Johns returns to NU from Richmond, where the he coached the Spiders wide receivers. He suggested to WNUR that he'd rather be coaching in the Motor City Bowl rather than sitting around Richmond since the Spiders were only 2-9 last season.

He's familiar with the NU offense and has worked with OC Mike Dunbar and the Wildcat running game before, but "What I don't know is Mike Dunbar's passing offense, and that has been the most difficult thing to pick up" [to WNUR]

He says he's spent a lot of time in the film room with Dunbar learning the system's language. What he didn't need to do was learn his running back's names...Jason Wright and Noah Herron are familiar figures in the backfield and -- "know what they're doing anyhow, so I try not to mess them up anyhow."

His main goal right now is to get his players - the running backs - playing hard.

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At Las Vegas his charges averaged 11.3 yards a catch on 187 catches. The team finished with 2100+ yards for the season. His top WR averaged 13.9 yards per catch, his #2 10.9. The Rebel's top rusher also averaged 5.6 ypc on receiving.

Garrick McGee is widely considered to be one of the brightest young men in coaching,” UNLV head coach John Robinson said when he was hired away from Toledo last year.

But he's excited about joining a Big 10 team, and Coach Randy Walker. He told WNUR, "I feel like the luckiest man in the world right now"

McGee likes the fact that he knows all of the NU coaches and that his new position has been well defined by Walker and Dunbar, but then he's coached at the NU camp for the last 8 years. His biggest challenge?

The toughest part is their names -- I've got so many guys -- I've got 16 receivers and the toughest part is knowing their names and this guy plays Z and this guy plays X...I pretty much know the system...most of its the same that we ran at Northern Iowa [Dunbar's last team] [McGee to WNUR]

Before joining Toledo, McGee spent two seasons as offensive quality control coach with the NFL’s Jacksonville Jaguars. He headed to the pro ranks after coaching the receivers at Northern Iowa [with OC Mike Dunbar] in 1999. He began his coaching career at Langston (Okla.) University, where he spent three years (1996-98) coaching defensive backs and then quarterbacks, receivers and special teams.

He also knows his way around a winning program -- as the OU Quarterback he was 4th on the Sooner's career passing list when he finished there. His dad is also a High School coach in Tulsa.

He wants his players to play with every ounce of effort possible, but the best quote from the interview was - I don't feel like an outsider

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Washington [below] would be leaving a team that is a bit of disarray -- Ohio just fired their Offensive Coordinator, but his defensive team averaged 3.7 yards per rush this year, and had 26 sacks. His leading tacklers tended to be his DEs -- through 8 games they had 66 unassisted tackles with 15 total tackles for a loss, with 18 sacks coming from his defensive ends.

He would come to NU after coaching at Ohio U for 3 years, preceeded by the position of Defensive Coordinator at the Naval Academy Prep School. He's been a Navy officer, a grad assistant at Texas A&M, and has worked at 4 different high schools, mainly in Texas and Louisiana.

-- da Coach

You can hear the interviews from WNUR's Anuj Vedak with Coaches Kevin Johns and Garick McGee here...