OGDEN -- Jody Sears was asked to take over someone else's team last April. Now there are strong indications he'll have a chance to make Weber State's football program his own, the Standard-Examiner has learned.
WSU is expected to announce Wednesday that Sears will be given a contract to return as the coach of the Wildcats without the interim tag.
After last Saturday’s season-ending victory over Idaho State, Sears had been hopeful about his chances of staying on despite finishing the season with a 2-9 record.
“I feel like the staff and myself, we’ve done everything we could possibly do; physically, mentally — everything we could possibly do,” he said. “I want to be the head coach here for a long, long time, and I knew going into the thing that if I was going to be, I had to take care of all the little things, the daily things: The discipline, the accountability, your daily management and organizing and making sure you’re raising these kids to be men with some integrity and character. That’s where I feel like we’ve done a good job.”
Sears came on board as Weber State's defensive coordinator last January by John L. Smith. By April, the 45-year-old native of Pullman, Wash., was named the interim head coach of the Wildcats just days after the tumultuous departure of Smith to become the coach at Arkansas.
Following the unusually timed change in head coach, the Wildcats had a difficult transition in the 2012 season, finishing with a 2-6 league record in the newly expanded Big Sky Conference.
After the victory over Idaho State, graduating quarterback Mike Hoke said he was grateful for Sears' coaching.
“Obviously everyone wanted to win more games, but what he did a great job of doing was developing all of us into real men," Hoke said. "He worries a lot about what you do off the field, your character and everything. He did a great job of that. He was put in a super-tough position with John L. leaving. As you can see, no one ever quit on him or our other coaches, so I think that says a lot.”
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