Rice Football Team Goes Nuts in Locker Room After Earning Bid to Liberty Bowl (Video)

The Rice Owls are headed to the Liberty Bowl, and they could not be more excited.

A longtime college football doormat, the Owls knocked off Marshall to claim the Conference USA championship on Saturday, their first outright league title since 1957. A Liberty Bowl representative visited the team after the game to extend an invitation to take on Mississippi State in Memphis on New Year’s Eve, setting off a raucous celebration in the Rice locker room.

The Liberty is hardly a marquee bowl game and probably didn’t elicit nearly as jubilant a reaction from the Mississippi State players, but don’t expect us to knock Rice’s enthusiasm. After all, this is a team that snapped a 45-year bowl drought just seven years ago and is currently enjoying only the third 10-win season in the program’s 112-year history.

Party on, Owls.

Check out the celebration in the video below.