{"id":445886,"date":"2026-02-03T04:24:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-03T04:24:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/445886\/"},"modified":"2026-02-03T04:24:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-03T04:24:07","slug":"cougars-finalize-new-defensive-coaching-staff-deseret-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/445886\/","title":{"rendered":"Cougars finalize new defensive coaching staff \u2013 Deseret News"},"content":{"rendered":"

The final three major positions on Kalani Sitake\u2019s coaching staff have been filled.<\/p>\n

BYU has promoted Justin Ena<\/a> to special teams coordinator and Chad Kauha\u2019aha\u2019a<\/a> to outside linebackers coach, the program announced Monday.<\/p>\n

Additionally, 11-year coaching veteran Lewis Walker has joined the Cougars as their new cornerbacks coach.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m excited to have Justin Ena and Chad Kauha\u2019aha\u2019a stepping into these roles and to announce that Lewis Walker is joining our staff,\u201d Sitake said in a statement<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\u201cBefore we undertook the recent changes to our defensive staff, I intended to emphasize special teams even more within our staff structure heading into 2026. I\u2019m pleased to announce that Justin will be our new special teams coordinator with the responsibility of putting his entire focus into coordinating this important phase of our program. <\/p>\n

\u201cChad has been a valuable contributor to our defense the past two seasons as a senior analyst, and I\u2019m blessed to be able to promote him into a position coaching role with our edge rushers at outside linebacker, an area where he has exceptional experience and expertise. Lewis has spent more than a decade coaching defensive backs and will be a great addition to strengthen our secondary in the cornerbacks room with Demario Warren overseeing our safeties.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ena, who spent the past three seasons as BYU\u2019s linebackers coach, will now replace new defensive coordinator Kelly Poppinga<\/a> in leading the Cougars\u2019 special teams unit. He holds five seasons of special teams coordinator experience, most recently sharing the role at Utah from 2016-18.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am grateful for the opportunity that Kalani has entrusted me as special teams coordinator at BYU,\u201d Ena said in a statement<\/a>. \u201cThis university has molded and changed me in my youth, and I intend to also help shape our young men to be great ambassadors of BYU while also competing and winning championships.\u201d<\/p>\n

Filling part of Ena\u2019s former position in coaching BYU\u2019s linebackers is Kauha\u2019aha\u2019a, who joined the Cougars as an analyst in 2024 following nearly two decades of coaching experience at Wisconsin, USC, UCLA, Utah and other notable programs.<\/p>\n

Kauha\u2019aha\u2019a will be in charge of BYU\u2019s outside linebackers, with Poppinga coaching the inside linebackers along with his defensive coordinating duties.<\/p>\n

\u201cChad is a great recruiter and defensive coach with a ton of experience,\u201d Sitake said. \u201cHe has an extensive coaching r\u00e9sum\u00e9 and excels mentoring ends and outside backers. I\u2019ve been around Chad my entire career, so I know he has coached a lot of sacks in his career and helped a lot of guys get to the NFL.\u201d<\/p>\n

Added Kauha\u2019aha\u2019a, \u201cI appreciate the trust and enthusiasm both Kalani and Kelly have in me to take on this role with our program. I\u2019m excited to continue to work with the exceptional players and coaches we have here at BYU and know we can achieve great things together.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cornerbacks will be coached by Walker in his first FBS coaching role after spending more than a decade at the FCS level. The Salt Lake City native played his final two seasons of college football at Utah, where his defensive coordinator was none other than Sitake.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve known Lewis for a long time, ever since he was a player for me at Utah,\u201d Sitake said. \u201cHe has a strong expertise teaching cornerbacks and defensive backs and has also been a coordinator overseeing the entire defense for two years. He knows the small details matter and truly cares about the development of the players he coaches. He is from Utah, so he knows our state well. I\u2019m excited to welcome Lewis to BYU.\u201d<\/p>\n

Walker spent the past two seasons as defensive coordinator at Monmouth, before which he helped North Dakota State reach the FCS championship game in 2022.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am excited for the opportunity to join this BYU program,\u201d Walker said. \u201cI\u2019m really looking forward to being with a lot of familiar people at this elite level and a chance to learn and grow from a great administration and staff here. I can\u2019t wait to get in and develop our cornerbacks and build relationships with all of them.\u201d<\/p>\n

BYU\u2019s defensive staff under Poppinga also includes defensive line\/assistant head coach Sione Po\u2019uha, defensive passing game coordinator\/safeties coach Demario Warren and esteemed senior analyst Gary Andersen.<\/p>\n

Aside from former assistant quarterbacks coach Matt Mitchell, who left the program for Colorado State, BYU\u2019s existing offensive coaching core of Aaron Roderick, TJ Woods, Fesi Sitake, Kevin Gilbride and Harvey Unga has remained intact.<\/p>\n

\"\"Former Utah and Weber State assistant coach Chad Kauha’aha’a talks to Wildcats players as they play Hawaii at Aloha Stadium in Honolulu, Hawaii, on Saturday Sept. 6, 2008. Hawaii won 36-17. | Hugh E. Gentry, Associated Press <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The final three major positions on Kalani Sitake\u2019s coaching staff have been filled. BYU has promoted Justin Ena…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":445887,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[399,398,396,397,3125,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-445886","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-ncaa","10":"tag-ncaa-football","11":"tag-ncaafootball","12":"tag-news-feed-local","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445886","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=445886"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445886\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/445887"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=445886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=445886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=445886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}