GRAND FORKS, N.D. -- University of North Dakota football
coach Dale Lennon is reported to be leaving for Southern Illinois.
Lennon will be named head coach at Southern Illinois on Friday,
the Grand Forks Herald said on its Web site Thursday, citing
sources it did not name.
Calls to Lennon's home and office and to Southern Illinois were
not immediately returned.
Southern Illinois is a Division I Football Championship
Subdivision program and a member of the Gateway Football
Conference.
Lennon has 90 career wins at UND, tying him with Roger Thomas
for the most in school history. He became the Sioux head coach in
1999, after two years as head coach at the University of Mary in
Bismarck.
He led the Sioux to one NCAA Division II national title in 2001,
a national runner-up finish and five North Central Conference
championships since taking over in 1999. His national title team
had 12 academic all-NCC selections.
Lennon is a native of Knox, a small town in north central North
Dakota. He spent more than two decades at UND as a player,
assistant and head coach. He graduated from UND in 1985.
UND, which is moving from NCAA Division II to Division I,
finished 10-2 this season, advancing to the second round of the
NCAA Division II playoffs.
Southern Illinois is looking for a successor to Jerry Kill, who
left earlier this month for Northern Illinois. In Kill's seven
seasons in Carbondale, the Salukis went 56-32, won three straight
Gateway Conference titles made five consecutive postseason
appearances, including a run to the FCS semifinals that ended in a
20-17 loss Dec. 8 to Delaware.