Los Angeles Rams guard Austin Corbett (63) walks to the line of scrimmage against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Jan. 23, 2022 in Tampa, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Menendez)
Forgive Austin Corbett if he looks around SoFi Stadium at the Super Bowl on Sunday for any sign of the Bishop Gorman Gaels.
The Gaels are the last thing Corbett, who will start on the offensive line for the Los Angeles Rams against the Cincinnati Bengals in Super Bowl LVI, wants to see when a championship is at stake.
The Gaels, after all, eliminated Corbett’s Reed Raiders three times from the Nevada football state playoffs during his four years in high school (2009-12). The Raiders lost to the Gaels 62-21 in the 2009 state semifinals at Reed High. They were trounced by Gorman 72-28 in the state title game at Damonte Ranch High in 2011 and were beaten by the Gaels 49-24 in the state semis at Reed in 2012. In Corbett’s 2010 sophomore season his Raiders were eliminated from the postseason by Carson High, 20-0, in the Northern Regional semifinals.
Corbett never won a state title at Reed High thanks, mainly, to Bishop Gorman. He never even sniffed a Mountain West title as a member of the Nevada Wolf Pack from 2013-17. He didn’t win a Super Bowl with the Cleveland Browns in 2018 or with the Rams in 2019 or 2020. The Sparks native, though, could become a champion for the first time this Sunday at the Super Bowl.
Corbett might be in luck. There will be no Bishop Gorman graduates at SoFi on Sunday wearing either a Bengals or Rams uniform. Corbett, in fact, will be the only player from a Nevada high school (or college) in the game.
Just three players from Northern Nevada high schools have been a part of Super Bowl teams before Corbett. Wooster High’s Glenn Carano was with the Dallas Cowboys’ Super Bowl teams twice, after the 1977 and 1978 seasons, though he didn’t play. Reed High’s Kyle Roberts was with the Denver Broncos practice squad in the 2015 season and McQueen High’s Kyle Van Noy went to three Super Bowls after the 2016-18 seasons with New England, winning two. Van Noy, though, is the only Northern Nevada high school player to participate in a Super Bowl. Corbett will be the second.
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CORBETT’S DETERMINATION, WORK ETHIC PAID OFF: Corbett’s improbable journey from Reed High to the NFL has been well documented. Corbett, with no college scholarship offers out of high school, began his college career as a walk-on at Nevada in 2013 for head coach Brian Polian. He sat out the 2013 season but then started 50 games in a row for Polian (2014-16) and Jay Norvell (2017).
Corbett was listed at 6-foot-4, 245 pounds his senior year at Reed High and grew to 305 pounds by his senior year at Nevada, his playing weight now. He made a plea on the college recruiting website ncasports.org (Next College Student Athlete) during his senior year at Reed High, hoping to get noticed by college recruiters.
“I wish to continue to the next level,” Corbett wrote. “I am willing to play anywhere as long as I am playing the sport I can’t live without. My main goal in football is to play as long as I can and will make sure I can by working as hard as my body will let me and then some.”
Corbett, a member of the Walker River Paiute Tribe, is just the second Reed High graduate to appear in a NFL regular season game. The first was Shawn Knight, a first-round draft pick in 1987 (Corbett was a second round pick by Cleveland in 2018) out of BYU by the New Orleans Saints. Knight played in 31 NFL games for three teams from 1987-89.
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NORVELL HAS SUPER BOWL CONNECTION: Former Wolf Pack football coach Jay Norvell, now at Colorado State, can take some credit for helping build the Cincinnati Bengals this season.
It was Norvell, after all, who recruited and then coached Bengals head coach Zac Taylor for the Nebraska Cornhuskers in 2005 and 2006.
Taylor, who was at Wake Forest in 2002 and 2003 and Butler Community College in Kansas in 2004, passed for 5,850 yards and 45 touchdowns for head coach Bill Callahan’s Cornhuskers in 2005 and 2006. Norvell was Nebraska’s offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach.
“So many things he (Norvell) taught me then (at Nebraska) still affect me now and have shaped me as a coach and as a man,” Taylor said when Norvell was hired at Colorado State in December.
“He is a winner and his energy will have the entire Colorado State community fired up. I can’t say enough good things about Jay’s leadership.”
