As UAB readies to start its second football season since its return this Thursday, it marks quite the three-plus year journey for athletic director Mark Ingram.

Ingram arrived in Birmingham on May 1, 2015 from Temple not knowing for sure whether his new school would even have football after the school's leadership shut down the program the previous December. If the school maintained the status quo, one of his first jobs would have been to find a new conference home for the Blazers as Conference USA made clear staying without football wasn't happening.

But UAB did revive its football program and was rewarded with an impressive 8-5 record in the Blazer's first season back. AL.com recently caught up with Ingram to talk about the impact of that first season, the process to securing a downtown football stadium, where things stand within Conference USA and much more.

(Note: The following Q&A has been lightly edited for content and clarity.)

AL.com: You arrived May 2015. From there to today, what are you most proud of that you were able to accomplish?

Mark Ingram: I'm most proud of how my family has transitioned to Birmingham. I've got four kids and a wife and as my wife says 'You have to bloom where you're planted.' We've moved a lot and she's the leader in our house. Our kids follow her lead and they've all been very successful in school, sports, making friends. Hands down that's No. 1.

AL: What's been the most challenging of those three years?

MI: When you inherit a staff of 100ish people and in that moment there was a lot of doubt, uncertainty, what am I saying versus what do I really mean? You always have to earn trust but the unusual nature of where we were at that time was different than maybe anybody else had ever dealt with so there weren't a lot of people I could ask. Earning that trust probably took a lot longer than ordinary it would and then layered in the uncertainty of are we going to bring football back? Do you even want it to come back or not?

We've renovated or built 20 new facilities in three years and that, in large part, has helped me build that trust because I've said to those coaches 'We are going to do this for you and your student-athletes,' and then we've done it. That's helped build that trust.

AL: You mentioned the uncertainty of the football program. When you took the job, what percentage chance did you think football was going to come back?

MI: When I got the call about interviewing, I was like anyone else from afar I had been reading the articles in your publication and it felt like it was coming back. When I interviewed for the job, I asked the president point-blank -- it was just me and him in his office -- and I said 'Dr. Watts I understand the sensitivity but what's the plan?' He had this moment where had he wanted to, he could have looked over his shoulder and said 'Look, we are trying to raise money but it's not going to happen' and he didn't. What he said was he hired an outside agency, they are conducting a study and when that comes back it'll tell us how much money we need. If we have the money to bring it back, we'll bring it back.

But he said I'm not bringing this back if we don't have the financial resources to be competitive. I don't want to bring it back and limp along the way we've limped along for the last however many years. He was honest that we want it to come back but only if we can come back and compete.

AL: Season 2 of being back starts on Thursday. In the year it's been back, what has it meant to the school, community and everyone else?

MI: We have a brand new college of business that (opened) Friday. We have a brand new nursing school that opens up (this) week. Since I've been here, we've opened up a brand new student center, the Hill Center, we've opened up a brand new freshman dorm. Those are university things that have happened. We built the football operations facility. Success creates other success. All these things build upon each other to create this positive story that is UAB. We like to think we're a part of it.

Building that football operations center and kicking off last year against Alabama A&M I think it eliminated a lot of doubt. We were recruiting and signing kids, we had uniforms and everything we are playing but until we played, I think a lot of people were like are you really? I still today get some fans saying are we really building this stadium? Yeah, it's happening.

AL: What has the process been like to get this downtown stadium done? How important is it to UAB and Birmingham?

MI: Dr. Watts is on record saying it's the most transformational project in Birmingham in as long as he can remember. When you look at other cities like Nashville, Louisville, Memphis and at one point were very similar to us in size, they've done projects like this -- like Regions Field -- that stimulated the economy in the downtown area and revitalized the downtown area which is important to any city. This is another big step of that.

Yes, it's great for UAB football therefore it's great for UAB and therefore it's great for Birmingham.

AL: How much time do you spend thinking about the C-USA TV rights situation? How would you assess the health of the conference?

MI: The conference is growing financially which is good. I think all the teams in the league have become more competitive. We are best at baseball as a league, top-to-bottom. Men's golf and women's golf is really successful. Tennis is pretty strong. And, of course, football and basketball is what people see and know best.

Look at the quality of the coaches hired (in football and basketball) over the last 3-5 years, it's a really strong group. When you go in the room with all the coaches, these guys are smart, experienced and capable of winning. It's become more competitive than ever. I'd say the health of the conference is outstanding.

AL: As an AD of an opposing school when you see a guy like Lane Kiffin generating attention, is there an aspect of this guy is doing a really good job getting attention at a CUSA school and that's good for all of us?

MI: I'll give credit to the guy who hired him, Pat Chun, who is now the AD at Washington State. Pat and I are good friends and when we were trying to reinstitute football here, Pat said on multiple occasions at our meetings when UAB comes back, it's good for all of us if they are competitive. It's not good for us for UAB to come back and not be competitive. That's a guy looking out for the conference and not just himself.

Having a healthy conference is good. I appreciate that Lane has done a terrific job and calling them competitive is probably an understatement. He's a tremendous motivator of young men and he's a really smart coach. He's also right down the road from Butch Davis who has a national championship with the Hurricanes and coached with the Cleveland Browns. Of course, Coach Clark has won multiple championships.

AL: We are in August. What's the top remaining priority for you in 2018?

MI: We are planning on the football stadium starting so that will be big. Even though that's not a UAB project, I appreciate being involved in the project and am grateful for the BJCC to be at the table and discuss the plans. To start a project like that, it says to all other sports teams that athletics matters at this university.

We'll finish the soccer stadium, we'll finish our track and finish our beach volleyball courts that will happen in December. I've got an exciting announcement once we get through the first football game that's relative to Bartow Arena and our fans.

It's important to football team that our fans don't think last year was a one-time event. It's important that our fans see this season just as important as last season. Showing up matters. Make sure our staff, our facility and our students know that showing up this year is just as important as the return year. We are here to stay. We didn't do all this to play one season; we did it to play one season and build off it every year. I think most people get it but you can't ever stop saying that and promoting that.

We are still very focused on making every team successful. We want to win a championship in everything and at UAB I think we are capable of that. We've got a big enough city and are in a state where athletics is an important priority to people at the youth level, at the middle school level, at the high school level so there is a lot of talent within our state borders. We have great weather, we have a great city and we have this fantastic academic institution so we really have all these things available to us if we play catch up and fix some facility issues. Our success is limitless.

John Talty is the sports editor at Alabama Media Group. You can follow him on Twitter @JTalty.