Report: Temple poised to hire NIU's Rod Carey
DeKALB - The Philadelphia Inquirer's Marc Narducci is reporting that Temple University plans to hire Northern Illinois' Rod Carey to be its next football coach.
According to the report, the deal with Carey is about 90 percent complete as of Thursday night, and Temple expects to make the announcement today.
Carey is 52-30 (.643 winning percentage) as the head coach of the Huskies. He won two Mid-American Conference championships, made the MAC title game four times and posted a bowl record of 0-6. He coached the fourth-most games in program history (82) and his 52 wins rank fourth in program history.
Messages left to both the NIU athletics department and Carey went unreturned. On Wednesday, the athletic department said it doesn't "comment on other team's searches."
Carey's 52 wins make him the second-winningest active MAC coach behind Ohio's Frank Solich. Carey is 38-10 in MAC games.
Under his most recent contract extension, NIU will be owed an $800,000 buyout. Temple is receiving a combined $6.5 million from two separate buyouts occurring within the last month.
The base salary in Carey's contract is $533,460. Clauses in Carey's contract allowed bonuses for ticket sales (revenue from 15 percent of ticket sales over 4,000) and quarterly installments of $25,000 for donor engagement. Carey previously had a retention bonus in his contract that also paid him $100,000 a year for the calendar years 2015 through 2017. Other bonuses include an automatic one-year extension for winning or making the 2018 MAC title game and $25,000 for bowl game appearances.
The Temple University head coaching job came open Dec. 7 when Geoff Collins departed the program to become the coach at Georgia Tech.
Temple proceeded to hire Miami Hurricanes defensive coordinator Manny Diaz on Dec. 12, only for Diaz to return to Miami after the sudden retirement of two-year Hurricanes head coach Mark Richton Dec. 30.
Temple athletic director Pat Kraft, as did Carey, played football and earned an undergraduate degree from the University of Indiana. Carey graduated from Indiana in 1993. Kraft earned his undergraduate degree from Indiana in 2000, and he also played football for the Hoosiers.
The expected change will mark the first time Carey has coached out of the Midwest. Carey's previous collegiate coaching stops included Minnesota as a graduate assistant (1998-99), Wisconsin-Stout (2000 to 2006), Illinois State (2007), North Dakota (2008 to 2010) and NIU (2011 to 2019).
Carey became the coach before NIU's appearance in the 2012 season's Orange Bowl against Florida State, after Dave Doeren went to North Carolina State.
Carey began the 2011 season as the offensive line coach and took over as offensive coordinator in 2012. He assumed head coaching duties the day NIU's Orange Bowl berth was announced Dec. 2, 2012.
Carey's teams have posted records, in order, of 12-2, 11-3, 8-6, 5-7, 8-5 and 8-6.