New coach is energizing Nevada fans

Sports fodder for a Friday morning ... The Nevada Wolf Pack athletic department has sold a school-record 1,100 new season tickets for football. A couple things come to mind. First, 1,100 new season tickets is a school record is sad. But the biggest message to take out of the “new energy surrounding the Wolf Pack football program” (Nevada’s words, not mine) is that the community is obviously energized by Chris Ault’s retirement. Why didn’t the Pack, after all, sell more than 1,100 new season tickets after its landmark 2010 season? Ault didn’t retire after 2010, that’s why. You can credit new coach Brian Polian for the new energy, but a Hall of Fame coach being replaced by a guy who has never even been a coordinator shouldn’t excite anyone. That said, this has nothing to do with Polian. The biggest thing Polian has going for him is that his last name is not Ault.

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The so-called excitement surrounding Wolf Pack football might not last another 90 days. The Pack plays at UCLA on Aug. 31 and, well, the excitement might disappear before we flip the calendar to September. But don’t underestimate this Absence of Ault Energy Boost. It might endure the entire season, especially if the Pack can win at UCLA, Florida State (Sept. 14) or Boise State (Oct. 19).

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Want another reason to get excited about Pack football? The Wolf Pack will beat UCLA. Pack offensive coordinator Nick Rolovich is going to become one of the hottest head-coaching candidates in the nation. With his vast playbook of Ault’s pistol offense and Hawaii’s run and shoot, Rolovich is going to take the Pack offense to heights that not even Ault imagined.

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Isn’t it odd that the San Francisco 49ers hired Eric Mangini as an offensive consultant and not Ault? Mangini, a former defensive coordinator, knows nothing about offense.

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The Miami Heat will win another NBA title in the next couple of weeks. The San Antonio Spurs are solid, but they are old. And they don’t have LeBron James. James is the best player in the game and has a chance to become the greatest player in the history of the game.

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Sorry, Wolf Pack fans. The greatest football team in Nevada is the Bishop Gorman Gaels. The Gaels have won the last four state titles and don’t figure to lose a game to a Nevada team ever again. The Gaels, it seems, only bother to play Nevada teams because it’s the only way the Nevada Interscholastic Activities Association will give them a state title trophy. Gorman’s schedule this year includes three games against California schools and one each against a school from Arizona, Florida and New Jersey. The Gaels dominate Nevada more than Boise dominated the Western Athletic Conference.