A day after Jay Hill told the Standard-Examiner he wanted to have an offensive coordinator in place by next week, the decision may have been made.

Weber State football is set to hire Mickey Mental, head coach of Division II’s Notre Dame College, as its offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach, according to reports from Pete Thamel of ESPN and Chris Vannini of The Athletic.

Mental, 35, was head coach at Notre Dame College (South Euclid, Ohio) the past two seasons, going 16-2 and winning the Mountain East Conference both seasons. He has been the offensive coordinator for the Falcons for seven seasons.

Notre Dame College scored 36.9 points per game over those seven years, including 42.5 points per game over the last three seasons. In those three seasons, the Falcons averaged 457 yards of offense per game. In the fall of 2021, they averaged 200 rushing yards and 251 passing per game; in the spring of 2021, they averaged 300 rushing yards and 193 passing per game.

“Our offensive coordinator’s got to understand what it takes to win, first and foremost,” Hill said Wednesday. “And then, we look at styles, scheme, play-calling, experience, the ability to recruit.”

The Falcons won their conference in each of the last four seasons and tallied 51 or more points seven times in 15 conference games over the last two seasons.

Mental was recently named to the American Football Coaches Association’s top 35 under 35 coaches list, which selects the top 35 young coaches from the NFL, college and high school staffs across the country.

As head coach, Mental went 2-0 against Frostburg State, who was coached by newly hired Southern Utah head coach DeLane Fitzgerald.

As of Thursday afternoon, WSU had not announced or confirmed the hire. Mental retweeted Thamel’s report himself on Twitter and, later Thursday, Notre Dame College announced an internal promotion to replace Mental as head coach.

After a D3 college career, starting three seasons at quarterback, Mental was invited to a tryout with the Cleveland Browns. He then coached quarterbacks at an Ohio high school for one season before being brought to Notre Dame College as a graduate assistant.

After two years, he was hired as an assistant coach and recruiting coordinator and, four years after that, was named offensive coordinator.

“For me to make my mark here, I had to do well in recruiting,” Mental told Ohio’s The News-Herald in 2019.

Weber State typically opens spring camp in the second week of March.

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