Rice coach fired: Why was the Owls coach dismissed?

The Rice Owls have struggled throughout the 2024 college football season and made the move to fire coach Mike Bloomgren on Sunday afternoon, according to ESPN's Pete Thamel. In his absence, associate head coach Pete Alamar will be taking over the reins of the team.

What were some of the potential reasons that the Rice Owls decided to let coach Mike Bloomgren go after seven seasons? Let's take a closer look at his tenure with the program to see what reasons might have been there for his departure.

Why was Mike Bloomgren fired?

Lackluster performance

During his tenure as the coach of the Rice Owls, Mike Bloomgren did not have great numbers as he finished with a 24-52 record. He seemingly made strides in the right direction as the Owls made bowl games in back-to-back seasons after a decade, but his record this season has not been great.

So far this campaign, the Rice Owls are 2-6 (1-3 American). They need to figure out how to get going after the switch as they are one of the worst teams in the conference standings entering Week 10.

Changes in the mission statement

Rice University is under a new president with Reginald DesRoches taking over. With his arrival, there has been a recent commitment to investing and that includes the athletic department.

Since Mike Bloomgren struggled to do much this season, Rice president Reginald DesRoches could look for a new coach with more of a pedigree to lead the college football program.

There is a good amount of talent in the Rice Owls program, as evident by making the bowl game in each of the last two seasons. Getting a coach who could have a good message and resume will help the program do better than their record currently shows.

Message runs dry

When a coach is in the same program for a while and there is not much success, sometimes a change is needed. In college football, you cannot get rid of players, so moving on from a coach who has not been able to step up consistently could be a reason why the change was made.