Bowling Green hires Texas Tech’s Mike Jinks to succeed Dino Babers

Mike Jenks, who led Steele to a state championship in 2010, was associate head coach at Texas Tech.

Jinks, a long-time high school coach in Texas before being brought on as the Red Raiders’ running backs coach in 2013, was elevated to associate head coach status for 2015 and now has his first head coaching job at the collegiate level.

Bowling Green (10-3) won the MAC title this season and plays Georgia Southern in the GoDaddy Bowl on December 23. He’s a quality guy. He has great leadership qualities and people skills. “I think that’s a real key for a head coach”. “Even back then, he was a guy that people gravitated toward”. “Genuinely good man and players love him”.

Jinks already has one member of his BG staff locked up as Perry Eliano will move from Texas-San Antonio to serve as defensive coordinator. Jinks coached at Ellison for two years until returning Judson in 1997 as an assistant under Rutledge.

Sean Lewis has changed his twitter profile to indicate he is now a coach for the Orange, while the Syracuse Post-Standard reports that Kim McCloud, Mike Lynch, Tom Kaufman, and Nick Monroe already are contacting recruits on behalf of Syracuse.

The Lubbock Avalanche-Journal reported that Jinks had a salary of $240,000 this year at Texas Tech. Prior Falcons head coach Dino Babers left Bowling Green to take the same position at Syracuse and was introduced Monday. Babers had a base salary of $400,000 at BG with incentives that maxed out at $182,500.

The former quarterback at Angelo State University was an assistant coach at two different high schools before taking his first offensive coordinator job at David Crockett High School.