Give Ault credit... he does learn

Fresh from the RGJ - Nevada has a couple of new defensive coaches:

Nigel Burton and James Ward will join the Nevada football team as assistant coaches on the defensive side of the ball, head coach Chris Ault said Wednesday.

Burton is the Pack's new defensive coordinator, replacing Ken Wilson, who will remain with the program as Ault's associate head coach. Burton, who most recently was the cornerbacks coach at Oregon State, will also coaching the safeties.

Ward was the secondary coach at Colorado State and will coach cornerbacks at Nevada.

The particularly interesting part was this gem:

Burton, who was at Oregon State for five years, was ranked one of the top recruiters in the Pac-10 by rivals.com. He played collegiately for both Pacific and Washington.

"My excitement goes beyond the opportunity to be a coordinator," Burton said. "I am excited to come to a program like Nevada because I've known Chris Ault since I was 17 years old and I have tremendous respect for him and the program that he's built in Reno."

Considering how pass defense was one of the biggest weaknesses of the Wolf Pack this year, it's encouraging that Ault is bringing in a couple of coaches to do something about it. Interestingly, it also looks like Nigel Burton is something of a hot commodity - Bruin Roar, a UCLA blog, speaks quite highly of him:

Burton is currently the secondary coach up at Oregon State. Nigel has been on the staff with the Beavers for five years and their defense was one of the best in the conference this season. He is considered a fantastic recruiter and an up and coming coach. Before OSU, he coached at Portland State for a few seasons and at South Florida. He did an internship with the Denver Broncos for a season to help gain some experience at that level.

Unfortunately, Oregon State's athletic web site is down, so I'm unable to confirm or deny any of this. That said, it is encouraging that a section of Pac-10 fans find him to be an excellent coach, and that his personal connection with Ault brought him to our program. As I've said before, Ault's weakness has never been recruiting, as long as you ignore special teams - it's good to see that this also extends to assistant coaches. If Nigel is a decent game time coordinator and recruiter, we're going to be in decent shape.

EDIT: I read the comments on our last post, and, much to my surprise, these hires actually address the issues made by our visitors here. Ken Wilson is now the Assistant Head Coach, which, I suspect, is one of those idle positions created to keep Ault's friend around without actually putting him into a position where he can do any real damage. Meanwhile, Ault has pulled a proven, successful defensive coach at a Pac-10 school and brought him here, which... well, you have to admit, that's definitely a step in the right direction.