Nevada head coach Jay Norvell works the sideline against New Mexico on Nov. 2, 2019 in Reno. (AP Photo/Tom R. Smedes, file)
Ken Wilson should send Jay Norvell a thank you note and a bouquet of silver and blue flowers for drastically underachieving as Nevada Wolf Pack football head coach in 2021.
Had Norvell accomplished what he said he was going to do last season and won about a dozen games and a Mountain West title, Wilson could be staring at a record-breaking season of Wolf Pack decline in his first season as head coach. But Norvell’s Pack won only eight games last year without a league title so Wilson should easily avoid the greatest decline in victories in program history from one season to the next. That honor belongs to Wilson’s mentor. Yes, Mr. Hall of Famer himself.
Chris Ault’s 1986 Wolf Pack went 13-1 but the next year fell to 5-6 for a decline of eight victories, the biggest drop from one year to the next in the program’s long history. Ault, in fact, owns the top three seasons of one-season decline in program history. His 2010 team went 13-1 followed by a 7-6 season in 2011 (a six-game drop) and his 1991 team went 12-1 and was followed by a drop to 7-5 in 1992 (a fall of five wins).
Of course, Ault’s declines were due, in large part, to the three remarkable seasons in 1986, 1991 and 2010. One-loss seasons, after all, are extremely difficult to repeat in Nevada. Thanks to Norvell, though, Wilson doesn’t have to worry about any of that this fall.
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Wilson, thanks to a soft Chris Ault-like schedule, might even equal Norvell’s eight-win season of 2021. That’s asking a lot for a rookie head coach who took over a decimated program just six months ago. But anything is possible in the always forgiving Mountain West.
The year should begin with three fairly easy victories over New Mexico State, Texas State and Incarnate Word. New Mexico State, after all, was 2-10 last year and Texas State was 4-8. Incarnate Word was 10-3 but that was in the Football Championship Subdivision (Ault’s old stomping grounds of Division I-AA).
The final nine games of the Pack schedule should produce at least three victories, leaving Wilson with six wins and a bowl game. That would be pretty good, considering Norvell cleaned out Cashell Fieldhouse when he left, leaving just a few broken lamps, a three-legged couch and a 100-pound 1990s television that was missing the remote.
Those three victories in the final nine games will most likely come at UNLV, San Jose State and Hawaii. So we should be looking at no worse than a 6-6 Pack season this year.
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It took a decade but Chris Ault finally got his wish this year. He was, after all, allowed to finally pick his successor as Pack head coach when Wilson was hired.
Wilson, though, wasn’t his first choice. Ault’s first choice, when he walked away after the 2012 season, was Jim Mastro. Mastro, who coached Wolf Pack running backs from 2000-10, had just completed one season at UCLA and one at Washington State when Ault left the Pack in December 2012.
“Jim was the guy I was supporting because he knew the Nevada way,” Ault said in 2014. “We built this thing from the ground floor up and Jim saw all of it. He had a great understanding of where we came from. That’s pretty important to know where you were and where you want to go.”
The Wolf Pack didn’t listen to Ault a decade ago and never even contacted Mastro about the job, instead hiring Brian Polian, a product of the search firm that then athletic director Cary Groth knew personally.
“I was pretty disappointed in that process,” Ault said. “Nobody knew the program like I knew it. Nobody understood what they had to have like I did.”
Ault, who hasn’t coached the Pack in 10 years, apparently still knows Nevada football better than anyone. Just ask him. That’s why Wilson is now head coach and Mastro is now the Senior Director of Football Administration and Operations. And don’t be shocked to see Ault’s image projected on the clouds above Mackay Stadium at night. Three of Ault’s former players (Vai Taua, Mike Bethea and Jeff Nady) are now Pack assistant coaches.
It’s almost like the last nine seasons (2013-21) never happened. Brian who? Jay what? And if you ask Ault he’d probably tell you they shouldn’t have happened.
