Bowling Green fired head coach Mike Jinks on Sunday, one day after the Eagles fell to 1-6 on the season. Hopefully, they don't Google potential candidates this time.
"With Bowling Green fresh off a Mid-American Conference title powered by one of the country’s highest-flying offenses, then-AD Chris Kingston wanted to keep a good thing going," wrote David Briggs of the Toledo Blade. So he Googled which team had the best offense that year, noted it was Texas Tech, and essentially targeted the top Red Raiders assistant he could afford."
Shockingly, that didn't work, and, shockingly, Kingston is no longer an athletics director. And now Bowling Green needs a new head coach.
Here are five (purely speculative) potential candidates to replace Mike Jinks as head coach.
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Mike Denbrock
Current Position: Offensive Coordinator – Cincinnati
Mike Denbrock, 54, is in his second season as Cincinnati offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach. He has significant experience at programs like Notre Dame, Washington and Stanford, and has done a great job with the Bearcats offense this year.
Denbrock has almost certainly fielded head-coaching interviews requests and offers, so it's worth wondering if he'd want a difficult job like Bowling Green when, if Cincinnati keeps building under Luke Fickell, he could be in line for another Power Five coordinator job soon.
Also, don't be surprised if Bearcats' defensive coordinator Marcus Freeman emerges as a candidate.
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Mike Lynch
Current Position: Offensive Coordinator – Syracuse
Bowling Green's offense was electrifying and the biggest reason Syracuse poached head coach Dino Babers. One of Babers' key assistants was Mike Lynch, running backs coach in 2014 and co-offensive coordinator in 2015, who joined him at Syracuse.
Lynch has no head-coaching experience, but he's recruited the area extensively and would run a similar system to the one that produced 42 points per game and 10 wins in 2015. It'd be surprising if Lynch isn't interviewed.
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Jeff Genyk
Current Position: Special Teams Coach – Northwestern
Jeff Genyk played (sparingly) at Bowling Green in the late 1970s and early 1980s and was a longtime Northwestern assistant (1994-2003) before becoming Eastern Michigan head coach in 2004. He breathed some life into the program but was fired after 16 wins in five seasons and has floated around the FBS since.
Now back at Northwestern (for the second time since leaving EMU), Genyk, 58, has spent much of his career in the midwest and would be a logical fit.
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Bo Pelini
Current Position: Head Coach – Youngstown State
Carl Pelini is the interim head coach and could get an interview for the permanent job, but what about his brother, Bo Pelini?
Once one of the most sought-after assistants in the country, Pelini averaged 9.4 wins over seven seasons at Nebraska before a 2014 dismissal led him to Youngstown State. After 12 wins and a loss in the FCS Championship, the Penguins have underwhelmed the last two years. Still, Pelini has extensive experience, knows the area very well and might be interested in a return to the FBS.
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Randy Sanders
Current Position: Head Coach – East Tennessee State
Riley Sanders is a former Tennessee quarterback who spent the first 17 years of his coaching career at his alma mater before coordinator stints at Kentucky and Florida State. He didn't follow Jimbo Fisher to Texas A&M and took the East Tennessee State job, the 50-year-old's first head-coaching job.
At 6-1, he has the Bucs in position for their first season with more than seven wins since 1996. It's never smart to bet on a head coach leaving after one year, but might Sanders want an FBS shot?
