With Scot Loeffler now a Philadelphia Eagle and the month of March upon us, Bowling Green is wasting no time as it works to fill its 11th-hour head coaching opening.
Sources told FootballScoop on Friday that Mercer head coach Mike Jacobs is a candidate for the position. Other candidates could emerge as the search progresses.
In his first season leading the Bears, Jacobs went 11-3, won the Southern Conference and took the program to the FCS quarterfinals, the furthest the program has advanced since reviving football in 2013.
Prior to Mercer, Jacobs went 42-8 from 2016-19 at Notre Dame (Ohio) with a Division II semifinal berth and one trip to the D2 quarters, and 32-9 in four seasons at Lenoir-Rhyne, including another Division II semifinal trip. Overall, Jacobs boasts an 85-20 record in nine seasons as a head coach. His teams have won four conference championships and three division titles in that span.
But Jacobs is more than just a successful lower-division head coach, he's a successful college head coach with deep Ohio ties.
A native of Maumee, Ohio, located 25 miles north of Bowling Green, Jacobs played offensive line for John Cooper and Jim Tressel at Ohio State. He then started his coaching career as Eastern Michigan's offensive line coach in 2002, and spent three seasons coaching the position at Purdue from 2005-07. He joined Notre Dame College's staff as defensive line coach in 2014, was promoted to defensive coordinator a year later, and then to head coach a year after that.
The entire Jacobs family runs deep in Ohio football: his grandfather, Bill, was elected to the Ohio High School Hall of Fame after a nearly-50-year-career coaching in the prep ranks. His father, Mike Jacobs Sr., served on the Ohio State coaching staff for a half-decade under Cooper.
Though it took a while to get there, the 6-year Loeffler era ended on a successful note for Bowling Green. The Falcons went 7-22 in his first three seasons, then 20-19 in his final three, with three bowl appearances and a 16-8 record in MAC play. Bowling Green had not been to a bowl game since 2015 when Loeffler took them to the Quick Lane Bowl in 2022.
If Jacobs is the hire, it would further a trend of MAC schools leaning on lower-level experience to fill its head coaching position. Seven of the league's 12 current head coaches had prior head-coaching experience when they got the job, including three of the four hires thus far in the 2024-25 cycle: Matt Drinkall (Central Michigan), Joe Harasmyiak (Buffalo) and Mike Uremovich (Ball State).
As always, stay tuned to The Scoop for the latest.
