Rice Stadium Rice Stadium is a American football stadium located on the Rice University campus in Houston , Texas . It has been the home of the Rice Owls football team since its completion in 1950 and hosted Super Bowl VIII in 1974 . Architecturally , Rice Stadium is an example of modern architecture , with simple lines and an unadorned , functional design . The lower seating bowl is located below the surrounding ground level . Built solely for football , the stadium has excellent sightlines from almost every seat . In 2006 , Rice University upgraded the facility by switching from AstroTurf to FieldTurf and adding a modern scoreboard above the north concourse . Seating in the upper deck is in poor condition , which led the university to move home games for which large crowds were expected to nearby Reliant Stadium . High school football games , especially neutral - site playoff games , are frequently played at Rice Stadium . It can also be used as a concert venue . History . Rice Stadium replaced Rice Field ( now Rice Track / Soccer Stadium ) , which had a total capacity of less than 37 , 000 , in 1950 . The new stadium was subsidized by the City of Houston , and it was designed by Hermon Lloyd & W . B . Morgan and Milton McGinty and built by Brown and Root . In addition to Rice , the University of Houston football team played at Rice Stadium from 1951 to 1965 , and the Bluebonnet Bowl was played there from 1959 to 1967 and again in 1985 and 1986 . The Houston Oilers also played in the stadium from 1965 to 1967 . In 1974 , Rice Stadium hosted Super Bowl VIII , in which the Miami Dolphins beat the Minnesota Vikings 24 – 7 . It was the first Super Bowl played in Houston , and it would be 30 years later that the Super Bowl would return to Houston , which was played at Reliant Stadium . Kennedy speech . On September 12 , 1962 , Rice Stadium hosted the speech in which President John F . Kennedy challenged Americans to meet his goal , set the previous year , to send a man to the moon by the end of the decade . In the speech , he used a reference to Rice University football to help frame his rhetoric : " But why , some say , the moon ? Why choose this as our goal ? And they may well ask , why climb the highest mountain ? Why , 35 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 . " Kennedy ' s comments implied Rice had a history of losing to Texas ; however , the two football teams had split 5 - 5 in their previous 10 meetings and would tie the following month . Capacity reduction . As originally built , Rice Stadium seated 70 , 000 , the second - largest stadium in the Southwest Conference ( behind the Cotton Bowl ) . Rice Stadium was built before professional football came to Houston , and 70 , 000 fans might be expected to attend a college football game there . However , Rice found it increasingly difficult from the 1960s onward to compete against larger schools . In 2006 , the end zones seats were covered with tarps , reducing seating capacity to 50 , 000 . The stadium can be reconfigured to its original capacity , which is larger than the total number of Rice ' s living and deceased alumni . The average attendance for Rice football games in Rice Stadium in 13 , 353 in 2007 . For the 2008 season , average home attendance was 20 , 179 . During the 2009 season , average home attendance dipped once again to 13 , 552 per game .