Carl Pelini is going home.
Well, he already was home. But now he's going even more home than he already was.
Pelini joined big brother Bo's staff at Youngstown State in 2015 and, with Bo off to LSU and Doug Phillips now in place as the Penguins' head coach, Carl has been named the head coach at Cardinal Mooney High School in Youngstown.
Cardinal Mooney plays its home games at YSU's Stambaugh Stadium.
This will represent Pelini's third stint in Cardinal Mooney colors. He attended the school in the late 1970s and early 80s, then began his coaching career as an assistant in 1987-88 while attending Youngstown State. Pelini left to join Bill Snyder's Kansas State staff as a graduate assistant in 1989, but spent most of the next decade-plus at the high school level before joining Bo's Nebraska staff as a GA in 2003. He had remained at the college level until now.
Pelini will have his work cut out for him replicating the success of PJ Fecko, who will continue teaching at the school.
Fecko went 159-80 as the Cardinals' head coach, including four state titles (most recently in 2011) and three runner-up finishes.
“PJ Fecko dedicated his heart to this program, and we will always take great pride in what he accomplished,” Cardinal Mooney Thomas Maj said. “We thank him for his service to our school. With our storied history and devoted alumni base, we are ready to begin the next chapter in our school’s history.”
Pelini went 18-32 as the head coach at Winnetonka High School in Kansas from 1995-99, 12-18 at Austintown Fitch in Ohio from 2000-02, 5-15 in a season and a half at Florida Atlantic in 2012-13 and, most recently, 2-3 as the interim head coach at Bowling Green in 2018.
As always, stay tuned to The Scoop for the latest.