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Eastern's offensive coordinator headed to Louisiana
CHARLESTON – For the second straight year Eastern Illinois is losing its offensive coordinator to the next level of college football.
Jorge Munoz has accepted a position as quarterbacks coach and passing coordinator at Louisiana-Lafayette, an NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision program.
“It’s a Division I opportunity and about double the salary so it’s kind of hard to say no to that,” said Munoz, who helped Eastern to the playoffs the past season in the Football Championship Subdivision, known previously as Division I-AA where the Panthers also qualified in the previous two years.
Munoz was promoted to Eastern’s offensive coordinator last spring in his third year on coach Bob Spoo’s staff after line coach and offensive coordinator Mark Hutson went to Tulane.
Even when Hutson was Eastern’s offensive coordinator, Munoz did the play-calling for the 2006 playoff team.
Munoz also is to call the plays in similar situation for coach Rickey Bustle’s University of Louisiana team that was 3-9 last season.
That helped bring Munoz to Lafayette, where the offensive line coach is Ron Hudson who was on the same staff as Munoz at Southeast Missouri in 1999-2000.
<center><p><a href="http://www.jg-tc.com/articles/2008/01/15/sports/doc478d912644ab8707294879.txt" target="_blank">The rest of the story</a>
BY BRIAN NIELSEN Sports Editor
bnielsen@jg-tc.com
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“We kept in touch,” Munoz said. “He called me and at first I wasn’t interested when it was just the quarterbacks job. When they added passing coordinator and play-caller I had to look at it.”
Still, Munoz has mixed emotions leaving Eastern.
“It’s a hard place to leave,” he said. “Coach Spoo is a phenomenal man and really helped my career. I came as a receivers coach and moved up every year. I owe a lot to him.
“It was a great, great time. I won’t forget about this place for a long time. It was a place with the opportunity to be successful every year. It was hard to leave but the financial situation for family was hard to turn down.”
This is the second off-season coaching change for the Panthers.
Shannon Jackson left after three years as EIU’s defensive line coach to become the defensive coordinator at his alma mater Indiana State.
To fill that void Spoo has promoted defensive assistant Forrest Jackson to linebackers coach with defensive coordinator Roc Bellantoni now to coach the D-line instead of linebackers. Former EIU defensive back Chad Cleveland has moved into Forrest Jackson’s previous spot on the staff.
Contact Brian Nielsen at
bnielsen@jg-tc.com or 238-6856.
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