Dan McCarney - Leading Candidate?

The Dekalb Daily Chronicle reports that Dan McCarney is the top candidate to fulfill the duties as head football coach at NIU.

He would be an interesting choice. If you look at his career, it's almost the same thing that Novak did. He coached for 12 years at Iowa State and brought that program from nothing to some respectability in the Big 12 going to 5 bowl games in his tenure. He turned 54 in July, so his age is getting up there. Novak was 62 when he retired this year. His overall record at ISU was 56-85, which is not impressive at all. Except he also had to deal with the Big 12's lowest budget and of course being in the middle of nowhere in Ames, IA.

The last part of this article is really interesting:

A sticking point could be the salary figures. Novak lost 35 assistant coaches in his 12-year tenure. Several former NIU assistants took jobs at BCS schools with coaches on the firing block because of the jump in salary.

A source indicated the new assistant coaches would earn a combined $1 million in annual salary to make the assistant positions more attractive and promote stability.

Phillips is searching for a candidate with head coaching experience, which would rule out former NIU assistant and Stanford defensive coordinator Scott Shafer.

According to another source, North Dakota State Athletic Director Gene Taylor has not been contacted by Northern Illinois for permission to talk with Craig Bohl.

OK.

So more $$ for assistants. All right. It's nice our budget is increasing. Assistant coaches have been such an integral part of the Novak regime here at NIU.

No coordinators (just like the search for NIU head basketball coach Ricardo Patton) as candidates. I like that idea.

We haven't interviewed Craig Bohl yet? Interesting, since his team isn't even currently in a playoff (NDSU's transition from D-II to FCS made them ineligible).

Personally, I like Grand Valley State's coach Chuck Martin. Craig Bohl to me sounds like a guy that would bolt to a BCS school the first chance he got. I mean, he did beat the crap out of CMU, who were MAC champs.

EDIT: I also found this little tidbit on the NDSU Bison Media Blog that Dan McCarney may already have the job! He says that he is planned to meet with President John Peters. Unbelievable news if true. Just rumors though.