Mike Jacobs knows the state of Ohio, played his college ball at the state's flagship program, Ohio State, and honed his coaching career there.
Now that he's got his first head-coaching opportunity at the Football Bowls Subdivision, taking over at Toledo following Jason Candle's departure to UConn, Jacobs is poised to bring more Ohio roots to the Rockets program.
Multiple sources tell FootballScoop that Jacobs is working to finalize a deal to hire Cris Reisert, the second-year head coach at Football Championship Subdivision program Gardner-Webb, as Toledo's next offensive coordinator.
In Year 2 atop the Gardner-Webb program, Reisert guided the Runnin' Bulldogs to an 7-5 mark and just missed wedging into a first-place tie in the Big South-OVC alliance with a 5-3 mark in league games.
Reisert has deep roots in Ohio, starring at quarterback for the Ohio Dominican program where he twice earned NAIA All-America honors and also was named the NAIA 2007 National Player of the Year. Ohio Dominican inducted him into the school's hall of fame in 2019.
A Cincinnati, Ohio, native, Reisert climbed the coaching ranks to earn his first head-coaching post in, naturally, the state of Ohio. He took over the Tiffin Dragons and quickly became etching his name into the school's coaching record books.
Named an AFCA 35 under 35 honoree during his Tiffin tenure, Reisert guided the program to an 40-11 mark in five seasons at the helm.
Jacobs played his college football at Ohio State University, where his father also served as an assistant coach. Already a 93-game winner from his stints atop the programs at Notre Dame College (Ohio) and Lenoir-Rhyne (North Carolina) before his two years at Mercer generated 20 wins and consecutive NCAA FCS Playoff appearances, Jacobs takes over at a Toledo program scarcely 10 miles from his hometown of Maumee, Ohio.