For the third straight season, the Wolf Pack football team has lost an assistant coach. This time, it's a rival program that has done the pilfering.
Cameron Norcross, the Wolf Pack's run game coordinator/offensive line coach, has accepted the offensive line coaching position at Fresno State, coach Chris Ault confirmed Sunday.
Ault said Norcross, who was born in Ely and played for the Wolf Pack before joining the coaching staff, accepted the position Friday and will leave for Fresno today. FootballScoop.com first reported the move.
"This is the only place he's been at," Ault said. "He's been here eight years with me. He feels that an opportunity to go to another school would be good for his professional career. I hate to lose him. Cam did a great job for us. We certainly understand that, and he left with my full support."
Norcross, a three-year letterwinner at Nevada from 1997-99 and an all-conference player, has been a part of the Wolf Pack staff for the past decade.
He was a graduate assistant from 2001-02, the team's tight ends/co-offensive line coach from 2003-09 and was elevated to run game coordinator/offensive line coach when Chris Klenakis left Nevada for Arkansas before the 2010 season.
"Cam worked his way up the coaching ranks," Ault said. "When I took over, he was one of the guys I retained. He did a really nice job with us. He's a good football coach. He's a good, solid guy, and he'll certainly do a nice job with those guys over there. He was always consistent. He helped us get our offense where it is now. That's our football team. I was real pleased with him."
The Wolf Pack has been one of the top running teams in the nation for the past half-decade thanks to its read-option Pistol scheme and a solid offensive line. Norcross was one of three finalists for FootballScoop.com's offensive line coach of the year award last season.
In Fresno, Norcross will join ex-Wolf Pack co-defensive coordinator Tim DeRuyter, who took over for fired coach Pat Hill earlier this offseason. Both Nevada and Fresno State move from the WAC to the Mountain West Conference next season.
Last season, the Wolf Pack lost running backs coach Jim Mastro to UCLA. The year prior, it lost Klenakis to Arkansas and defensive coordinator Nigel Burton to Portland State, where he became the Vikings' head coach. Nevada also lost DeRuyter to Air Force before the 2007 season.
Ault said the turnover on his coaching staff is expected when the program has success.
"That stuff happens," Ault said. "It's a part of the game."
Ault said he didn't have any specific coaches in mind to replace Norcross, who did not return a message left on his cellphone. Ault said tight ends coach James Spady will take over the offensive line duties as the Wolf Pack wraps up its recruiting season.
The veteran head coach said he wants the position filled by the start of spring ball, which begins in late March.
"It will definitely be filled by then," Ault said.
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