They say everything is bigger in Texas, especially college football. That includes a small program like the Rice Owls, which has one of the smallest enrollments for any school that plays football at the FBS level. Despite its size, last-minute Rice football tickets are always in high demand. Even if they don’t play in a major conference right now, the story of college football in the state of Texas couldn’t be written without the Owls being mentioned. That’s why the Owls remain immensely popular, making cheap Rice football tickets hard to find for every home game.

The Ground Floor

Rice football played its first season in 1912, giving the Owls more than a century’s worth of history. In 1915, Rice became a charter member of the Southwest Conference, a prominent college football conference, until it disbanded in 1996. Despite being a small, private school playing in a league of mostly large public universities, the Owls found occasional success in the Southwest Conference. Rice won two conference titles each in the 1930s, 40s, and 50s. The Owls also won a share of the Southwest Conference in 1994, earning one last title soon before the conference ceased to exist.

Starting New

After struggling to gain traction as a member of the Western Athletic Conference, Rice football found a permanent home in 2005 when the Owls joined Conference USA. It was a fresh start for a program that desperately needed one. In Rice’s second season in Conference USA, the Owls reached a bowl game for the first time since 1961, helping to reinvigorate the program. That helped to set the foundation for the Owls to ultimately win the Conference USA championship in 2013, the program’s first conference title in nearly 20 years and its second since 1957. That conference title was a reminder of just how important Rice football is in the state of Texas and what the Owls are capable of accomplishing despite being one of the smallest FBS schools in the country.