Fodder: Norvell plays the bully (poorly) in return to Mackay

 Sports Fodder …

Jay Norvell had personal business to take care of last Friday night when he first stepped into Mackay Stadium. Forget about preparing his Colorado State Rams to play a football game. Forget about acting with class and dignity when returning to the scene of his crime last December when he abandoned the Nevada football program for Colorado State. Norvell instead went out of his way Friday the first chance he got to verbally intimidate Nevada Wolf Pack head coach Ken Wilson out in the open for everyone to see. Norvell made like a professional wrestler walking into the ring or an 8-year-old bully on the playground and yelled at Wilson from afar. He also stood almost nose to nose (more like Norvell’s nose to Wilson’s forehead) shouting and physically daring the Pack head coach to respond. At one point, Norvell had both hands on his hips and was stalking back and forth like a caged lion, yelling at Wilson. Norvell’s assistants had to restrain him from Wilson and the on-field officials later had to talk to him.

It was a childish display, seemingly meant only to satisfy Norvell’s schoolyard ego and was clearly, for his players at least, a my-dad-can-beat-up-your-dad moment. Norvell, he says, was upset after Wilson told the media last week that Norvell told Pack players to skip Nevada’s bowl game last December. “I just told him that if he wants to talk to me he can call me anytime,” Norvell said. That, of course, is a classic bully you-got-something-to-say-then-say-it-to-my-face moment. Norvell went on to add that Wilson’s “public comments were unnecessary and they weren’t true and I was disappointed in him for that.” Who is Norvell to determine whether or not Wilson’s comments were unnecessary? And why should Wilson or anyone care if Norvell is disappointed in him? You know who is disappointed in Norvell? How about an entire region of Wolf Pack supporters who saw him leave in the middle of the night last December and take with him everything that wasn’t nailed down? Don’t forget, when Norvell got to Colorado State all he did was criticize Nevada’s support of his program. If there was a true you-got-something-to-say-then-say-it-to-me moment, it should have been Pack fans saying that to Norvell on Friday.

Norvell also on Friday did exactly what he said disturbed him the most about Wilson’s words last week. Only Norvell did it, of course, in a more grandiose, look-at-me, pro wrestling gesture designed only to belittle Wilson (verbally and physically) in public. Norvell then stood in front of the media (like Wilson last week) after the game and told the world how disappointed he was in Wilson for breaking the coach’s code of silence. Norvell also before the game told his players that none of the off-the-field stuff this week matters and to put it out of their mind. And then Norvell made it matter and put it on everyone’s mind by trying to bully Wilson. It was yet again another classic do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do moment for Norvell.

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Wilson did nothing wrong last week, no matter what Norvell says. If your neighbor’s dog, after all, comes over in your yard and sprinkles on your lawn chairs, it is perfectly fine for you to admit your lawn chairs are wet and need a cleaning. That’s all Wilson said last week. He said his lawn chairs are wet and need a cleaning and he added the obvious, that Norvell was the only neighborhood dog within sprinkling distance when the incident took place. Wilson, Norvell failed to mention on Friday, also made sure to say that all of his information was second-hand. Wilson, after all, didn’t witness Norvell sprinkling on his lawn chairs. He was off doing the right thing last December by helping coach Oregon in its bowl game before taking over Nevada. It was Wilson’s kids who told Wilson what Norvell did to the Pack lawn chairs. Wilson, it must be noted, also didn’t tell the half dozen or so Oregon players he recruited to come to Nevada to skip Oregon’s bowl game. But that doesn’t really matter. The fact remains that all of the dozen or so Pack players and recruits and the half dozen or so Pack coaches that moved to Colorado State did not, in fact, play or coach in the Pack’s bowl game. Do you think that was a strange coincidence? Nobody can get a dozen or so college players or coaches to do the same thing on game night, let alone in the off-season with their careers on the line. The neighbor’s dog, when confronted about sprinkling on your lawn chairs, might cower in a corner and look away or come lick your hand asking for forgiveness. Norvell on Friday puffed his chest out when he walked into Mackay and then went over to violate Wilson’s personal space. Somebody should have put a muzzle on him.

