Santoro: Hard to argue with Wilson's 'worst' ranking

The Nevada Wolf Pack football program, according to Athlon Sports, has the worst head coach in the Mountain West. The Wolf Pack’s Ken Wilson, who finished 2-10 in his first year as a head coach in 2022, is No. 12 of 12 in the Mountain West.

Yes, he’s rated even lower than Hawaii’s Timmy Chang (No. 10) and New Mexico’s Danny Gonzalez (No. 11). Chang beat Wilson last year and Gonzales is 7-24 in three seasons in Albuquerque. You could argue that Wilson should be ranked ahead of Gonzalez since the Lobo head coach is also just 3-20 in Mountain West games. But Gonzalez likely earned that No. 11 ranking simply because he’s lasted three seasons and has three league wins. Wilson’s Pack didn’t win a game after Sept. 3.

Air Force’s Troy Calhoun is No. 1 followed by Fresno State’s Jeff Tedford, Wyoming’s Craig Bohl, Boise State’s Andy Avalos and former Pack coach Jay Norvell, now at Colorado State. No. 6 is Blake Anderson (Utah State) followed by No. 7 Brent Brennan (San Jose State), No. 8 Brady Hoke (San Diego State) and No. 9 Barry Odom (UNLV) with Chang, Gonzalez and Wilson the unquestioned bottom feeders.

This might be the most honest and accurate list Athlon has ever done concerning the Mountain West. It is difficult to argue with any of it as we approach the 2023 season.

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Wilson, though, will likely climb this list very soon. His Wolf Pack has a soft 2023 schedule that should produce at least five victories out of a group of forgiving foes that includes Idaho, Texas State, UNLV, New Mexico, Hawaii, Utah State, Colorado State and Wyoming. You can’t after all, keep blaming Jay Norvell for everything, right? Is Wilson a true head coach or is he just a loyal assistant chosen in just five seconds by an athletic director (Doug Knuth) who had one foot already out the door? We’ll find out this year.

Nobody is expecting Wilson to suddenly turn into Chris Ault, vintage 2010, overnight. So we’ll set the bar low. How about four total wins with at least two of them coming in Mountain West games? Is that low enough? That should be enough for Wilson to leapfrog Gonzalez into the No. 11 slot among Mountain West coaches.

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Year No. 2 as a head coach has been kind to recent Wolf Pack coaches. It’s when they qualm all of the Wolf Pack fears and show they can actually do the job.

Brian Polian went from four wins his rookie year in 2013 to seven and a bowl game in 2014. Norvell went from three wins in 2017 to eight and a bowl in 2018. The third version of Ault went from five wins in 2004 when he tried to clean up Chris Tormey’s mess to nine wins in 2005. Even Tormey improved from two to three wins in 2000 and 2001.

The last Pack coach to decline in his second year was Jeff Tisdel, who won just five games in 1997 after winning nine and a bowl game in 1996. Wilson was an assistant on those 1996 and 1997 Pack teams. Wilson, though, has one thing this year that Tisdel didn’t have in 1997. Wilson set the bar extremely low his first year. It’s almost impossible to decline from two wins.

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San Diego State, as things stand now, is still a member of the Mountain West. But that will likely change by this time next year. The Mountain West is unapologetically proceeding as if the Aztecs will play just one more season in the conference.

Mountain West commissioner Gloria Nevarez has sent a $17 million exit fee bill to San Diego State already, of which $6.6 million will come from the distribution payment the conference is currently withholding from the Aztecs. The Mountain West, which normally would be kissing all things Aztec in a situation like this, obviously believes San Diego State is just waiting for an invitation from the Pac-12. That invite will likely come in a month or so when the Pac-12 finally works out its media rights deal. This will likely all play out with San Diego State stalling on its $17 million exit fee payment for about a month until it accepts its invite from the Pac-12.

So, yes, this will likely be the Aztecs’ final year in the Mountain West. It’s all an unsightly mess for all parties concerned. But at least the Mountain West is taking the proactive role in this mess and not allowing San Diego State to call all the shots according to its own convenient timeline. Stepping Stone Conference is finally throwing the rocks.

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The Pac-12 is clearly now No. 5 among the so-called Power Five conferences, trailing the SEC, ACC, Big Ten and Big 12. They are actually closer to the Mountain West now than they are to the No. 4 conference in the Power Five. The Pac-12 can’t even negotiate a media rights deal in the proper time anymore. Who wants to televise Pac-12 games without USC and UCLA? Maybe Nevada Sports Net. But that’s about it.

USC and UCLA leaving the Pac-12 for the Big Ten is the biggest sports heist since the Dodgers and Giants went from New York to California. New York still hasn’t fully recovered and never will. The Pac-12 will never recover from losing USC and UCLA. It could add six San Diego States and it still wouldn’t matter. The Pac-12 is a meaningless conference now (at least in the eyes of the TV networks), sort of simply the Mountain West’s big brother and nothing else. There is no Power Five anymore. It’s a Power Four.

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Are you upset that Wander Franco, Fernando Tatis or even Elly De La Cruz were not immediately named to baseball’s All Star rosters? The podcasters and cable TV talk show hosts are upset because, you know, they needed something to be upset about earlier this week. But, in reality, nobody truly cares about any All Star game anymore. Why would anyone, after all, care about a game where the players are just going through the motions?

Baseball still has the best All Star game and it’s not even close but it has almost zero meaning. We watch because, well, what else is on in July on a Tuesday night? Baseball’s All Star rosters have always been a joke. They don’t involve the best players necessarily. They just involve the players who had the best April, May and June. Imagine an Oscar given to the actress or actor that had the best opening scene in a movie. That’s baseball’s All Star game. And, by the way, at least one person in every movie over the past year gets an Oscar, just like every team in the big leagues gets an All Star. Yes, we’re talking about you, Brent Rooker of the Oakland A’s. You, too, Lourdes Gurriel Jr. of the Arizona Diamondbacks.

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Is stuffing hot dogs in your face a sport? ESPN seems to think so. The once meaningful television sports monster treats the Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Contest like it is golf’s Masters and considers hot dog eater Joey Chesnut like he is Babe Ruth. Could Chesnut consume six dogs with everything on them to go along with four beers and then go out and hit two home runs a couple hours later? Ruth did it every April through October.

Everyone who compares Ruth to Shohei Ohtani now always, for some reason, fails to mention Ruth’s third best athletic skill. It wasn’t all about hitting and pitching with Ruth. He also inhaled mass quantities of food and alcohol while still excelling on the field. Can Ohtani do that? Ohtani can’t hold Ruth’s napkin.

Since ESPN considers hot dog digesting a sport worthy of our attention, then Ruth is still, without question, the greatest baseball player in history.