In the past few days, coach Pat Fitzgerald has filled vacancies at offensive and defensive coordinator left by the departures of Garrick McGee and Greg Colby, according to various media reports.
Mick McCall will take over as Northwestern’s offensive coordinator, leaving the same post at Bowling Green, according to sportingnews.com. A few days after Fitzgerald lured McCall to Evanston, he secured the services of defensive coordinator Mike Hankwitz, multiple media outlets reported Jan. 14. Hankwitz was recently fired from that position at Wisconsin.
NU has issued no official comment on the hirings.
The new coordinators have vastly different levels of experience at the college level.
Hankwitz started his coaching career as a graduate assistant at Michigan under the legendary Bo Schembechler in 1970. He has filled several positions since then, including defensive coordinator posts at Western Michigan, Colorado (twice), Kansas, Texas A&M, Arizona, and Wisconsin.
His biggest accomplishments include winning a national title with Colorado in 1990 and leading three top-10 defenses at Texas A&M between 1997-2002. In his first season with the Badgers in 2006, his defense finished second in the nation in scoring defense and fifth in total defense.
The unit fell to 39th in the nation in total defense last season. During Colby’s six seasons in Evanston, the Wildcats’ defense never finished better than 68th in total defense and were last in 2005.
On the other side of the experience spectrum, McCall is coming off his first season as an offensive coordinator after spending the previous four seasons at Bowling Green as quarterbacks coach.
The Falcons offense was ranked 53rd in the country this season but scored only seven points in a big loss to Tulsa in the GMAC Bowl.
McCall is familiar with the spread offense NU runs, having used a spread system at Bowling Green. He also has experience developing quarterbacks, as he worked with All-Americans Josh Harris and Omar Jacobs during his tenure with the Falcons.
The new offensive coordinator’s biggest challenge could be figuring out how to effectively use running back Tyrell Sutton, whose rushing yards have declined each of the past two seasons. Under McCall, Bowling Green’s offense ranked 96th nationally in rushing offense, one spot ahead of NU.
With these two positions filled, the Cats still have one vacancy remaining on their coaching staff after defensive line coach Eric Washington agreed to take the same position with the Chicago Bears, according to a report in the Chicago Sun-Times. Washington spent four seasons with NU, during which he coached current San Diego Chargers lineman Luis Castillo.
Reach Andrew Simon at [email protected]
