Pack to honor 1990 team that played for national title

Mark Drahos was determined to soak it all in.

The crowd of 19,776 - the largest to ever see a football game at Mackay Stadium to that point - had already flooded the field to congratulate their silver and blue heroes. An exhausted Wolf Pack team cried together and hugged each other.

The moment was finally here.

The Nevada Wolf Pack was going to play for the Division I-AA national championship against the Georgia Southern Eagles in Statesboro, Georgia in just a week.

That moment was 20 years ago. But it seems like yesterday to those who made the dream come true.

"I can still remember standing on the field after the game, the goal posts torn down and listening to Ray Charles singing "Georgia On My Mind" on the sound system," said Drahos, an All-Big Sky Conference defensive lineman in 1990.

The 59-52 triple-overtime Division I-AA semifinal playoff victory over Boise State on Dec. 8, 1990, is perhaps the single most important victory in Wolf Pack football history. It sent the school to its first and, so far, only national championship game.

"It was an unbelievable feeling, winning that game," said quarterback Chris Vargas, now a Wolf Pack radio announcer.

It was a moment, a game, a season, an entire Wolf Pack football era that those who made it possible will never forget.

"I went on to be a starter for two teams in the NFL," said Shahriar Pourdanesh, a converted defensive tackle who became one of the best offensive tackles in the nation for the Wolf Pack from 1989-92. "The attitude we had at Nevada that we would never quit, I never saw anywhere else. I never saw that from a collective team perspective anywhere else I played.

"That's what I remember most from my years at Nevada and it's what I've taken from those years that has helped me the rest of my life. The best way I can explain it is this. We were playing Montana the next year (1991) and it was a close game. Alan Maxwell (a starting guard) stood up in the huddle and just yelled, 'We are not leaving this place until we win this game.'

"That's the feeling we all had on those teams. And it all started in 1990."

The 1990 team will be honored at Mackay Stadium, the very same field on which Drahos stood 20 years ago and heard Ray Charles sing, before Saturday night's (7:30 p.m. kickoff) game against San Jose State.

"1990 was a magical year for a lot of us," said Pourdanesh, who now lives in Southern California. "There were several defining moments in my life that took place in that season that I will never forget. Like I said, I played in the NFL (1996-2000 with the Washington Redskins and Pittsburgh Steelers). But all of my biggest thrills were when I played at Nevada."

The Wolf Pack entered the 1990 season off a solid but forgettable 7-4 season in 1989 in which they did not qualify for the I-AA playoffs.

Heading into 1990, the Pack had a sophomore starting quarterback in Fred Gatlin and an unknown red-shirt freshman backup in Vargas.

There were a lot of foundations on which to build off the 1989 season. Explosive wide receiver Treamelle Taylor was back to team up with Gatlin. Former Wooster High stars Drahos and Neil Hulbert anchored the defensive line and linebacker Matt Clafton was the heart and soul of the defense. And the offensive line might have been the strength of the team with brothers Chris and Tony Wells, Tony Edwards and Mike Micone to go along with an outspoken and confident but inexperienced Pourdanesh.

"Mike Micone was the leader of the Pack," Pourdanesh said. "We all listened to him."

The secondary also had a tremendous amount of talent in sophomores Brock Marion, Forey Duckett and Xavier Kairy as well as a wily, old veteran who kept battling back from injuries in Bernard Ellison.

"You've heard of (Darrelle) Revis Island?" Vargas said. "Well, we had Ellison Island." He was incredible."

Linebackers Tony Amantia and Nick Harker, tight end Scott Benning, wide receiver Joe King, defensive back Reggie Robinson, defensive lineman George Buddy and Maxwell, among others, were all junior college transfers in 1990. Guard Tom Werbeckes and Ellison were coming off knee injuries. Wide receiver Chris Singleton and running back Zeke Moore were true freshmen.

The 1990 team had a ton of talent and promise. So the playoffs were a definite goal. But, still, nobody was digging out their old Ray Charles records when the season started.

"We thought we were going to be a good football team in 1990 but we had a lot of questions," said Ault, who was just 43-years-old (just a year or two older than most of the 1990 team is now) and in his 15th year as a head coach in 1990.

The 1990 team began to answer those questions right from the start. They ripped through Northern Arizona and Sacramento State at Mackay Stadium in the first two games and squeezed past Montana State in the first road game in Week 3.

But the news coming out of Bozeman, Mont., was not all good. Running back Jason Frierson, who was leading the Big Sky Conference in rushing, suffered a knee injury and was lost for the season.

"If you remember that was really the start of when we went from a Wing-T running offense to a wide open passing attack," Pourdanesh said. "All of our backs got hurt that year. Jason Frierson, then Ray Whalen later on. So we went to a single back and just aired it out."

Whalen stepped in for Frierson in Week 4 and ran for 75 yards and two touchdowns. But he also got hurt in that game and missed the Week 5 victory at Idaho State. Freshman Zeke Moore stepped in and shocked everyone by running for 138 yards and a touchdown.

"I was just a young pup that year," Moore said.

It was that type of year. One guy goes down, another steps in and does the job.

Whalen, though, would prove to be a savior for the running attack by the end of the year. He went over 100 yards in victories over Eastern Washington and UNLV and had 220 against Weber State as the Pack went 10-1 in the regular season. In the playoffs he carried the ball an incredible 123 times in four games for 527 yards and nine touchdowns.

"Ray Whalen was amazing," Vargas said. "He was a workhorse."

The one loss in the regular season (30-14 at Boise State in Week 10 when Whalen was out with an injury) proved to be the motivation the 1990 team needed.

"That loss at Boise was shocking for us," Vargas said. "That Monday after that game it was like a ghost town. It was weird. Coach Ault wasn't out there at practice right away. There was no sound. It was so quiet. I think we were all still shell-shocked. But after that loss to Boise we really practiced with a purpose the rest of the year. It jolted us a little and we never forgot that loss the rest of the year."

"You know, sometimes a loss can help you, sometimes it helps you even more than if you would have won that game," Pourdanesh said. "We were starting to feel too good about ourselves. They kicked us in the teeth. And we knew it was time to wake up."

The Wolf Pack met Boise once again at Mackay in the I-AA semifinals. The game would turn out to be arguably the most exciting afternoon (an early evening) of football ever played at Mackay. It went three overtimes and ended as darkness began to descend on Mackay Stadium. Whalen carried the ball 44 times for 245 yards and three scores. Vargas relieved Gatlin again and led the team to victory.

"That was some of the greatest football you'll ever want to see," Ault said.

And when it was over Ray Charles was singing.

"I'll never forget that moment when we beat Boise," Treamelle Taylor said. "That was the moment I'll never forget from that year. It was special."

The good feeling would end in Georgia in a 36-13 loss to Georgia Southern on national television.

"I can still remember that game almost play for play," Ault said.

But that loss didn't spoil what the 1990 team accomplished. Ault credits them for helping to propel the program into Division I-A just two years later.

Ault said he will always have a special place in his heart for the 1990 team.

"They were a bunch of overachievers," Ault said. "It was a special group, a mentally tough football team. You couldn't beat them down. What made them so special was that they were such a close group of guys. That team truly loved to play football together."

That closeness continues to this day.

"I still see a lot of those guys," Vargas said. "We're still close. They will be friends for life. Most of the guys on our alumni group now are from that team."

It promises to be a special weekend in Northern Nevada.

"The friendships and bonds that were formed were very special on that team," Drahos said. "We were not full of all-stars or individuals. We were just a group of guys that, when put together on the field, formed something great."