Chris Ault never did it. Jim Aiken never did it. Joe Sheeketski never did it. Brian Polian, Jeff Tisdel, Chris Tormey and Jeff Horton never even got out of the month of September without a loss. No Nevada Wolf Pack football coach, in fact, has ever turned in a perfect, undefeated season.
Some have come close. Ault had four one-loss seasons, losing perfection three times in the Division I-AA playoffs to end the year. Jay Norvell, though, could be the first to attain perfection this season.
The last time a Wolf Pack football team headed into a season with as much hype, promise and potential was 2010. That was the year Ault’s best team went 13-1, getting upset at Hawaii in the seventh game of the year as Colin Kaepernick fumbled the ball away twice and was intercepted twice.
The pursuit of perfection can turn arguably the best football player in the history of the program into a turnover machine. What will it do to Carson Strong this year? Keep in mind this Pack team could play as many as 14 games, a daunting total in an unpredictable era that includes a pandemic that just won’t go away.
But keep in mind that Norvell has won 24 of his last 38 games. His team is talented and explosive with a bunch of fifth and sixth-year seniors that are determined to take advantage of an extra year of eligibility (thanks to 2020’s COVID-altered season) with a championship. Norvell has already said he wants a Mountain West title, a Top 25 ranking and a New Year’s Day bowl game. That takes perfection.
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The odds makers, however, don’t think the Wolf Pack will get out of Week One with a win. The Pack is a three-point underdog for its season opener Sept. 4 at California. So, yes, maybe we are drinking the silver and blue Wolf Pack Kool-Aid right now.
But doesn’t anyone remember the afternoon in 2012 when the Pack went to Cal and won 31-24 behind quarterback Cody Fajardo? Doesn’t anyone remember the magical night in 2010 at Mackay Stadium when Kaepernick whipped the Fools Golden Bears 52-31? The odds makers obviously don’t. Silver and Blue Kool-Aid drinkers will tell you that the Pack will go to Memorial Stadium in three weeks and win by three touchdowns.
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We’re not the only ones drinking the Pack Kool-Aid. The Pack just received two votes in the USA Today Top 25 coach’s preseason poll and Cal got just one vote. The team with one vote is a 3-point favorite over the team with two votes?
This is why coaches despise point spreads and Top 25 rankings and sportswriters who tell the world their teams could go undefeated. In case you were wondering, the Pack was a 10-point underdog in 2012 when it went to Cal to open the 2012 season. It was a 3-point underdog when Cal came to Mackay Stadium in 2010. So this is nothing new.
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The Wolf Pack’s chances of an unbeaten season will rise dramatically after the first four games. The Pack will have to play at Cal, Kansas State and Boise State in the first four weeks (along with a four-touchdown win over Idaho State at home). If the Pack is indeed 4-0, get ready for that first perfect season. The final eight regular season games will be against New Mexico State, Hawaii, UNLV, San Jose State and Air Force at home and Fresno State, San Diego State and Colorado State on the road.
The Pack might have to beat Boise State twice this season (regular season and league title game) to secure the program’s first perfect season. The Wolf Pack, we understand, has just one victory over its last 17 games against the Broncos. Perfection is not easy. Ask Ault.
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How much stock should you put in all of the college football award watch lists? Well, almost none. Less than none, actually.
The Wolf Pack’s Carson Strong, Elijah Cooks, Romeo Doubs, Berdale Robins, Lawson Hall, Tyler Orsini, Cole Turner and Brandon Talton are all on one or more watch lists. But they have about as much chance of winning those awards as the Reno Sparks Convention Center has of ever hosting the Oscars.
The last time anyone affiliated with those awards is watching someone from a conference like the Mountain West is when they fill out their bloated watch lists. Strong could pile up the best passing stats in the nation this year and be considered seriously for the Manning Award, Maxwell Award, Davey O’Brien Award and even the National Performer of the Year award. Heck, he might even get some Heisman votes. But don’t bet on it. Bet, instead, on the Pack and take those three points at Cal.
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If the Wolf Pack wins the Mountain West championship this season it could go to the Jimmy Kimmel Los Angeles Bowl at SoFi Stadium. Yes, Jimmy Kimmel has a bowl game. Go figure. Nothing is sacred in college sports anymore.
The Mountain West champ is scheduled to play the fifth place team in the Pac-12 in the Kimmel Bowl. There’s no truth to the rumor that Jimmy Fallon or Stephen Colbert will be on the sidelines of the Pac-12 team. Kimmel, by the way, is a 1985 graduate of Clark High in Las Vegas and spent a year at UNLV so he might be rooting for the Pac-12 team, too.
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It’s just a hunch but the biggest, most talked about event in the Bay area this fall won’t likely be the Nevada-Cal game. It could be a San Francisco Giants-Oakland A’s World Series.
The Giants are in first place in the National League West, four games up on the Los Angeles Dodgers. The A’s are in second place in the American League West, just two games behind the Houston Astros.
The last time both Bay area teams won their divisions in the same year was 2012. It also happened in 1971, 1989, 2000 and 2003. So, yes, it can happen. The two teams met in the World Series in 1989. So, yes, that can happen, too.
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JaVale McGee became the first former Nevada Wolf Pack athlete to win an Olympic gold medal last week when the United States men’s basketball team beat France.
McGee joined his mother Pam as the first mother-son duo to ever win a gold medal in the Olympics. It was a right-place-right-time gold medal for JaVale but it counts just the same.
McGee, who replaced Kevin Love, was a late addition to the team. And then he played in just four of the six games for a total of just 20 Olympic minutes. Current Wolf Pack coach Steve Alford, by comparison, played in all eight games of the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles (winning a gold meal with, among others, Michael Jordan, Chris Mullin and Patrick Ewing) and averaged 10.3 points and 3.3 rebounds a game.
