Fodder: The ‘Packnamara’ dream really was too good to be true

Sports Fodder:

In the end, it was simply too good to be true. Too Nevada Wolf Pack perfect. Cade McNamara coming back home to save the Wolf Pack football program? Talk about your Miracle on Virginia Street. The fantasy turned out to have about as much reality attached to it as The Three Little Pigs, Cinderella and Snow White, five characters that also wouldn’t ever want to play quarterback for the Pack.

We should have known. All Nevada fans have gotten this year, after all, is the big bad Wolf Pack. Yours truly wrote about the “Cade Packnamara” fantasy just Thursday morning, detailing the endless possibilities of a former Big Ten champion quarterback coming back to his home state to lead the local university to greatness (or at least a return to mediocrity). The fantasy ended late Thursday afternoon when McNamara, the former Damonte Ranch and Michigan Wolverine star committed to the Iowa Hawkeyes. What were we thinking Thursday morning? Well, we were thinking that Wolf Pack football still means something to a local kid who grew up watching the program when it did, indeed, mean something. We thought Home Means Nevada meant something. But, obviously, the mountains the Pack has to climb after going 2-10 with a season-ending 10-game losing streak can’t be solved with an old sports writer’s fantasy.

McNamara, the Nevada high school record holder for passing yards (12,084) and touchdown passes (146), did the right thing for Cade McNamara. So don’t carry any ill will for arguably the best quarterback the state of Nevada has ever produced for passing over the Pack not once but twice in the span of five years. The entire state of Iowa, if you can believe the internet, is thrilled that McNamara will be wearing their colors the next two seasons. McNamara is still a Power Five starting quarterback, something that all Morthern Nevada high school quarterbacks dream about but almost never achieve. Northern Nevada should be even more proud of McNamara now and certainly not blame him for the latest Wolf Pack failure.

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Judging by the talent Ken Wilson has brought to the Pack since getting the head coach’s job last December he likely didn’t spend more than a few minutes dreaming about McNamara wearing silver and blue. Wilson is not a reach-for-the-stars type of guy, as evidenced by his nearly 20 years of serving as Chris Ault’s trusty companion. Wilson likely knew better than anyone that McNamara was never coming to the Wolf Pack. So where does this leave the Wolf Pack as far as the quarterback position is concerned? Well, the position is as uncertain and up for grabs as much as it was when Carson Strong announced last November he was going to skip the Quick Lane Bowl in McNamara’s old backyard in Michigan. Wilson, we saw, failed in many ways this season, on and off the field. And it all starts with the quarterback position. His mentor should have told him that.

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Iowa, which pounded the Pack, 27-0, back in September in between the cornfields and lightning strikes, might have needed McNamara more than the Wolf Pack. The Hawkeyes certainly have more (a Big Ten title, Top 25 votes, a big-time bowl games or a spot in the College Football Playoff) to gain than the Pack. Iowa was 130th out of 131 FBS teams this year in total first downs (170), 122nd in passing yards per game (158.2), 123rd in scoring (17.4 points a game) and 130th in total offense (255.4). The Pack was also embarrassing in all those categories but was still slightly better in all of them than Iowa, where the big yellow letter I on the black sweatshirts seen around campus this year stood for incompletion. Yes, we understand that playing the bulk of your games in the Big Ten is a bit tougher on an offense than playing in the Mountain West. And we are well aware that when the Pack went to Iowa in Week 4, the Hawkeyes outscored the Pack by 27 and had more first downs (15-10), total yards (337-151), offensive touchdowns (3-0) and passing yards (175-82). But programs whose standard is greatness don’t just sit around and hope their problems are solved by clean living, practicing hard and going to class on time. They go out and get a guy who knows how to win what they are after, as McNamara did in 2021 by winning a Big Ten title. And they do it quickly.

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Did former Pack coach Jay Norvell play a role in getting McNamara to Iowa? Norvell, after all, was the Pack head coach in 2017 and 2018 when McNamara was a junior and senior at Damonte Ranch. Norvell was in Reno about a month when the Pack offered McNamara a scholarship in January 2017. So Norvell certainly knows all about McNamara on and off the field. McNamara just this past Sept. 3 passed for 136 yards and a 61-yard touchdown, completing 9-of-18 passes, to help Michigan beat Norvell’s Colorado State Rams, 51-7. Norvell also, don’t forget, played four years at Iowa (1981-85) when current Iowa head coach Kirk Ferentz was the Hawkeyes’ offensive line coach. The two are still close (this year’s Nevada game at Iowa, after all, was scheduled by Norvell). So go ahead and blame Norvell for at least playing a small role in the Pack losing out on McNamara. The Pack, after all, already blames him for everything else.

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Odds are, given how quickly he chose Iowa, McNamara never truly considered coming back to Northern Nevada just like he probably never really considered Nevada’s offer five years ago. Iowa, after all, seems like a perfect fit for him (just like Michigan was). Iowa is a football program which is sort of the Mini Me version of Michigan. McNamara’s toughness, competitiveness, confidence, ability to throw accurately on the run and work ethic will all play well at Iowa, just like they did at Michigan. Staying in the Big Ten was likely the biggest reason McNamara is now at Iowa. The opportunity to beat Michigan, a school that took his starting job away quickly this season, also didn’t hurt Iowa’s chances of getting him.

