Calbears.com: Tedford Hires Northwestern Offensive Coordinator

Mike Dunbar to assume coaching duties immediately

Feb. 2, 2006

BERKELEY -- University of California head football coach Jeff Tedford has announced the hiring of Mike Dunbar as the Golden Bears' offensive coordinator. Dunbar, who has served on the football staff at Northwestern for the past five years, will assume his duties immediately. "I have always been impressed with the Northwestern offense," Tedford said of the hire, "and I know Mike Dunbar is a quality person. I'm excited about what he brings to the program."  Dunbar was the offensive coordinator at Northwestern for the past four years after serving as the Wildcats' tight ends, H-backs and special teams coach in 2001.  "I am excited about the opportunity," Dunbar said, " and I'm excited about the positive direction Cal football is heading. I'm glad to be a part of it."  Under Dunbar's direction, Northwestern had one of the nation's most potent offensive attacks in 2005. The Wildcats were fourth in the country with an average of 500.3 yards of offense per game. They led the Big Ten in that category and became just the second team in the history of that league to average 500 yards per game. Dunbar also tutored one of the most productive quarterbacks in the history of the conference as Brett Basanez set 30 Northwestern records and finished second in Big Ten history to Drew Brees in career passing yards (10,580), total offense (11,576) and completions (936).

Before he arrived in Evanston, Dunbar had a 29-15 record as head coach at Northern Iowa. Including six seasons as head coach at NAIA Central Washington (54-9-1), Dunbar's career record is 83 24-1. While at CWU, he extended a regular-season winning streak to 40 games, earned six postseason appearances, perennial top-20 rankings, and was honored as the Kodak's Region I coach of the year three times.  Dunbar has also served as offensive coordinator at Toledo and was on that staff in 1995 when the Rockets were 11-0-1 and set 21 schools records on offense. He is a graduate of the University of Washington (1972) and earned a masters of arts from Pacific Lutheran. He and his wife, Linda, have two adult children.