Nick Kendall
Staff Writer
nkendall1@murraystate.edu
From high school standout, to redshirt freshman, to starting quarterback, Murray State’s redshirt sophomore Preston Rice has been ready to compete against fierce collegiate competition for the last three years.
Rice attended Wayne County High School, a small school in Waynesboro, Tennessee, that has just over 300 students enrolled. While there, Rice received runner up for the class 1A Mr. Tennessee Football Award his junior year and won the award his senior year.
Rice said he was overlooked in high school despite his success. For most of his senior year, he never received a scholarship offer from any team, he’d watch his teammates get offers one after another.
Rice started to lose hope. Then, on Dec. 11, 2016, right after an all-star game, Head Coach Mitch Stewart offered him a scholarship at Murray State and Rice accepted
right away.
During the summer of 2017, Rice learned he’d been redshirted. It was a move by Coach Stewart that Rice didn’t understand in the beginning, but he has since learned it was the best thing for him.
“Freshman year was definitely tough,” Rice said. “Adapting to everything like coming from high school being a superstar, then coming here and being the little guy on the totem pole and the guy that’s never going to play. But it was probably the best thing for me, just being able to find myself and understand what college football’s about, just finding out that you got to get to work. It’s not just about being physically gifted, you have to be there mentally every single day and compete every single day. My redshirt year helped me figure that out.”
Rice, for the most part, spent his next year on the sidelines again. He did play in all 11 games, but only after the outcome of the game had been decided.
Rice scored the only Racer touchdown of the game on a 25-yard rush in the Sept. 15, 2018 loss against the University of Kentucky in Lexington.
Now that Rice is the starting quarterback, Stewart expects him to help lead the team and win games for the Racers.
“This offense goes as the QB goes,” Stewart said. “He has to be productive, he has to be smart but he has to be able to take risks and know when those are smart risks and when those are not smart. He has to be able to throw the ball to the guys with his color jersey on and not the guys with opposite color jerseys on.”
Last Thursday, Rice made his first start as a Racer and picked up 170 passing yards on 21-of-30 attempts and to go along with 50 rushing yards in the 59-20 victory against the University of Pikeville.
Rice appreciates everything that small Wayne County has done for him. Every aspect of his hometown helped shape him into the person and player he
is today.
“People say Murray’s a small town—Wayne County is a whole different type of small,” Rice said. ”We have one red light in that town. And then your view, you’re on this pedestal where you’re the guy, you’re the best player, you know, not only in Wayne County, but in the surrounding counties there. To come here, it’s honestly a humbling experience to see guys that are on the same level as you and understand that you have to raise your game to be better than these guys now. And by doing that, like I said previously, you just have to go to work and compete. That’s all it is. It’s a mindset, really.”
Rice plans to use this new mindset to help the team be the best it can be and lead by example.
“(I) just have to be the hardest worker,” Rice said. “Just go out there and let your teammates see how hard you’re working and let them feed off of you more than anything, you know. And just continue to motivate those guys and help the guys around you play to their best potential. And by doing that, I have to do the same.”