Wilmington College head football coach Ken Minor resigned Tuesday after two 0-10 seasons and an 0-3 start this season.

“Since Coach Minor’s been here we’ve been losing, not that we weren’t losing before,” Wilmington Athletic Director Terry Rupert said. “But we’ve had some concerns about recruiting and being able to bring in kids. Ken was a great person and did a great job, but we’re 0-23 since he’s been head coach.

“It’s a lot of things. It’s not one thing. We’re in a tough conference. Division III is a tough place to recruit right now. Private institutions are tough to recruit for.”

Wilmington has lost its last 17 games by double-digit margins, including three this year: 37-14 to Mount St. Joseph, 54-10 to Otterbein and 56-2 to Heidelberg on Saturday.

Offensive coordinator Jay Niswonger, who won three state championships during a long career at Vally View, was named interim coach.

“He brings a lot of experience,” Rupert said. “He’s obviously well connected with the Ohio high school coaches, which we hope will help us.”

Wilmington will conduct a national search for a new head coach at the end of the season.

The Quakers were 1-9 in 2009, the year before Minor took over the program. They haven’t had a winning season since 2000, their first year in the Ohio Athletic Conference after leaving the Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference.

Minor, a 1973 Wilmington graduate, spent 37 seasons coaching high school football in Cincinnati, including 27 seasons as the head coach at Reading, before taking over at Wilmington.

Rupert said there was discussion about Minor continuing to coach until the end of the season, but “we were more concerned with trying to get recruits and in and trying to show we’re trying to move the program forward. We felt if we didn’t (make a change), we were digging ourselves a bigger hole.”