Looking back, thinking that Nevada had a shot at luring McNamara home was nothing but a fairytale. Iowa is one of the most storied football programs in the nation. The Name-Image-Likeness deal possibilities for McNamara at Iowa are also a 21st century obstacle schools like Nevada have to deal with realistically. McNamara is a handsome young man, after all, who more than held his own on the GQ scale with none other than Tom Brady last year in a photo that helped advertise Brady’s clothing line (Bradybrand.com). What was he going to get at Nevada? A free car and a lifetime membership in the Dolan Auto Group family?

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Norvell, of course, is widely regarded as the biggest traitor in Wolf Pack history (Jeff Horton would also get some first-place votes in that poll) for the way he abruptly abandoned the program for Colorado State last December. But Norvell and Horton really don’t come close to the biggest traitor in school history, a young man who was also an undercover spy. The Wolf Pack once had among its ranks a walk-on offensive lineman in August of 1949 who was actually an assistant coach for the team (Cincinnati) it was scheduled to open the season against in mid-September. Jack Faulkner, who played three seasons at Miami of Ohio under coaches Sid Gillman and George Blackburn from 1946-48, was a 23-year-old Wolf Pack walk-on from Youngstown, Ohio for the Pack and head coach Joe Sheeketski in the summer of 1949. He didn’t stay long at Nevada — he was named an assistant for Gillman at Cincinnati in late August that year — but he had already completed his mission.

Faulkner’s wife Debbie told of her husband’s espionage in his Los Angeles Times obituary in 2008. “As Debbie tells it,” the obit reported, Faulkner “enrolled at the Nevada university, made the football team and would call Gillman almost daily with scouting reports. The Nevada team didn’t pick up on it until they arrived in the visiting team’s locker room (at Cincinnati in September) and noticed Faulkner’s picture on the wall as a coach with the opposing team.” Faulkner’s work as a Gillman spy was also mentioned in Michael MacCambridge’s excellent 2004 book on NFL history titled “America’s Game.” The Pack, by the way, beat Cincinnati, 41-21, so Faulkner, a long-time college and NFL coach, was a much better coach than spy.

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It probably shouldn’t shock anyone that Faulkner would agree to move to Nevada, enroll at the school and spy on his new team for a few weeks and then slip away in the middle of the night like a weekend gambler from Sacramento. Cloak and dagger stuff like that used to happen often in college sports in the 1940s, especially immediately after World War II. The NCAA didn’t really exist yet, there were few rules to worry about and players would basically go to the highest bidder (like now). The Pack, which gave players questionable casino jobs in the 1940s, was in the thick of the action in the 1940s, filling its roster with talented transfers like Marion Motley, Stan Heath, Dick Trachok, Tommy Kalmanir, Horace Gillom and many others before the money ran out after the 1949 season.

Many college football players, after serving time in the war, played for a different school under another name, extending their playing time past the allotted four seasons. So don’t blame the Pack for not having any clue about Faulkner’s true identity. It was clearly a don’t ask, don’t tell era of college football. Faulkner, like many players in the 1940s, was simply a product of his wild and anything-goes era. His wife Debbie detailed her husband’s rowdy lifestyle in his obit in the Los Angeles Times. “People used to say the party didn’t start until Jack Faulkner got there and had his first drink,” Debbie told the Times. The obit also added that Faulkner had a photo of himself with Hollywood’s famed Rat Pack (Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Joey Bishop, Peter Lawford) and another one of John Wayne, who, according to Debbie, was “the only man who could drink (Faulkner) under the table.” Faulkner’s time as a Wolf Pack spy, though, might have made him the founding member of the Rat Pack.

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The UNLV Rebels never fail to amaze the world of college football. That amazement, of course, is usually centered around on how awful its football program has been decade after decade. But this time the Rebels might have reached a new level of silliness. UNLV fired head coach Marcus Arroyo earlier this week just hours after the Rebels beat Wilson and the Pack, 27-22, on Saturday in Las Vegas. The 42-year-old Arroyo is widely considered one of the top young coaches in the nation, or at least he was before he got to Las Vegas. He was an assistant at San Jose State, Wyoming, California, Southern Mississippi, Oklahoma State and Oregon from 2003-2019 before getting the Rebel job in 2020. He also spent a year as the quarterbacks coach for the Tampa Bay Bucs (pre-Tom Brady) in 2014. Arroyo, a tremendous motivator, lost his first 14 games at UNLV but won seven of his last 16, including a 5-7 record this year. Arroyo’s first year was during the trying COVID-19 season of 2020 when he went 0-6 and did a commendable job simply keeping the program alive. He started 0-8 in 2021 but five of the losses were by eight points or less and two of the blowout losses were to Arizona State and Iowa State. Arroyo certainly didn’t deserve to get fired after winning five games and winning back the Fremont Cannon this year. But current UNLV athletic director Erick Harper, a former Kansas State defensive back, got the job this past January. He didn’t hire Arroyo. But he certainly fired him.

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We’re beginning to think that winning the Fremont Cannon game doesn’t mean as much as it once did. Arroyo, after all, is not the first Wolf Pack or Rebel coach to win the Cannon game in the season finale and then get rewarded by getting fired almost immediately. The Wolf Pack dumped Brian Polian in 2016 just hours after he beat the Rebels. UNLV dumped Tony Sanchez the same way in 2019, though they did have enough class to fire him before he beat the Pack at Mackay Stadium. Arroyo, Polian and Sanchez are all the proof you need to know that the Fremont Cannon doesn’t always save jobs. But it might get you fired. Jerry Scattini was fired in 1975 after losing his final game to UNLV. The same thing happened to UNLV’s Bobby Hauck in 2014 after he lost to the Pack.