Courtesy of a certain longtime Heathen, I attended the Texas Bowl this evening with a cadre of Rice alums I haven’t seen in some time — most of them have moved to Austin (or, worse, the suburbs) in the 14 years since we all used to drink too much at the Marquis, so it was a fun group to watch a game with no matter what was going to happen.

However, what actually DID happen was pretty great, as the Rice Owls (astoundingly 9-3 going into this) trounced Western Michigan (also 9-3 pre-game) 38 to 14 — and it wasn’t that close. Both the WMU TDs came well after the game was mathematically over. Rice, for its part, bags its first bowl win since the 1954 Cotton Bowl, when they beat a certain western Alabama team all right-thinking Heathen know and love.

To say the accumulated Owl faithful were gobsmacked by the win — and the dominance of the performance — is to understate by several orders of magnitude. “Rice kids” from 18 to 80 stood outside the stadium watching the postgame fireworks, slackjawed at the spectacle of it all. I feel bad for the WMU folks (nobody likes getting routed), but their day will come; Cubit’s a good coach, and he’s doing good things up there. Rice, though, has been waiting a long, long time, and I’m glad I was there to see it.