College Football: Uremovich leaving St. Francis for post at NIU
From Submitted REports January 28, 2012 5:42PM
Uremovich | File photo
Updated: March 1, 2012 8:30AM
Mike Uremovich is headed north.
More to the point, northern, as in Northern Illinois University.
The seven-year head coach of the University of St. Francis announced Friday he has accepted a position as the special-teams coordinator at NIU.
“It has always been a dream of mine to go back to NIU and I am thankful to (NIU coach) Dave Doeren for this opportunity,” said Uremovich, who served as a graduate assistant in the Huskies program in 2001 and ’02. “Dave is a great coach, runs a great program from top to bottom and has a tremendous staff.”
Uremovich begins his new job on Wednesday. St. Francis assistant head coach and defensive coordinator Joe Curry will serve as the interim head coach until a new coach is named. The search process will begin immediately.
“I can’t say that this came as a surprise,” St. Francis director of athletics Dave Laketa. “It did in the sense that it came (Friday), but I knew that Mike was going to walk in my office sooner rather than later. He was too good of a coach not to have opportunities at bigger schools.”
“Just as I was excited to hire him as our coach seven years ago, I am equally excited for him, his wife, Katie, and his three children now.”
Uremovich took over the Saints’ program in 2005 at age 28, becoming its third head coach.
In 2011, Uremovich guided the Saints to their most successful season in the 26-year history of the program. Not only did St. Francis win a school-record 10 games, including its first victory over an NCAA I Football Championship Series (FCS) team in Georgia State University, but the Saints also advanced to the NAIA FCS for the first time since the program’s second season. There, the Saints got their first playoff victory, 21-17 over Morningside College (Iowa). The Saints fell to No. 1 Marian (Ind.) 49-7 in the quarterfinals.
USF also earned its first conference title in 2011 sharing Mid-States Football Association-Midwest League honors with Grand View (Iowa).
St. Francis finished the 2011 season ranked No. 8 in the NAIA Football Coaches’ Postseason Top 25 Poll.
Uremovich went 27-19 over the past four seasons. Overall, he was 33-45.
“I want to thank the entire USF community and especially our student-athletes for the past seven years,” Uremovich said. “Together we have turned around the football program and put it in a position to compete for a national championship year in and year out.
“As proud as I am of the wins, I am more proud of the progress that we have made in the classroom and in the community. We have built a model program that everyone associated with this great university can be proud of.”
