Abell replaces Intellectual Brutality slogan with ‘WE’
As soon as Rice football head coach Scott Abell arrived for his first day on campus last November, he began preaching an acronym: “WE.”
WE stands for three different ideas: win everything, win everywhere and with everyone. Abell introduced these values during his first meeting with players, allowing them to understand what their new coach stood for and whether they wanted to invest in his vision.
“During our first team meeting, you could tell how much that word means to him,” said redshirt junior running back Quinton Jackson. “Ever since that moment, he’s had complete buy-in from the team.”
Abell emphasized that winning everything doesn’t mean going 12-0 during the season. Rather, it’s a philosophy for players to work toward in all aspects of their daily lives.
“That will be something that we work toward every day to be the best version of ourselves, whether it’s on the football field, in our training, in the classroom [or] in the community,” Abell said. “We want to win everything that we put our heart behind and our hands on.”
Achieving success beyond the football field is an important component of Abell’s WE pillars. He embraces the three core values as a husband and father, and he expects his players to follow suit when they leave Rice Stadium to attend away games, classes or community outings.
“Ever since Coach Abell taught us the importance of WE, I’ve tried to use it in every aspect of my life,” Jackson said. “Whether that’s in the community helping out as much as possible or in the classroom with teammates being the best students we possibly can be.”
The idea of winning everywhere includes an expectation that players will consistently go outside of their comfort zone.
“You just can’t be your best in the places you’re comfortable,” Abell said. “You’ve got to learn to be at your best when you’re uncomfortable. When you’re traveling on the road, playing a game on the road or having to go do research for a class that’s out of your comfort zone — whatever it is, we have to win everywhere.”
The third and final component requires coming together as a unified team, which Abell has already seen the Owls achieve in his first few months with the program.
“I believe great things are accomplished when people come together and bring their talents together, and that’s really what a football program is all about,” Abell said.
Abell has emphasized the importance of his WE pillars at every program where he’s coached, including most recently at Davidson College, where he was the head coach from 2018 through 2024. Now in his first stint at the helm of a Division I FBS program, Abell acknowledged that he has adapted the philosophy over the years, fortifying it into a central point of emphasis for his players at Rice to buy into.
Finding the right people to embrace the WE values doesn’t happen overnight, and it doesn’t happen passively, Abell said. In addition to introducing the current team to the three pillars, he and his staff have focused on recruiting players who align with the program’s core values. That process includes numerous meetings and research into recruits’ social media accounts.
“We’re looking for people that want to compete, not just on the football field [but] in everything they do,” Abell said. “[To] find those people that want to be a part of something bigger than themselves, you’ve really got to get to know them, you’ve got to talk to their coaches, you’ve got to dive into them as people. Are they used to doing things with groups or are they about themselves individually?”
The implementation of these values represents an identity change for Rice football, which previously embraced the “Intellectual Brutality” mantra under former head coach Mike Bloomgren. Abell said that having an identity that encompasses the program’s core values is “imperative.”
“When you’re leading people, you have to have something that brings everyone together but holds the values that you know are going to be important to the program to be successful,” Abell said. “That’s exactly what these are. These aren’t just talking points. If we can strive for these values, then we’re going to have a shot to be successful.”
The philosophy has a public-facing component, too. Rice football’s social media pages include “#WE” in their bios and every post. By the start of the 2025 season, “WE” will appear on every helmet and on the walls of the Brian Patterson Sports Performance Center, Abell said.
But make no mistake: Abell said he didn’t implement his WE values just for the sake of having an identity.
“These aren’t just acronyms that sound good,” Abell said. “These are true things that I live my own life by daily. When I go to work, I want to be the best version of myself for the group around me, for the program. When I go home, I want to be the best husband or father that I can be to my family.”
So far, Abell has been impressed by how the program embraces its new identity, following the core values in practice and in the classroom. As the Owls look to bounce back from last season’s 4-8 finish, Abell said players are already buying into his guiding principles.
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