Bowling Green coach joins NU football staff

Pat Fitzgerald's recruiting duties this winter haven't been limited to finding top high school players.

The 33-year-old football coach for Northwestern needed to replace both of his coordinators and, now, a position coach. Fitzgerald has landed his first "commitment" in Bowling Green offensive coordinator Mick McCall, who will take the same position at Northwestern.

A source close to the NU program confirmed McCall's hiring, which was first reported Thursday by sportingnews.com. McCall, 50, replaces Garrick McGee, who left last month to become quarterbacks coach at Arkansas.

Neither Northwestern nor Bowling Green could officially confirm McCall's hiring, but McCall told The Toledo Blade, "(Bowling Green) is a hard place to leave because there's great people here. It's been more difficult than I thought it would be."

Fitzgerald still must hire a defensive coordinator after firing Greg Colby on Dec. 3. NU also must replace defensive line coach Eric Washington, who has resigned after four seasons, a school official confirmed Friday.

The Los Angeles Daily News reported that Fitzgerald met with UCLA linebackers coach Chuck Bullough this week at the coaches convention, but Bullough said they did not discuss the defensive coordinator job.

McCall has extensive experience as a college assistant but only one season as an offensive coordinator. He was promoted to the position after four seasons as Bowling Green's quarterbacks coach, during which he tutored standout signal callers Omar Jacobs and Josh Harris.

In 2004, Jacobs led the nation in touchdown passes (41) and set an NCAA record for touchdown-to-interception ratio (41-4).

Last season, Bowling Green finished 53rd nationally in total offense (402.5 ypg), 46th in scoring (30.2 ppg) and 24th in passing (278.9 ypg). The Falcons went 8-4 but were pounded 63-7 by Tulsa in the GMAC Bowl last Saturday.

Bowling Green's spread offense, installed by former coach Urban Meyer, uses four and five wide receivers and has some similarities with NU's spread. Falcons head coach Gregg Brandon coached wide receivers at Northwestern while Fitzgerald played in the mid-1990s.

McCall served as an assistant at Southern Colorado, Idaho State and Oregon State before a successful run as head coach of Mullen High School in Denver. He returned to the college ranks in 2001 as an assistant at Wyoming before joining Bowling Green.