| Mode: | football |
| Year: | 2016 |
| Team: | Rice Owls |
| Conference: | Conference USA |
| Division: | West Division |
| Short Conf: | C-USA |
| Record: | 3–9 |
| Conf Record: | 2–6 |
| Head Coach: | David Bailiff |
| Hc Year: | 10th |
| Off Coach: | Larry Edmondson |
| Oc Year: | 3rd |
| Cooff Coach2: | Billy Lynch |
| Cooc2 Year: | 3rd |
| Def Coach: | Chris Thurmond |
| Dc Year: | 5th |
| Off Scheme: | Spread |
| Def Scheme: | 4–3 |
| Stadium: | Rice Stadium |
The 2016 Rice Owls football team represented Rice University in the 2016 NCAA Division I FBS football season. The Owls played their home games at Rice Stadium in Houston, Texas, and competed in the West Division of Conference USA (C–USA). They were led by tenth year head coach David Bailiff. They finished the season 3–9, 2–6 in C-USA play to finish in a tie for fifth place in the East Division.
Rice announced its 2016 football schedule on February 4, 2016. The 2016 schedule consisted of 6 home and 6 away games in the regular season. The Owls hosted C–USA foes Florida Atlantic, North Texas, UTEP, and UTSA, and traveled to Charlotte, Louisiana Tech, Southern Miss, and Western Kentucky (WKU).[1]
The team played four non–conference games, two home games against Baylor from the Big 12 Conference and Prairie View A&M from the Southwestern Athletic Conference, and two road games against Army, which was independent from a conference, and Stanford from the Pac-12 Conference.