Norvell wrote on Twitter on Feb. 1, after the Bengals won the AFC championship game: “I recruited Zac Taylor from Butler Community to play QB for me at Nebraska. He became the Big 12 Offensive Player of the Year. Now he’s leading the Bengals to the Super Bowl. Shows you where your passion for the game can take you. Light’m up Zac!”
Norvell was the Oakland Raiders’ tight ends coach in the 2002 season when the Raiders lost to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (48-21) in the Super Bowl. Callahan was the Raiders’ head coach that season.
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SHERFIELD’S PLAYER OF YEAR CHANCES DISAPPEARING: Grant Sherfield’s recent foot injury, which has forced him to miss the last three games, as well as his Nevada Wolf Pack’s 9-12 record heading into Tuesday’s game against Colorado State, have likely eliminated the point guard from serious consideration for the Mountain West’s Player of the Year award.
Sherfield last year was among the favorites for the award that eventually was given to San Diego State’s Matt Mitchell. Sherfield was named the conference’s Newcomer of the Year.
Sherfield’s performance, though, hasn’t fallen off this year at all. He is averaging 18.3 points and 6.2 assists a game (through 18 games) and is among the best free throw shooters (.870) in the conference.
The Player of the Year award, though, usually goes to someone on one of the top teams in the conference. Mitchell’s Aztecs won the regular season title last year. If that holds true this year, the award’s top contenders should be Wyoming’s Graham Ike (20 points, 8.9 rebounds) and Hunter Maldonado (19.3 points, 5.6 rebounds, 6.4 assists), Colorado State’s David Roddy (18.8 points, 7.8 rebounds, 3 assists) and Isaiah Stevens (15.7 points, 5 assists, 12 steals), Boise State’s Abu Kigab (14 points, 6.5 rebounds), Utah State’s Justin Bean (18.7 points, 9.9 rebounds), Fresno State’s Orlando Robinson (18.7 points, 8.3 rebounds, 1.3 blocks) and San Diego State’s Matt Bradley (17.1 points, 5.2 rebounds).
The only Pack player to win the Mountain West’s top award was Caleb Martin after the 2017-18 season when Nevada won the regular season title.
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HOUSE JOINS HAMILTON IN 42-POINT CLUB: Jaelen House became the second Mountain West player to score 42 points in a game this season during New Mexico’s 91-77 victory at Air Force on Saturday.
UNLV’s Bryce Hamilton scored 42 against Colorado State on Jan. 28. House and Hamilton are two of just eight players in the nation to score 42 or more points in a game this year.
Hamilton leads all Mountain West players this season with five games of 30 points or more. Mountain West players have combined for 25 games this season of 30 or more points. Nevada’s Grant Sherfield has one of them with 31 points against George Mason on Nov. 23.
UNLV leads all Mountain West schools with six games with a player scoring 30 or more points (Donovan Williams has one to Hamilton’s five).
Wyoming and Colorado State lead the conference with three players with at least one 30-point effort. Colorado State has David Roddy (two), Isaiah Stevens (one) and John Tonje (one) while Wyoming has Hunter Maldonado (two), Graham Ike (two) and Drake Jeffries (one).
San Diego State and Air Force are the only two (of 11) schools in the conference without a 30-point scorer this season.
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CHANG, AVALOS YOUNGEST MOUNTAIN WEST COACHES: This Sunday will be the first Super Bowl with both head coaches younger than 40. Cincinnati’s Zac Taylor is 38 while Los Angeles’ Sean McVay is 36.
McVay would be the youngest to ever win a Super Bowl if he wins this year. The youngest coach to ever win is Pittsburgh’s Mike Tomlin, who was just 42 days short of his 37th birthday when he won the Super Bowl on Feb. 1, 2009. McVay just turned 36 on Jan. 24.
The youngest head football coaches in the Mountain West are Hawaii’s Timmy Chang and Boise State’s Andy Avalos, who are both 40. Avalos is actually 27 days younger than Chang. The average age of the Mountain West football head coaches is 52. San Diego State’s Brady Hoke and Wyoming’s Craig Bohl are the oldest at 63. Nevada’s Ken Wilson, at 57, is the fifth oldest in the conference behind Hoke, Bohl, Fresno State’s Jeff Tedford (60) and Norvell (58).
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