The Rice Owls football team represents Rice University in NCAA Division I college football. The Owls have competed in Conference USA's Western Division since 2005. Rice Stadium, built in 1950, hosts the Owls' home football games.
History
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1954 Cotton Bowl Classic
The Owls played in the eighteenth Cotton Bowl Classic against the Crimson Tide of Alabama. The game featured one of the most famous plays in college football history when Rice's Dickey Moegle (later Maegle) burst free on a sweep play, and on his way down the sideline, was tackled by Tommy Lewis, who had come off the Alabama sideline without his helmet to tackle Moegle. Referee Cliff Shaw saw Lewis come off the bench and gave the Owls the 95 yard touchdown. Rice would win the game 28-6, with the only Crimson Tide score coming from Lewis. The yardage added to Moegle's 265 yards rushing, a Cotton Bowl Classic record that would stand until Tony Temple's effort in 2008. This would be the Owls' last bowl win until the 2008 Texas Bowl, a win which also secured the Owls their first 10-win season since 1949.
Kennedy Speech
Rice Stadium also hosted a speech by John F. Kennedy on September 12, 1962. In it, he used the Rice football team to challenge America to send a man to the moon.
- But why, some say, the moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35Â years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas? We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.
Conference affiliations
- Independent (1912-1914)
- Southwest Conference (1915-1996)
- Western Athletic Conference (1996-2004)
- Conference USA (2005-present)
Head coaches
Conference championships
Rice has won seven conference championships, four outright and three shared.
†indicates a shared conference title.
Bowl games
Rice has participated in twelve bowl games, garnering a record of 7â€"5.
Stadium
Rice Stadium was built in 1950, and has been the home of Owls football ever since. It hosted the NFL Super Bowl in January 1974. It replaced the old Rice Field (now Rice Track/Soccer Stadium) to increase seating. Total seating capacity in the current stadium was reduced from 70,000 to 47,000 before the 2006 season. The endzone seating benches were removed and covered with tarps, and all of the wooden bleachers were replaced with new, metal seating benches in 2006, as well. The stadium is also currently undergoing further renovations.
All-time record vs. CUSA teams
Official record (including any NCAA imposed vacates and forfeits) against all current CUSA opponents:
Rivalries
SMU
Rice and SMU were members of the same conference from 1918 through 2012, and have played each other 90 times as of 2012 with SMU leading the series 48-41-1. The rivalry is because Rice and SMU were two of four private schools in the Southwest Conference (Baylor and TCU were the others). Rice and SMU were also the two smallest schools in the conference, were located in the two largest cities of any teams in the conference (Houston and Dallas, respectively), and have historically been considered the two best private universities in Texas.
Houston
Rice participates in a crosstown rivalry with Houston. UH and Rice play annually for the Bayou Bucket, a weathered bucket found by former Rice guard Fred Curry at an antique shop. Curry had it designed into a trophy for $310. The two universities are separated by five miles in Houston. The Cougars lead the series 29-11.The Cougars' 2013 move from Conference USA to the American Athletic Conference has jeopardized the status of the series though, it is scheduled to resume in 2017 .
Texas
Rice and Texas have maintained a largely one-sided rivalry beginning in the early days of the Southwest Conference. Texas' 28 consecutive victories from 1966â€"1993 represents the sixth longest single-opponent winning streak in college football history. In 1994, in a nationally televised ESPN game, Rice scored a major upset win over Texas, but since then Texas has resumed series dominance. Despite the dissolution of the Southwest Conference, Texas and Rice still play on a "near annual" basis, allowing the Longhorns to keep a high profile in the state's largest city and the fourth largest city in the United States. Texas is a public university that enrolls 50,201 total students (5th largest in the US as of 2007) and over 37,000 undergraduates. Rice is a private university and enrolls 3,926 undergraduates.
Baylor
Rice and Baylor have a long-standing rivalry dating back to each of these foes days in the Southwest Conference. They are no longer in the same conference but have scheduled each other on and off since 1997 with Baylor winning the latest matchup; the Baylor Bears also hold the all-time record in the rivalry at 41-30-2 with the next matchup scheduled for 2019 at Rice.
Texas A&M
The Rice Owls have been longtime rivals with the Texas A&M Aggies since each other's days in the Southwest Conference. Since they are no longer in the same conference they still occasionally schedule each other with the next matchup being scheduled for 2019 at Rice in NRG Stadium. Texas A&M holds the all-time record in the rivalry at 52-27 with the latest contest being played in 2014 with an Aggie victory.
Notable players
College Football Hall of Fame
Pro Football Hall of Fame
- Don Maynard, WR New York Jets
Rice All-Americans
Former Rice players currently in the NFL
Other former players
- Tony Barker, LB Washington Redskins
- O.J. Brigance, LB multiple teams
- James Casey, TE/FB multiple teams
- Earl Cooper, RB San Francisco 49ers
- Vince Courville, WR multiple teams
- Patrick Dendy, DB Green Bay Packers
- Jarrett Dillard, WR Jacksonville Jaguars
- Michael Downs, S Dallas Cowboys
- Bert Emanuel, WR multiple teams
- Darryl Grant, OL Washington Redskins
- Courtney Hall, OL San Diego Chargers
- Donald Hollas, QB Oakland Raiders
- Robert Hubble, TE San Francisco 49ers
- Larry Izzo, LB New England Patriots
- N.D. Kalu, DE multiple teams
- LaDouphyous McCalla, DB Saskatchewan Roughriders
- Kenny Major, TE Miami Dolphins
- Primo Miller, T Cleveland Rams
- Cheta Ozougwu, DE, multiple teams
- Ryan Pontbriand, DS Cleveland Browns
- Frank Ryan, QB Cleveland Browns
- Scott Solomon, DE multiple teams
- Seaman Squyres, HB Cincinnati Reds
- John Underwood, G Milwaukee Badgers
- Joe Watson, Detroit Lions
- Bones Weatherly, LB Chicago Bears
Future non-conference opponents
Announced schedules as of June 29, 2017.