Rice Fires Football Coach David Bailiff After 11 Seasons

HOUSTON, TX — The David Bailiff era came to an end at Rice as the school looks in a different direction for its football program. Bailiff went 57-80 in 11 seasons, including a 1-11 mark this year.

"Just hasn't been there with the wins and losses the last couple of years, and felt like this was the time that we needed to reset that," director of athletics Joe Karlgaard told KRIV-TV on Monday.

Rice was 1-7 in Conference USA play this season, with its lone win 31-14 on Sept. 9 against a UTEP team that didn't win a game this year. Bailiff was the Conference USA coach of the year in 2008 and 2013, leading the Owls to their first outright conference championship in 56 years in 2013. Rice went 10-4 in 2013, making the Liberty Bowl as a reward. The Owls went 8-5 in 2014 and played the Hawaii Bowl, but followed that with 5-7, 3-9 and 1-11 records and no bowl appearances.

Bailiff is just the fourth head coach to lead the Owls for more than a decade, joining Jess Neely (27 years), Ken Hatfield (12 years) and Phillip Arbuckle (11 years) and his 56 career wins on South Main rank second to Neely in school history. He has led the Owls to two of the three 10-win seasons in school history and has won eight or more games three times, matching Jess Neely for the most at Rice while his three bowl victories also match Neely’s mark during his Hall of Fame career.

The Owls have had eight players taken in the NFL Draft during Bailiff's tenure, matching the output of the previous 22 years prior to his arrival. A total of six players from his first five recruiting classes have been selected. A record nine Owls recruited by Bailiff saw action in the NFL in 2015 and a 10th, Jordan Taylor, was on the practice squad with Denver and became the second Bailiff recruit in the last three years to win a Super Bowl ring (Luke Willson, Seattle, 2014).

Bailiff played at Texas State (formerly known as Southwest Texas State) from 1977-80. He was an assistant coach at Texas State, New Mexico and TCU before getting his first head coaching job at Texas State, where he went 21-15 over three years with an appearance in the FCS semifinals in 2005.

In 2008, the Owls endured a series of challenges as well as the aftermath of Hurricane Ike and produced the first 10-win season for Rice since 1949 and the Owls' first victory in a bowl game since their memorable win over Alabama in the 1954 Cotton Bowl. For his efforts, Bailiff was honored by his conference peers with his first Conference USA Coach of the Year honor.

His overall coaching record is 78 wins and 95 losses. In addition, he led the Owls to a 2012 Armed Forces Bowl victory.

Image: Rice head coach David Bailiff tries to get his team going against Pittsburgh during the first quarter of an NCAA college football game against Pittsburgh, Saturday, Sept. 30, 2017, in Pittsburgh. (AP Photo/Keith Srakocic)