The first serious shot at a head college football coach who went 20-2 the last two years was apparently fired by Northern Illinois University. The school may be pursuing North Dakota State's Craig Bohl.
He met with NIU athletic director Jim Phillips in Chi-cago this week, according to the Chicago Tribune newspa-per.
Bohl, who is coming off his second straight 10-1 year, does not comment on any matter relating to future job oppor-tunities. NDSU athletic direc-tor Gene Taylor said Thurs-day night he had not been contacted by any school in-quiring about Bohl.
Northern Illinois is a mem-ber of the Mid-American Conference - the same league that NDSU is 2-0 against the last two years. The Bison defeated Central Michigan 44-14 this year and Ball State (Ind.) 29-24 last season.
The MAC, however, is a Football Bowl Subdivision (formerly Division I-A) league - which is one rung higher than NDSU's Football Cham-pionship Subdivision (for-merly 1-AA).
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NIU is looking for a re-placement for Joe Novak, who retired after the Huskies went 2-10. He spent 12 years with Northern Illinois and com-piled a 63-75 record.
His team won or shared the MAC West Division title four times and the Huskies made two bowl appearances.
The Huskies had seven straight winning seasons from 2000-2006.
The Tribune reported sev-eral candidates may be in line for the job including Southern Illinois head coach Jerry Kill and Grand Valley State (Mich.) head coach Chuck Martin.
Bohl meets with Northern Illinois AD Jeff Kolpack 20071206
