down in our 2025 FAU vs. Rice game recap.

FAU vs. Rice 2025 Recap

Quarterback Play

As with every game, quarterback play was a major storyline coming into this matchup. After struggling early this season, Florida Atlantic quarterback Caden Veltkamp performed well. The junior consistently made winning plays on Saturday. Veltkamp finished 23-of-33 for 290 yards and three touchdowns against a good Rice secondary.

Taking care of the ball was key for Veltcamp, and he really only put the ball into harm’s way once. With 2:26 left in the first quarter, the Owls were driving and Veltkamp overthrew his intended receiver. The pass was picked off by Rice safety Peyton Stevenson. However, other than that play, Veltkamp played with poise, confidence, and made quick and fast decisions.

Rice was unable to generate any pressure due to surprisingly great offensive line play by FAU. Yet, it was also due to how fast Veltkamp was getting rid of the ball.

And after struggling in the second-half of games this season, Veltkamp’s two biggest plays came late in the fourth quarter.

After Rice cut the lead to six points with 3:19 left in the game, FAU got the ball back with the opportunity to put the game away. Veltkamp had two huge first-down runs that salted the game, and without his huge frame and size, FAU doesn’t get those first downs. And, they could have potentially lost this football game.

As for Rice, quarterback Chase Jenkins had a solid game. A Scott Abell quarterback is never going to blow you off the charts with stats; however, Jenkins almost did enough for them to win.

The Rice quarterback finished 12-of-17 for 137 yards and one touchdown. He also added 20 yards on the ground. Jenkins did have the opportunity to pull the ball more on the triple option, but FAU did a great job of taking away his rushing abilities all game.

Overall, there was good quarterback play from both teams, with Veltkamp doing just a little more to secure the win.

Defensive Speed and Physicality

A huge question mark coming into this game was how FAU was going to stop Rice’s rushing attack. Coming into this game, Rice was 20th in the country in rushing yards per game, averaging 221 yards per contest. However, FAU held Rice under their average at 213 yards, with 68 of those coming on a long touchdown run on the first drive of the game.

Rice sports the “Gun Option Attack” offense, or to put it more simply, a modern version of the triple option. There is a ton of pre-snap motion and eye candy. Defenses have to be firm in their reads all game long. FAU did just that; they were violent and fast to the football and made great plays all game.

Florida Atlantic’s front seven dominated Rice in the trenches. And at times, it seemed FAU knew what play Rice was going to run. FAU did a great job of getting their opponent behind the sticks, corralling the quarterback run, and getting them into obvious passing situations. Rice’s offense is built on fooling the defense and death by a thousand papercuts, yet it seemed like the Florida Owls wore gloves to prevent the damage.

FAU was well-prepared and seemed like they had been playing against triple-option teams all season long. They did a great job of taking away Jenkins’ reads, forcing Rice to run a halfback dive almost every first down.

Fau Linebacker Leon Hart Jr. was an absolute menace all game long, totaling 10 tackles. Meanwhile, Dillion Williams and Tyler Stolsky each added eight of their own.

Yet for all the good, the Florida Atlantic defense still showed they have trouble stopping big plays

FAU gave up two long touchdowns in Sautrday’s contest. One was a 68-yard run, and the other came on a 46-yard touchdown pass to Drayden Dickman. Yet outside of those two plays, FAU kept everything in front of them and tackled quite well. Rice ran the ball 48 times, and each one of those runs saw Florida Atlantic’s physicality and defensive speed jump out.

Offensive Line and Receiver Play

FAU is a pass-first and air raid team under head coach Zach Kittley. However, when the time comes, teams still need to be able to run the ball. FAU was able to do just that on Saturday.

Every time the team needed to pick up a first down with a run, they were able to do so. The offensive line was a positive and created great push at the line of scrimmage. They also kept Veltkamp upright, something they really have struggled with this season. The quarterback was rarely under pressure and had a clean pocket all game long.

When called upon, running back Xavier Terrell picked up tough yards and moved the chains. Terrell finished with 20 carries for 69 yards. Those numbers don’t jump off the page. However, if FAU can continue to keep teams honest with the run, it will continue to open up opportunities in the pass game.

FAU sports a great group of receivers and speed on the outside. Veltkamp’s favorite target, Easton Messer, finished with 11 catches for 110 yards; and like always, he  seemed to be open all game long. Along with Messer, Asaad Waseem added three catches for 89 yards and a touchdown. Yet arguably, the MVP of Saturday’s game was Michael Kirch, a backup tight end who finished with four catches for 82 yards and two touchdowns.

It is becoming increasingly evident that FAU has talent on the outside. That talent will need to continue to excel as American Conference play rolls on.

FAU vs. Rice 2025 Recap: Other Notes

Discipline

A few other notes worth highlighting were FAU’s discipline, time of possession, and play calling. Head coach Zach Kittley preaches discipline to his team every day, and Saturday showed that. The program only had a few penalties on Saturday, and played sound football overall. There was a point where the game got a little chippy, but FAU kept their cool and didn’t let it affect their play on the field.

Time of Possession

Something that was a concern coming into the game was the extreme ball control offense of Rice. Rice likes to bleed the game out, while FAU likes to go up and down the field quickly. There was an avenue where this game could have been extremely lopsided in time of possession, and FAU’s defense could have gotten worn out. However, that wasn’t the case.

The time of possession battle was almost a 50-50 split. Rice had 31:14  minutes of control, while FAU had 28:46. That sort of scenario needed to play out for FAU to have won on Saturday, and it did.

Playcalling

The last thing worth highlighting in this contest was Coach Kittley’s playcalling. During FAU’s first couple of drives, they were able to use their speed and get on top of Rice’s secondary, and had multiple long completions. Rice switched their defense and played a lot of off coverage zone and tried to keep everything in front.

However, FAU had to change its plan of attack and executed a lot of short throws and route concepts. Going forward, a lot of teams will play them that way, so it was encouraging to see FAU switch things up and win a different way.

What’s Next for Florida Atlantic

FAU rebounded extremely well after suffering a brutal loss to Memphis the week prior. They controlled a good Rice team pretty much from the start and pulled off the much-needed upset. Florida Atlantic’s speed and physicality jumped off the screen, and it was good to see them finish the game in the fashion in which they did. As always, improved play all around under Coach Kittley will be crucial, but FAU potentially has the tools to be competitive in conference play this year.

Next week, the Owl’s welcome UAB to Boca and will be looking to move to 2-1 in conference play.