Report: Rice fires head football coach Mike Bloomgren after seven seasons

Rice fired head coach Mike Bloomgren following the 2-6 record eight games into the season, according to ESPN’s Pete Thamel.

“Sources: Rice has fired coach Mike Bloomgren, with the Owls at 2-6 this year. Bloomgren is 24-52 in seven years at Rice,” Thamel wrote on Twitter. “He led the Owls to consecutive bowl games in 2022 and 2023, the later of which came after the transition to the AAC.”

Bloomgren became the head coach of Rice back in 2018 and recently led the program to two bowl games, both losses in the postseason.

But as Thamel pointed out, he sported a 24-52 record in six-plus seasons and never had a winning season. Bloomgren became the head coach at Rice following seven years at Stanford in a variety of coaching roles.

Bloomgren started his coaching career at Alabama in 1999 as a grad assistant, coaching there for three seasons. He was then at Catawba and Delta State from 2002 to 2006 before going to the NFL.

While in the pros, Bloomgren was on offensive assistant with the New York Jets from 2007-10, including being the assistant OC in 2010 under head coach Rex Ryan.

Speaking about Bloomgren, Ryan previously credited Bloomgren’s work ethic as a positive.

 “There are two things that jumped out to me about Mike — his work ethic and just how sharp he was,” Ryan said, via the team’s website. “Coaches put in a lot of hours and Mike just loved it. He was full of energy regardless of how long we were working, which impressed me. He brought a lot of out-of-the-box thinking that wasn’t being done in the league, like Wildcat formations and direct snaps.

“I used to challenge him to come up with new stuff, which he did and then we implemented it a lot. It’s no surprise he became a head coach at a young age and I think he’s going to do some great things there at Rice. They’re going to be a fun team to watch and I’m excited for Mike.”