Bowling Green struck gold in the early 2000s when it hired a young position coach with big offensive ideas.
Urban Meyer has since moved onto greener pastures, but the Falcons are once again on the rise thanks to Art Briles' protege, Dino Babers.
From FoxSports.com:
For now, though, his stuff is looking like it's going to be a very hot commodity this winter. The Illinois head coaching job is already open and there could be as many as four if not five coaching vacancies in the Big Ten alone in 2015. Babers, with his prolific offense, figures to be among the candidates looked at.
Saturday's win over Maryland was Babers' second victory over a Big Ten program since coming to Bowling Green. (BG beat Indiana, 45-42 in 2014.) "This was a win over a Big Ten team that just went to a bowl game last year," Babers said. "This is big."
Babers' QB, Matt Johnson, leads the nation in passing, throwing for 458 yards per game to go with an 8-1 TD-INT ratio. He returned from suffering a season-ending hip injury in the 2014 opener last year, and he torched the Vols' secondary for 424 yards.
Babers worked similar wonders at Eastern Illinois, where Jimmy Garoppolo became the FCS Player of the Year before being drafted by the New England Patriots.
Babers also doesn't seem to understand the NFL skepticism of Baylor's Bryce Petty:
"My first thought was, 'They [the NFL] don't understand,'" Babers said. "They get paid millions and millions of dollars and can't teach these kids that stuff? They want us to teach to 'em? Let me take my stuff up there."
Natural born winners win wherever they are. It's pretty clear Illinois could do a lot worse than plucking Babers from Bowling Green, but that's probably what they'll do.