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How should we judge the nine seasons without Ault pulling the strings? Well, it wasn’t all bad. At times it was pretty darn good. It was kind of like Ault never left. Polian and Norvell combined to go 56-54 with a 3-3 record in bowl games (Ault was 2-8 in bowl games). If you take away the rookie seasons of both Polian and Norvell, the Pack was an impressive 49-37 with six bowl games in seven years without Ault.
Would Mastro have done the same over the last nine years? Would he have lasted nine years? Would Mastro have gotten fired and been replaced by Ault after three or four years? Maybe that (replacing Mastro) was Ault’s real plan after 2012 after all. You never know with Ault, the all-time Pack puppet master, who is still apparently pulling the strings.
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The next few weeks could be pivotal to the NBA careers of three former Wolf Pack players. Caleb and Cody Martin and JaVale McGee are all free agents this summer and might be wearing a different uniform next season.
Both Caleb and Cody Martin had breakout seasons last year, establishing themselves as solid role players in their third NBA seasons. Caleb played 60 games for the Miami Heat averaging 9.2 points, 3.8 rebounds, 1.1 assists and 1.0 steals a game. He also made 64-of-155 three-pointers (41 percent). Cody averaged 7.7 points, 4.0 rebounds, 2.5 assists and 1.2 steals over 71 games for the Charlotte Hornets.
McGee, who last played for the Wolf Pack in 2007-08, played in 74 games for the Phoenix Suns and averaged 9.2 points, 6.7 rebounds and 1.1 blocks a games last year.
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Carson Strong just can’t escape his fragile right knee. Strong, who was signed as an undrafted free agent a few months ago by the Philadelphia Eagles, was recently compared to former NFL quarterback Sam Bradford by Mark Schofield of Touchdown Wire and USA Today.
“Both have knees made of pudding and papier-mâché,” Schofield was quoted in bleedinggreennation.com, a web site that focuses on the Eagles.
Strong should be so lucky as to have a career as long and lucrative as that of Bradford. Bradford lasted nine years in the NFL and earned $130 million, passing for 19,449 yards and 103 touchdowns. The Strong-Bradford comparison has been made a lot since Strong entered the NFL’s consciousness. But it is an unfair comparison for Strong. Bradford, after all, was the No. 1 overall draft pick by the St. Louis Rams in 2010, which is a big reason why he made that $130 million. He also was the NFL’s Offensive Rookie of the Year.
Strong wasn’t even drafted and might not play much his first three or four years, if ever. The comparisons, of course, are all about the knees and their similar (about 6-foot-4, 225 pounds) size. Bradford played more than 10 games in just four of those nine seasons because of his knees. But don’t feel sorry for him. That $130 million can pay for a lot of painkillers, pudding and papier-mâché.
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The Oakland A’s need your help. Start a GoFundMe page for the A’s. Hand out “Donate to the A’s” buttons at the mall. Call in the Salvation Army. Ask Martha Stewart to conduct an A’s bake sale. The situation is becoming dire. Nobody in Oakland, it seems, cares about the A’s anymore.
Forget the record. Yes, the A’s are awful at 25-52 and already 23.5 games out of first place even before the Fourth of July. Their record and minus-114 run differential is the worst in the big leagues. The A’s have gone 6-25 since May 25.
But the A’s have been bad before. That’s not the issue. The issue is that the A’s are a disturbing 8-28 at home. The Oakland Coliseum has become a cat litter box. The city refuses to fix all the broken seats and plumbing and won’t clean up all that the seemingly hundreds of feral cats that now live at the Coliseum leave behind. On most nights it feels like the number of cats equals the number of fans in the stands. The A’s are averaging a ridiculous 8,358 fans a game. That would be nice for the Reno Aces. But the A’s are supposed to be a major league team, competing for major league talent and not trying to survive on selling beer, hot dogs and plastic hats filled with nachos and ice cream.
Even if the A’s get a new stadium approved for the Howard Terminal area in Oakland, it would still be at least another three years or so before a new stadium could be built. Another three years at the Coliseum would be a nightmare and a health risk for all involved. It’s time the A’s move to Las Vegas. Oakland doesn’t deserve the A’s anymore.
