Santoro: Pack plays its role in meaningless loss

Sports Fodder:

The Nevada Wolf Pack’s 66-14 loss at the Los Angeles Coliseum on Saturday to the USC Trojans means nothing. It was just a bake sale game, staged mainly to raise funds for the Nevada athletic department. Nevada received over a million dollars, USC kept its national championship and Heisman Trophy hopes alive, the dying Pac-12 Network got four hours of programming and everyone went home happy. Yes, of course, college football is no longer a sport. But you knew that already. It is simply television programming and, well, television doesn’t have to be sporting. It just has to make money. Mission accomplished. So, as we meander through another Wolf Pack football season, keep in mind what you saw on Saturday. What you saw was the real Wolf Pack and how it fits in the world of big-time college football. It fits only to serve as a starving, no-talent actor playing a bit part in a television show or movie. Hey, Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman (sorry, I only know superheroes created before 1975) all need someone to punch in the face, don’t they? That’s the Pack, the one always getting punched in the face. It’s honest work. It pays well. And we can’t all be Superman and Batman. And getting to see Wonder Woman in person, like seeing a real Heisman Trophy candidate, does have its perks. But you can’t date Wonder Woman. That perk is reserved for the Heisman Trophy winner. Nevada can only look and go home frustrated.

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The Wolf Pack will get its chance to play the role of Superman this Saturday at Mackay Stadium against the Idaho Vandals. Yes, it will be a Superman that can’t fly or deflect bullets off its chest. Think Clark Kent without the superpowers. But you don’t need superpowers to beat Idaho. Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen can beat Idaho. That’s why Idaho was invited to Mackay Stadium (call it Smallville this week), to end the Pack’s 11-game losing streak. Saturday’s game, though, will mean about as much to the Wolf Pack (as long as the Wolf Pack wins) as the USC punch to the face. It’s a staged, scripted farce simply to fill out the programming schedule. The real Wolf Pack season starts the following week when Kansas comes to Smallville. That will be the Pack’s first reality show after two bad sitcoms.

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A loss to Idaho, though, will have meaning. It will mean the Wolf Pack can no longer fit in its fake Superman costume because it has gotten fat and lazy from not winning a game in over a calendar year (Sept. 3, 2022, over Texas State). Idaho, though, probably will come to Smallville this week thinking it is playing the role of Superman. The Pack knew its role last week. There’s honor, after all, in getting punched in the face by USC. But, Idaho will tell you, getting punched in the face by a fake Superman whose belly is bulging out over his shorts is about as honorable as cutting in front of an 85-year-old great grandmother at the checkout line at Raley’s. And nobody is giving Idaho State over a million dollars to come to Smallville. Idaho State, the Vandals’ little brother, after all, came to Smallville in 2017 and punched the Pack in the face repeatedly and won. That’s what happens when you are a fake Superman and think you can fly for one afternoon. This Pack team needs to remember on Saturday how bad it has been over the past calendar year. They weren’t simply playing a role during those 11 losses in a row. They earned each and every one of them. The Pack needs to remind Idaho to stick to the script it was hired to perform.

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USC is not a great college football team. It simply has great talent. There’s a huge difference. Yes, USC can fly and deflect bullets off its chest. But it can’t block, tackle or defend. They just want to look pretty, smile for the camera in the end zone and get the girl in the end. They will eventually run into a team that can run just as fast as they can and also punch them in the face. The Trojans are a team without much grit. San Jose State scored 28 points on them. The Pack scored two touchdowns. USC is a track team comprised of sprinters who have simply run away from their opponents all of their football lives. That’s college football these days. The guys handing out all the NIL dollars love speed. But this is still football. It’s not a track meet. It’s not a 10-second sprint to the end zone. USC will eventually meet up with a team that won’t play the role of the guy taking repeated punches to the face.

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Jay Norvell’s magic, which was always accomplished with smoke and mirrors, has yet to translate to Colorado State. He has much better facilities, a lot more money and support from the community (just ask him) now than he ever got at Nevada, but he still can’t win. Norvell’s Colorado State Rams were embarrassed in their season opener by Washington State, 54-24, in front of a Rams’ home crowd. The Rams were 3-9 last year in Norvell’s first year. It’s not working yet. Maybe the Air Raid offense simply can’t make a Carson Strong, Romeo Doubs, Elijah Cooks, Cole Turner and Toa Taua out of just anyone. Maybe Colorado State’s overhyped Canvas Stadium isn’t as nurturing and friendly to the home team as Mackay Stadium. Maybe being near a big market such as Denver, with its NBA, MLB, NHL and NFL teams and two other Division I football teams (Colorado, Air Force) that are better with better coaches than the Rams, isn’t so great after all. It’s all-Deion all-the-time now in Colorado and Norvell is just a guy who will repeatedly get punched in the face. He should have stayed in Nevada’s Smallville. There is no Kryptonite, which is green like the Rams, in Nevada.

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It appears that Washington State and Oregon State, the last two burners to get out of Black Rock City after the torrential downpour, will have to join the Mountain West in some shape or form. This would be the best thing to happen to the Mountain West since, well, forever. Oregon State and Washington State will give the Mountain West a touch of legitimacy and class the conference has not had since TCU, BYU and Utah were members more than a decade ago. Oregon State pounded San Jose State 42-17 and Washington State clobbered Colorado State 54-24 this past weekend so they will obviously lift the quality of football being played in the Mountain West immediately. But don’t worry, this isn’t like dropping Alabama and Georgia into the Mountain West. It’s not the same as throwing a pair of pit bulls into a box of baby kittens. The best teams in the Mountain West can certainly play with and beat Washington State and Oregon State, especially once those two schools no longer attract the quality of athletes they got while in the Pac-12.

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The Mountain West should be happy with its 5-7 record this past weekend. It certainly could have been a whole lot worse. This was Bake Sale Weekend for the Mountain West, with teams taking on the likes of USC, Purdue, Stanford, Oregon State, Washington State, Washington, Texas Tech, Texas A&M and Iowa. The only sure Mountain West wins were expected to be against Robert Morris (Air Force won 42-7), Bryant (UNLV won 44-14) and Idaho State (San Diego State won 36-28). But Fresno State beat Purdue, 39-35, and Wyoming stunned Texas Tech, 35-33, in double overtime, to keep the Mountain West from being totally embarrassed. Even Utah State (a 24-14 loser at Iowa) and Hawaii (a 37-24 loser to Stanford at home) played reasonably well. So, yes, the Mountain West let out of sigh of relief this weekend.