James Brown

James Brown

Special teams assistant James Brown saw the Rebels turn in their best season in history in his area under the direction of coordinator James Shibest. UNLV boasted two All-Americans on special teams -- record-smashing kicker Jose Pizano, who was a finalist for the Lou Groza Award, and kick returner Jacob De Jesus, who was a finalist for the Jet Award. In addition, punter Marshall Nichols finished seventh in the nation with the second-best season average in program history at 47.1 yards per attempt. Brown, who originally joined UNLV in 2021 as a graduate assistant coach, came to Las Vegas after serving the previous season as special teams analyst at Eastern Kentucky in Richmond. Before that he served two internships at the University of Oregon -- one involving special teams and quarterback analytics for the 2019 Pac-12 Conference and Rose Bowl champions, which followed completing two seasons as a recruiting and operations intern for the Ducks. He earned both a bachelor’s degree (2018) and a master’s (2020) from Oregon.  Â