Nevada Football adds three interim defensive coaches prior to bowl game

Ten days away from the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl versus Ohio on Jan. 3, Nevada Football adds three new interim coaches on the defensive side.

Jody Sears, John Landwehr and Josh Brown are the three interim coaches being brought in by head coach Jay Norvell.

The trio succeeds former defensive coordinator Jeff Casteel, secondary coach David Lockwood and safeties coach Mike Chamoures, who were let go earlier this month.

Sears will inherit the defensive coordinator role when the Wolf Pack challenge Ohio. The 52-year-old spent several years as the defensive coordinator at Eastern Washington (2003-07), Washington State (2008-10) and Weber State (2012). In seven combined seasons as a head coach at Weber State (2012-13) and Sacramento State (2014-18), he totaled a combined 24-54 (.308) record.

Brown served as the linebackers coach at Sacramento State from 2007-08 and as Cal Poly’s defensive coordinator job from 2011-18. The San Luis Obispo native played linebacker at Gavilan College for two years before playing one year at Oklahoma.

Landwehr has spent four seasons with the Wolf Pack in his coaching career. In 2015, Landwehr was the quality’s control coach on the defensive line. From 2016-18, he served as a graduate assistant on the defensive side. Prior to Nevada, Landwehr was a graduate assistant at Marshall (2014) and was the video coordinator and offensive line coach at Santa Monica College (2012-14). He spent the 2019 season on the coaching staff at Narbonne High School in Southern California.

“We’re excited to have these high quality coaches with us as we prepare for a really good Ohio team in the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl,” Norvell said. “With the early signing period behind us, our sole purpose is to prepare our players to win the bowl game. We will focus on filling permanent additions to the staff in January.”

Due to the post-game brawl versus in-state rival UNLV, the Wolf Pack will miss three defensive starters in the bowl game: defensive back’s Austin Arnold and Daniel Brown, along with defensive tackle Hausia Sekona. Linebacker Gabriel Sewell, who was also suspended, will only miss one half. This will make a difficult task even harder for the Wolf Pack defense. Ohio ranks T-19 in scoring offense (34.7) and No. 32 in total offense (443.3 ypg).