Zebrowski will run offense for Hamline football coach Taylor

Tracy Claeys fired offensive coordinator Matt Limegrover and quarterbacks coach Jim Zebrowski immediately after being named full-time coach for the Gophers.

Limegrover was hired as the offensive line coach at Penn State. Zebrowski and his family live in Woodbury and he was looking for a job in this srea.

Hamline lost its football coach, Chad Rogosheske, when he took the job at Capital University in Ohio on Feb. 29. Chip Taylor, Rogosheske's defensive coordinator, was named quickly as the replacement by athletic director Jason Verdugo.

On Tuesday, Taylor and Hamline announced that it had hired Zebrowski as the assistant head coach and offensive coordinator. It was another in the aggressive moves made or approved by Verdugo in his attempt to put Hamline in a more competitive position in the MIAC.

Here is Hamline's media release on the Zebrowski hiring:

NEW HAMLINE HEAD FOOTBALL COACH Chip Taylor didn't have to look far to find somebody to run his offense. He merely glanced across the river and found a guy with two D-III national championships on his resume.

Jim Zebrowski, who served as the quarterbacks coach at the University of Minnesota for the past five years, has been named Assistant Head Coach and Offensive Coordinator of the Pipers.

Zebowski was a member of a Golden Gopher staff that went to three consecutive bowl games. One of his main projects was the growth of UM signalcaller Mitch Leidner, who advanced from running the scout team to accounting for 2,250 and 21 touchdowns in 2014. Included in those totals: 10 rushing scores, which is tied for first in school quarterback history.

The Ohio native, who played his college ball at D-III power Mount Union, has been a football coach for a quarter century. He spent six years as an offensive coordinator at two Ohio Schools before moving to Southern Illinois as a graduate assistant. Later, he was moved to a fulltime role at SIU, where he coached the tight ends, wide receivers and quarterbacks.

He has a decade of experience coaching at the D-III level. Zebrowski served as the offensive coordinator at Millikin from 2000-03. In 2004, he became the head coach at Lakeland (Wis.) in the Illini-Badger Conference. The Muskies went 28-12 overall in his four years at the helm, won a pair of conference titles and advanced to the NCAA D-III playoffs for the first time in school history.

Zebrowski then moved to longtime D-III power Wisconsin-Whitewater. In three seasons as the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach, the Warhawks went 42-3 overall during his time and advanced to the NCAA D-III title game every season, winning two titles and finishing second once. Zebrowski was named the Wisconsin Football Coaches Association Assistant Coach of the Year and the FootballScoop.com Division III Coordinator of the Year in 2009.

In 2010, Zebrowski joined the staff at Northern Illinois as the quarterbacks coach. There he tutored Chandler Harnish, who was a first team All-MAC choice and a NFL draft pick of the Indianapolis Colts. He also laid the foundation for Harnish's backup, Jordan Lynch, who went on to finish third in the Heisman Trophy in 2013 and was named to the All-American team.