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There are, obviously, many differences between Wilson and Norvell off the field. But on the field they are eerily similar. Both have put together football teams this season that are in intensive care right now. That display we saw on Friday (a 17-14 Colorado State win) was embarrassing for both teams’ fan bases, players, coaches, alumni and the athletic directors who have to write these coaches a seven-figure check. The Pack gave up two defensive touchdowns and then ran into Colorado State’s kicker on the final play of the game. You can’t make this stuff up, folks. Colorado State’s offense, it seemed, could have gone out on the field by itself and failed to find the end zone. It was as if neither team was coached at all last week or all season. Wilson, after all, was busy criticizing Norvell and Norvell was busy seething. Time to grow up, guys before, you know, your teams quit on you. It was one of the worst-played football games by both teams in Mackay Stadium history. And that is saying a lot, right, Chris Tormey? Colorado State didn’t sniff a touchdown on offense playing a Nevada defense that gave up 55 points to a Division I-AA team this year. Nevada couldn’t, on its own home turf, mind you, beat an 0-4 team with a true freshman making his first start at quarterback, playing behind an offensive line that can’t block anyone and with a defense that can’t stop anyone. You kept waiting for the Pack veterans left behind and jilted by Norvell to take over the game. That never happened. Wilson seemed to be still in shock all game long by his exchange with Norvell. Nobody deserved to win that game and, in reality, nobody really did. This game, it turns out, was yet another gift Nevada has handed Colorado State recently after, you know, they gifted a head coach, half his staff and a dozen or so players last winter.

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Think back a month or so, Wolf Pack fans, to a better time — a time of promise and hope when all things seemed possible. Your beloved silver and blue heroes were 2-0 on the season and leading Incarnate Word 17-3 late in the first quarter of Game 3, seemingly on the way to an inspiring 3-0 start. But then everything turned dark, even more gloomy than those unsightly Halloween costumes the Pack wore last Friday. It happened quicker than even a head coach leaving in the middle of the night to go to one of your conference rivals and taking with him half his coaching staff and a couple minivans full of players. At that point, when the Pack was 2-0 on the year and ahead of Incarnate Word by two touchdowns, Nevada had outscored its opponents 78-29 over roughly nine quarters of play. Since that glorious moment, however, the Wolf Pack has been outscored 144-58 over roughly 15 quarters of play and has fallen to 2-4 on the season. What happened? Better yet, what hasn’t happened?

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What has happened is a string of ridiculous, mind-boggling, head-scratching, unbelievable, never-before-seen, almost supernatural events that have buried this Wolf Pack team. It all started with the Wolf Pack giving up 35 unanswered points on its own home field to Incarnate Word, an FCS team, on the way to a disturbing 55-41 loss. It was the most points the Wolf Pack, a former FCS team itself, has ever allowed to an FCS school. Then there was the frightening Halloween night in Iowa, where the lightning Gods, apparently disturbed by a match between a team that just lost to an FCS team and an Iowa team that was using a 1924 offensive playbook, tried its best to call off the game. The lightning kept coming, the game kept getting interrupted, and seven hours later the Pack had a what-the-heck-did-we-just-sit-through 27-0 loss. And then came the Air Force game, a game the Pack almost didn’t show up for. The Pack offense had the ball for just 38 plays and for just over 16 minutes. Air Force had the ball for 40 more plays. It was a 48-20 loss that felt like 78-2. And then came last Friday night, a little shop of horrors that will haunt Northern Nevada for decades. The two head coaches showed more emotion and fight and put on a better show before the game than the players during the game. Wilson told the media last week that Norvell did things to the Pack players last December that “don’t happen very often in college football.” Well, the series of unfortunate events the Pack has experienced over its last 15 or so quarters also doesn’t happen very often. And it has to stop.

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The Wolf Pack, despite the unacceptable loss to Norvell last week and the current four-game losing streak, still hasn’t hit rock bottom. Not yet. As Pack fans know, there is always a lower level to hit. Rock bottom will come this Saturday if the Wolf Pack somehow finds a way to lose to the Hawaii Rainbow Warriors. The Warriors are coached by Timmy Chang, one of the Wolf Pack traitors who originally went with Norvell to Colorado State. Chang then got the Hawaii job because, apparently, Hawaii was desperate and determined to hire someone, anyone who was born and raised in Hawaii and played for the Warriors. Yes, OK, that was sort of how Wilson got hired by Nevada, except for the playing for the Wolf Pack part. But Chris Ault, Jeff Tisdel, Jake Lawlor and Dick Trachok were unavailable. But at least Wilson had a legitimate resume, the last nine years at Pac-12 schools. Chang, a former quarterback, spent his time at Nevada coaching wide receivers and tight ends. Hawaii is 1-5 and has been outscored, on average, 41-17 in every game. They have been outgained, on average, 470-318, and have scored just 12 touchdowns to their opponents’ 32. Chang, a former quarterback, has guided his quarterbacks to just two passing touchdowns this year. Wilson has done the same at Nevada but he is, after all, a former linebacker. Hawaii’s only victory was against an FCS school (that's Division I-AA, for all you mid-century Pack fans), 24-14 over Duquesne. The Pack loses to Hawaii and, well, Wilson would be better off joining Norvell on the pro wrestling circuit.