The episode features the first appearance of Dean Cyrus O'Dell (Ed Begley, Jr.), a recurring character for the third season. Initially, Michael McKean was slated to take the role, but within twelve hours of accepting the part, McKean decided to pass on "Veronica Mars" altogether. Thomas called this "the most depressing casting news in the world." One week later, Begley accepted the role. Both actors had recently appeared in "A Mighty Wind". "Wichita Linebacker" also includes a guest appearance by Armie Hammer, who plays Kurt Fenstermacher, the football player whose playbook is stolen. Ryan Devlin makes his first appearance as Mercer Hayes, a Hearst College student who would be convicted in the serial rape case in the episode "Spit & Eggs". Despite having this role on "Veronica Mars", Devlin would go on to play Duncan Kane, a role originated by Teddy Dunn before he left the show in "Donut Run", in the spinoff web series "Play It Again, Dick". In its original broadcast, "Wichita Linebacker" received 3.12 million viewers, ranking 84th of 92 in the weekly rankings. This figure was a slight increase from the previous episode, "My Big Fat Greek Rush Week", which was viewed by 2.96 million viewers. "Wichita Linebacker" received mixed to negative reviews. Eric Goldman of IGN gave the episode a 7.0 out of 10, indicating that it was "good". Despite this, he wrote a mixed review, opining that "as far as mysteries go, this was a so-so one," that "the Hearst campus rapist story just doesn't seem to be getting the proper weight it requires," and that "there's also some strange tonal issues currently." However, he praised the return of Weevil. Rowan Kaiser, writing for "The A.V. Club", was also relatively critical, while focusing praise on Weevil's storyline. He referred to "Wichita Linebacker" as "what I would expect were the show not so ambitious. Here, Veronica isn't going to Hearst College, she's going to Television College, where things that are college-y happen." Television Without Pity gave the episode a "C+". "I don't think it's being overly harsh to say that this was not one of this show's stronger or more exciting episodes. The writing was oddly flat, in the first place, and the attention to detail was subpar as well."