Entering his seventh season, Rice football head coach Mike Bloomgren has become one of the longest-tenured coaches in the country, persevering through a rebuild that was far from easy.
Mike Bloomgren found himself the elder statesman when he took the podium at American Conference Media Days in mid-July. A veteran of seven years as the head man for Rice football and the longest-tenured FBS head coach in the state of Texas, Bloomgren has certainly seen a thing or two along the way. His journey to where he is today hasn’t been linear. The bumps and bruises accrued along his path might have scared others in the profession away, but Bloomgren has persevered.
Onlookers are gradually starting to take notice. Rice was picked to finish seventh in the AAC this season, the first time the team has been projected to be better than a bottom dweller in its conference since Bloomgren arrived. Still, Bloomgren offered his best Rodney Dangerfield impersonation upon seeing those results, joking that the Owls “can’t get no respect.”
The build
“In year one it was hard to argue,” Bloomgren said, remembering where the program came from back in his early days on South Main. “We had a lot of holes in our roster. We had some talented kids, but we had a lot of holes too. The same was true in 2019. Still building. Still playing a lot of young kids.”
It was in that 2018 season that Rice began a complete overhaul of its roster. The program didn’t fully start to resemble a bonafide FBS squad until years into Bloomgren’s tenure. That same season the coaching staff was forced to turn to a scout team running back to cover Houston superstar wideout Marquez Stevenson. The Cougars scored 28 unanswered points and pulled off a come-from-behind win that afternoon.
Two years later, a converted wide receiver turned emergency defensive back took the field in an oversized offensive lineman jersey to break up a red zone pass against North Texas. He succeeded, but the sheer absurdity of the situation served as a waypoint for a team in progress, a finished product still in the making.
There weren’t real expectations back then, not really. At least not when it came to high win totals on the field. That started to shift in 2020, but COVID through a wrench in things before a brutal schedule in 2021 — Rice opened against Arkansas, Houston and Texas — made year five a retooling point, of sorts.
“The five-year plan got scrapped in about year two and a half and got reassessed,” Bloomgren admitted. It was then that things started to shift.
Raising the floor
After going 11-31 in Bloomgren’s first four seasons, Rice has gone 11-13 in the regular season since, with most of those wins coming in a more challenging AAC. Armed with a complete roster, patience, and (for the most part) healthy starting quarterbacks, the Owls have reached bowl games in back-to-back seasons, something which had only occurred twice in the centuries’ worth of Rice football seasons before Bloomgren arrived.
Bloomgren was always quick to describe his vision for Rice football as two-fold. He wanted to raise the ceiling, to reach those postseason opportunities. But he wanted to make sure he raised the floor, too. When the tough years came, in years past, the program would plummet to a one or two-win campaign. Now, they hope to take on adversity and preserve, aspiring to become a postseason-caliber program even in the tough years.
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That growth is part of what enabled Rice to reach its highest point in those preseason polls, but it’s who Rice brings back that likely played a more significant role. ESPN’s Bill Connelly ranked Rice football No.1 in the AAC in returning production, an assessment that attempts to quantify how much of last year’s talent is returning this coming season.
Rice lost three important starters on defense (DE Coleman Coco, CB Tre’shon Devons and DT De’Braylon Carroll) and three key pieces on offense (QB JT Daniels, WR Luke McCaffrey and LT Clay Servin) but more or less everyone else stayed. Only two of their most significant departures were transfers. For the most part, eligibility expiration and the NFL have been the reason for players who don’t return to Rice football right now. Few choose to leave.
Establishing a culture
Every coach in America uses the word culture in their recruiting pitch. Bloomgren has made the nebulous word a tangible reality at Rice.
“He’s not even a coach anymore. He’s like another father figure in Houston,” star defensive back Gabe Taylor said of Bloomgren. “The bond we have with Coach Smith, the whole coaching staff. It’s unbreakable. There’s no other team like this one. The brotherhood is real, genuine, second-to-none.”
For years Bloomgren labored to build the roster. Once it got here, everyone stuck around.
“Rice is a place that I’ve been longer than any other place in my life, school-wise,” running back Dean Connors said. “This third year will be the longest I’ve been playing football for someone and I wouldn’t want it to be anyone other than Bloom. He was the one coach who gave me my chance, my shot. I owe him the world and just look what he’s done with the program.”
There’s a different type of buy-in created for those who have been in the depths and labored to make something better. Taylor, Connors, and several other stars certainly have the talent to be coveted elsewhere. Their leadership and commitment to what they started never allowed any other program to be an option.
Those repercussions have helped establish one of the most consistent rosters in the country, a roster the likes of quarterback EJ Warner and others wanted to come join. It’s become a team that players like sixth-year players Josh Peary, Myron Morrison, Izeya Floyd and others just don’t want to leave, even with a degree in hand and potential NFL opportunities ahead.
Bloomgren couldn’t have asked for much more than this. He built the roster to his liking, established a postseason baseline and earned some respect in his conference. All that’s left to do now is take that next step and start to win in earnest.
The Future at South Main
Moving forward, Bloomgren and Rice football find themselves in a good place. A private institution, Rice isn’t required to report contractual information, but multiple sources have confirmed to The Roost the nature of Bloomgren’s current agreement. The contract stipulates an automatic one-year extension upon the invitation to any bowl game. Additionally, as was previously reported by The Roost, Bloomgren was given a one-year extension because of the COVID-19 season.
In totality, Bloomgren has now worked under his base five-year original contract agreement, plus three additional years of extensions, the first from the COVID season and the subsequent two earned by bowl trips. As things currently stand, he has two years remaining on his adjusted deal, which runs through the 2025 season.
Should Bloomgren bring Rice to the postseason again in 2024, the same clause would be in effect, triggering another one-year extension.
The terms are a win for both parties. Bloomgren has had the privilege of watching his kids go to school in the same places, eschewing the roaming norms that often typify the coaching profession. As long as Bloomgren continues to ensure Rice is a postseason-quality team, he’ll have security while Rice is protected should things go south. All parties dream of any potential dilemmas caused by too much winning, but that bridge will be crossed when we get there.
For now, Bloomgren and his team are preparing for Year Seven with Rice football. Only four head coaches in program history have been on South Main longer.
“It’s just been great to see the growth,” Bloomgren said. “As exciting as it is to go into Year Seven, [it’s even more exciting] to know that we’ve really made progress and we’re in a position, we think, we can jump to the next step.”
** Photo Credit: Maria Lysaker **
