Rice Owls reportedly interviewed embattled ex-Washington State coach
11/18/2024 02:38 PM
The Rice Owls have interviewed former Washington State football coach Nick Rolovich for their head coaching position, Pete Nakos of On3 reported on Monday.
Rolovich coached only 11 games for the Cougars in 2020 and 2021, joining the program in the COVID-shortened 2020 season. He was fired in mid-October of his second season for refusing to get the COVID-19 vaccine despite a state mandate. The school fired him for cause, preventing him from recouping the $9 million remaining on his contract.
Rolovich filed a wrongful termination suit against Washington State in 2022, which a judge dismissed last year.
The coach told ESPN at the time that his only regret was not revealing publicly that he was resisting the vaccine for religious reasons.
“I thought as football coach, you don’t need to talk about politics, you don’t need to talk about religion, you don’t need to talk about medical,” he said. “That was all kind of off limits. For our staff. I just said, ‘You’re for it, you’re against it. I don’t care.’ It just got real strange, real fast.”
Prior to his time at Washington State, Rolovich spent four years at Hawaii, going 28-27 with three bowl appearances. He brought the Rainbow Warriors to the Mountain West title game in 2019, winning 10 games for the first time in nearly a decade.
The Rice football opening came when the university fired Mike Bloomgren in October after a 2-6 start to the 2024 season. In six-plus years with the Owls, Bloomgren went 24-52 overall, bringing Rice to two bowl games (both losses) in 2022 and 2023.
The Owls have split their two games since then, beating Navy, an upper-echelon AAC team, two weeks ago before dropping a close one in Memphis the next week. Pete Alamar has served as interim head coach in that time.
With three total wins and two games remaining, the Owls will not become bowl eligible for a third straight year. They will close the season with games at UAB and at home against South Florida.
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