The Marching Owl Band

From the "Rice Football Webletter" http://www.ricefootball.net/

MOB up to old tricks at Ann Arbor

The Marching Owl Band made the trip up to Ann Arbor, and performed on-field routines both before the game and at halftime, in so doing obtaining a solid grade-"A"" rating, by traditional Rice-band standards, for the first time in recent memory.

In their pre-game show, the MOBsters incurred the collective ire of the Michigan fans present when they coaxed all 108-odd thousand of them to stand for what they said was going to be the "Michigan State Song." Only they broke out into a few bars of "O Canada". The U-M faithful were picked as clean as Aggies, and were durn nearly as outraged.

But the MOB got back into the crowd's good graces at halftime when they manage to lampoon both of Michigan's rivals, Michigan State and Ohio State, during a halftime script which purportedly was written to inform U-M fans about Rice customs and traditions. The skit involved MSU "streakers" in flesh tights and Ohio State "McDonald's employees" and -- oh, you know, the MOB when it's clicking just can't be explained; you just had to be there. But suffice it to say that that script quality was up to MOB standards of prior years. Must have received special dispensation from the University administation this one. And we hear tell the MOB's also going to be headed to Fort Worth for the TCU game. Looking forward to that one.