The 1957 Rice Owls football team represented

Rice University William Marsh Rice University (Rice University) is a Private university, private research university in Houston, Houston, Texas. It is on a 300-acre campus near the Houston Museum District and adjacent to the Texas Medical Center. Rice is ranke ...

during the

1957 NCAA University Division football season The 1957 NCAA University Division football season saw two different national champions. Auburn was ranked first in the AP writers' poll taken at season's end, while Ohio State was first in the UPI coaches' poll. Auburn was ineligible for a bowl ...

. The Owls were led by 18th-year head coach Jess Neely and played their home games at Rice Stadium in

Houston, Texas Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 i ...

. They competed as members of the

Southwest Conference The Southwest Conference (SWC) was an NCAA Division I college athletic conference in the United States that existed from 1914 to 1996. Composed primarily of schools from Texas, at various times the conference included schools from Oklahoma ...

, winning the conference with a conference record of 5–1. After two consecutive losing seasons in 1955 and 1956, Rice bounced back to finish the 1957 regular season with a record of 7–3. They won the last four games of the regular season, including a victory over the undefeated and number one-ranked Texas A&M Aggies, coached by

Bear Bryant Paul William "Bear" Bryant (September 11, 1913 – January 26, 1983) was an American college football player and coach. He is considered by many to be one of the greatest college football coaches of all time, and best known as the head coach of ...

. The Owls were ranked eighth in the final

AP Poll The Associated Press poll (AP poll) provides weekly rankings of the top 25 NCAA teams in one of three Division I college sports: football, men's basketball and women's basketball. The rankings are compiled by polling 62 sportswriters and br ...

and seventh in the final

Coaches Poll The Coaches Poll is a weekly ranking of the top 25 NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) college football, Division I college basketball, and Division I college baseball teams. The football version of the poll has been known officiall ...

, which were conducted before bowl season. Rice was invited to the

1958 Cotton Bowl Classic The 1958 Cotton Bowl Classic was the 22nd edition of the college football bowl game, played at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas, Texas, on Wednesday, January 1. Part of the 1957–58 bowl game season, it matched the independent and fifth-ranke ...

, held on New Years' Day, where they were defeated by fifth-ranked

Navy A navy, naval force, or maritime force is the branch of a nation's armed forces principally designated for naval and amphibious warfare; namely, lake-borne, riverine, littoral, or ocean-borne combat operations and related functions. It in ...

. The season-opening victory vs. 1957 is the Owls' most recent at Tiger Stadium. Rice is 0-14-1 in

Baton Rouge Baton Rouge ( ; ) is a city in and the capital of the U.S. state of Louisiana. Located the eastern bank of the Mississippi River, it is the parish seat of East Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana's most populous parish—the equivalent of counti ...

since.

Schedule

References

Rice Rice is the seed of the grass species '' Oryza sativa'' (Asian rice) or less commonly ''Oryza glaberrima'' (African rice). The name wild rice is usually used for species of the genera '' Zizania'' and '' Porteresia'', both wild and domesticat ...

Rice Owls football seasons Southwest Conference football champion seasons Rice Owls football {{collegefootball-1950s-season-stub