Giants could be in danger of losing key assistant coach
The New York Giants could be in danger of losing a key assistant coach thanks to a mid-summer college football controversy. On Monday, Northwestern fired longtime head coach Pat Fitzgerald due to a bombshell report from The Daily Northwestern about alleged hazing that happened under his watch. Fitzgerald denies knowledge of the hazing. On Tuesday […]
The New York Giants could be in danger of losing a key assistant coach thanks to a mid-summer college football controversy.
On Monday, Northwestern fired longtime head coach Pat Fitzgerald due to a bombshell report from The Daily Northwestern about alleged hazing that happened under his watch.
Fitzgerald denies knowledge of the hazing.
On Tuesday morning, The Athletic's Bruce Feldman, one of the more well-connected college football reporters in the business, put out a list of candidates that could replace Fitzgerald at Northwestern.
Giants offensive coordinator Mike Kafka was among the candidates the Feldman listed.
Kafka played at Northwestern from 2005 to 2009. He later served as a graduate assistant at his alma mater in 2016.
From The Athletic: The dream candidate for the school probably would be Kafka, a 35-year-old former Wildcat QB who grew up in Chicago and has risen fast up the NFLranks. Northwestern has been terrible on offense for awhile; Kafka seems like he could fix that pretty quickly, but he’s not far from becoming an NFL head coach at this point. He interviewed for a bunch of jobs last winter, so why jump into the craziness of the college game at a place that just canned someone he learned under?
College coaching searches in July are unusual. Northwestern could choose to go with an interim head coach in 2023 and then go through a full-blown coaching search after the season when there will be a deeper pool of candidates.
Kafka, however, is one of the few longterm options that could be interested in the job. Kafka is a Chicago native and his close ties to Northwestern could be enough to convince him to leave the NFL. Then again, if Kafka and the Giants can continue to find offensive success, the New York offensive coordinator could be in line for an NFL head coaching job in the near-future.
Outside of the fact that Kafka played at Northwestern, I'm not sure why he'd want to take that job. Coaching at the collegiate level has become a significantly more complex job than an NFL head coaching job. That's thanks mostly to the new era of NIL deals and the NCAA transfer portal (college coaches essentially never stop recruiting their players now — even after they sign).
My gut says Kafka stays put in the NFL (Kafka hasn't coached at the collegiate level since he was a graduate assistant at Northwestern in 2016). But I wouldn't be surprised if Northwestern comes hard after Kafka. And a head coaching job (and the salary that comes with it) is always hard to pass up.
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Featured image via Danielle Parhizkaran/NorthJersey.com / USA TODAY NETWORK
