Joe Santoro: QB woes plaguing Mountain West

The Nevada Wolf Pack offense right now is quarterback Nate Cox handing off to either Toa Taua or Devonte Lee and throwing passes to his latest favorite target, B.J. Casteel. The four combined have been in college for 22 years, thanks to redshirt seasons and a free pandemic season in 2020. We are likely looking at the most experienced quartet the Pack has ever had in the four most crucial skill positions on offense as far as total years out of high school are concerned.

Well, it isn’t working. It isn’t close to working. We are seven games into this Football 101 class, otherwise known as the 2022 Wolf Pack football season, and the Northern Nevada community is beginning to question why there isn’t a referendum on the ballot next month that would turn Mackay Stadium into a much-needed parking lot.

What the university doesn’t need, after all, is a football team that can’t score. The Wolf Pack has scored a grand total of 50 points over its last four games combined. The offense has scored just six touchdowns over those four games. The Wolf Pack has not thrown a touchdown pass against a FBS team all season (the two Pack TD passes came against Incarnate Word, a FCS team). The entire Wolf Pack offense is averaging 291 yards a game. The experienced guys aren’t getting the job done.

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Shane Illingworth, a former Power Five (Oklahoma State) quarterback, hasn’t played since Sept. 17 in Iowa. He’s played in just one of the last five games and the Pack, in case you were wondering, lost all five of those games. Illingworth started the Pack’s first two games and the Pack won both those games (Cox played the bulk of the second half in both games).

The only game Illingworth was allowed to start and finish was at Iowa, a night when there were about a half dozen or so starts and finishes because of lightning. Illingworth wasn’t great or horrible in his one full game and two half games, completing 32-of-53 passes for 234 yards with one interception and no touchdowns. Keep in mind that was accomplished over just eight quarters, with four of those quarters in the rain and lightning against a Big Ten defense.

Cox has completed 88-of-160 passes for 934 yards and two touchdowns over 20 quarters. So he hasn’t been awful or great either. Keep in mind that both of his touchdowns and roughly one-third (302) of his yards came against a FCS defense that had a big lead. It just seems the Pack’s quarterback tryouts this year aren’t really over, even though the coaches are acting like it is.

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We are not saying that Illingworth is a better quarterback than Cox right now and should be taking every snap. But we are saying Cox hasn’t shown anything to also suggest he is the better quarterback right now and deserves to take all the snaps.

A quarterback’s job, after all, is to win games and put points on the scoreboard. That’s just not happening. If this offense continues at its current rate, well, then go ahead and turn Mackay Stadium into a parking lot right now. It might be more entertaining to watch parked cars for three hours than it is to watch this Pack offense.

Why not play Illingworth, a quarterback that will have three more years of eligibility after Cox’s career comes to an end this year? Why not continue to develop the former Power Five quarterback on your roster in actual games so that he can hit the ground running in 2023? So go ahead, continue with the status quo for another game or two. After that, if things don’t change on the scoreboard, then changes in personnel need to be made. If changes are not made at that point then you just might be throwing away the 2023 season, too.

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The quarterback is not the only reason for the Pack’s struggles on offense, let alone the five-game losing streak. Taua is averaging just 3.8 yards a carry and Lee is at 3.5, their lowest averages per carry since they came to Nevada in 2018. Everybody on the offense (starting with the offensive line) has been inconsistent and disappointing. The play calling, too, has been lifeless and unimaginative due to a lack of playmakers on the field and a lack of experience among the coaches calling the plays.

We are fast approaching the point in this Nevada season where the focus has to shift to 2023 and beyond. We’re close (two more losses will do it) but we’re not there yet. The Pack can still lose one more game and still get a bowl invite. So it’s not time to turn this season into a full-blown American Idol tryout for 2023. But that time is just around the corner if the results don’t change.

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The Wolf Pack isn’t the only team in the Mountain West with quarterback issues right now. More than half the dozen teams in the conference, mainly because of injuries, have had to use a revolving door at quarterback. Fresno State’s Jake Haener and Boise State’s Hank Bachmeier, arguably the two best quarterbacks heading into 2022, are both hurt. UNLV’s Doug Brumfield, arguably the best player in the conference the first six games, is also now hurt. Utah State’s Logan Bonner, who won the league championship last year, got hurt this year and retired. Colorado State lost Clay Millen to injury and San Diego State has played five quarterbacks this year and is now playing a guy (Jalen Mayden) that was a safety just two weeks ago.

Just four quarterbacks (San Jose State’s Chevan Cordeiro, New Mexico’s Miles Kendrick, Wyoming’s Andrew Peasley and Air Force’s Haaziq Daniels) have taken the vast majority of their team’s snaps this year.

“There is very little offensive continuity throughout the league,” Colorado State’s Jay Norvell said last week after starting his second freshman quarterback in two weeks. “A lot of teams are going through the same thing.”

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How bad is the quarterback situation in the Mountain West right now? Nine of the 12 Mountain West teams are ranked in the bottom 35 in the nation in yards per completion and passing yards per game. Seven Mountain West teams are among the bottom 15 in the nation in passing yards per game. Half the teams in the conference have as many or more interceptions than passing touchdowns this year. New Mexico, Nevada and Hawaii have just eight touchdown passes combined this year.

This is clearly the worst season in the Mountain West’s existence (since 1999) as far as passing offenses are concerned. Mountain West teams have combined for just 75 passing touchdowns (and 61 interceptions) in 79 games. So, yes, it’s not the Wolf Pack’s fault they can’t put up points through the air. It’s the Mountain West’s fault.

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It doesn’t help the Wolf Pack, of course, that two of the most productive receivers in the Mountain West this year (San Jose State’s Elijah Cooks and Colorado State’s Tory Horton) were on Nevada’s roster just last year.

Cooks is averaging 91.3 yards a game and Horton is at 81.8 a game. The Wolf Pack leader is Jamaal Bell at 36.3 yards a game. Cooks has caught 29 passes for 542 yards and three scores while Horton is at 32 catches for 491 yards and five scores. San Jose State also has two more former Pack receivers in Justin Lockhart (17 catches, 298 yards, no scores) and Charles Ross (14 catches, 204 yards, one touchdown). So you can argue that the struggles in the Pack passing game are not because of the quarterbacks. It’s because of the dreaded transfer portal.