South Dakota State offensive coordinator and associate head coach Eric Eidsness is leaving the Jackrabbit program to become the offensive coordinator at Northern Illinois, SDSU head coach John Stiegelmeier confirmed Tuesday.

Eidsness, a Sioux Falls native and former USF quarterback, had three separate stints on the SDSU staff, and had been the Jacks offensive coordinator since 2011, after having spent six years as the head coach at Southwest Minnesota State. He was elevated to associate head coach in 2015.

Eidsness established himself as one of the most successful coordinators at the FCS level in recent years, presiding over the most prolific offenses in Jackrabbit history. SDSU is coming off its seventh straight playoff berth, and they averaged 42.5 points and 480.5 yards per game in 2018, both all-time school records. Eidsness also served as SDSU’s quarterbacks coach, and mentored both Austin Sumner and Taryn Christion to the top of the school record books in every passing category.

Eidsness, 50, is a likely candidate to be the Jacks’ next head coach, but Stiegelmeier signed a five-year extension at the end of the 2018 season.

“Eric did a great job on a number of fronts,” Stiegelmeier said. “In leading our staff – he had four other guys that were really a voice of one for our offense. In terms of leading our players, developing them, and in terms of playcalling. He did a great job of putting up the script and making halftime adjustments. We’re going to try to better ourselves with a replacement, because that’s what we do whenever we lose someone, but in this case that’ll be difficult.”

Eidsness is joining the staff of new Huskies coach Thomas Hammock, and replaces Mike Uremovich, who followed previous NIU coach Rod Carey to Temple.

Eidsness had a $93,000 base salary at SDSU, while Uremovich made $175,000 for NIU.

The Huskies are an FBS team, and one of the premier programs in the Mid-American Conference. They went 8-6 this year, winning the MAC, but losing in the Boca Raton Bowl. NIU has played in a Bowl game in 10 of the last 11 seasons.

While Eidsness’ departure creates an opening on staff, Steigelmeier said he plans to fill the coordinator job from within. Offensive line coach Jason Eck is the most logical choice, having been promoted to run-game coordinator last year and having served as offensive coordinator at Minnesota State in 2014 when the Mavericks reached the Division II national championship game.

While the offensive line coach is responsible for overseeing the largest position group on the roster, Stiegelmeier said Eck could potentially handle both jobs. Tight ends coach Luke Schleusner is also a strong candidate, as the longest tenured offensive assistant on staff. Zach Lujan, a former SDSU quarterback who graduated in 2016 and became running backs coach last year, could move to quarterbacks coach and leave the opening at running backs coach. Stiegelmeier said interviews will take place soon.

“With where the program is at, continuity is really important,” the coach said. “For the welfare of our football team we’ll look at the staff and try to figure out what creates the least amount of moving parts and go with that.”