It was not exactly a secret that Mike Bloomgren was stepping into a dire situation at Rice. The Owls had won just four of their last 24 games prior to his arrival, and hadn’t had a winning season since 2014. The days of 10-win seasons and conference titles — like in 2013 — seem as familiar as the most recent ice age. The Owls program was on life support, and the Stanford offensive coordinator was tasked with shaking it out of its coma.

It’s going to take time and patience. It was always going to take time and patience. And Saturday’s 42-0 loss to UAB could serve an important purpose in the process — the Owls found rock bottom.

It was a humiliating afternoon for the Owls in every phase of the game. The offense, already an inconsistent mess, lost arguably its two most consistent players — QB Shawn Stankavage and RB Emmanuel Esukpa — to injury in the first half, leaving the unit to listlessly meander through the remainder of the game. The main issue: the offensive line, which was manhandled by the Blazers on almost every snap. The defense couldn’t do much better, leaving receivers to run free and allowing 4.6 yards per rush to a UAB offense that no one would describe as a world-beater. And even the special teams — often the lone saving grace of inept teams — got in on the disaster, allowing a blocked punt to be returned for a touchdown in the first quarter.

It’s Rice’s first home shutout loss since a 64-0 demolition at the hands of Houston on December 2, 1989, about a month before Mike Bloomgren’s 13th birthday.

The team administering the drubbing makes this loss all the more stinging — UAB, a team whose program is less than two years removed from a two-year hiatus. Rice has been playing football for more than 100 years; on Saturday, it was no match for a team that disbanded its program a few years ago.

But this was always going to be part and parcel with a program overhaul at Rice. The Owls needed to hit bottom in order to begin the build in earnest, and that happened on Saturday afternoon. That’s not to say that Rice fans and alums should be happy about the game; just that it seemed inevitable that the program would find itself at this point.

The Rice football house has been demolished to its foundation. Now, the onus is on Mike Bloomgren to rebuild upon that slab.