Santoro: With Beavs and Cougars, MW raises degree of difficulty on schedule

Sports Fodder:

The Mountain West is about a month away from beginning its most treacherous, dangerous and difficult non-conference football season in its history.

The degree of difficulty has been raised this year mainly because each school must play either Oregon State or Washington State, the two schools left abandoned on the Mountain West doorstep when their 10 Pac-12 brothers jumped to other conferences. Two Mountain West teams (Boise State and San Diego State) will play both Oregon State and Washington State this year.

The result is that we are looking at the most interesting and meaningful Mountain West football non-conference schedule ever. It's a grind that could obliterate the Mountain West's ability to be taken seriously or it could propel the conference into the national picture.

The Nevada Wolf Pack, the only team in the Mountain West to play 13 regular-season games this fall, helps kick off the non-league roller coaster ride on Aug. 24 when SMU comes to Mackay Stadium. The Pack will play six non-league games, at Troy and Minnesota and at home against SMU, Georgia Southern, Eastern Washington and Oregon State. It's a slate of games that will either establish Jeff Choate as a legitimate FBS head coach or dig him a hole that he never escapes.

The Wolf Pack, in Choate's defense, has one of the more difficult non-league schedules in the Mountain West this season, despite four of the six games being played at home. But there really isn't a Mountain West team that looks to have a smooth, easy ride in non-league games:

New Mexico has to play Arizona, Washington State and Auburn. San Jose State will tangle with Washington State, Oregon State and Stanford, while Boise State has to mess with Georgia Southern, the two Pac-12 survivors and Oregon.

Jay Norvell's Colorado State Rams must deal with Colorado, Texas and Oregon State. Fresno State gets to play Michigan, Washington State and UCLA, while San Diego State plays Oregon State, California, Central Michigan and Washington State.

Wyoming has Arizona State, BYU and Washington State on its schedule; Utah State gets USC, Utah and Washington State; and even UNLV will play Houston, Kansas, Syracuse and Oregon State. Air Force, as usual, will meet Navy and Army but also will play Oregon State and Baylor.

Hawaii might have the easiest non-league schedule. The Rainbow Warriors play Washington State and UCLA but also get to play Delaware State, Sam Houston and Northern Iowa.

An undefeated record in non-league games this season will have much more meaning this year for a Mountain West team. But it's likely every school will emerge from its non-conference schedule either battle-born or battle-obliterated. 

•••

Forget everything you think you know about Mountain West football. The schedule isn't the only thing that is new this season.

No less than eight of the 12 schools will have new head coaches this season. In the past month alone, Utah State fired Blake Anderson and Jeff Tedford retired from Fresno State because of medical issues.

That leaves just four head coaches (Air Force's Troy Calhoun, Colorado State's Jay Norvell, Hawaii's Timmy Chang and UNLV's Barry Odom) who were at their current schools as head coach just a year ago.

Fans are not the only ones who have no idea what to expect this fall from the majority of the league's teams. The league's coaches, which base most everything they do on film study and tendencies by their coaching opponents, will be coaching blind at least for the first month of the season.

The Mountain West lost a tremendous amount of coaching talent after the 2023 season. Gone are Tedford, Anderson, Wyoming's Craig Bohl, San Jose State's Brent Brennan, San Diego State's Brady Hoke and Boise State's Andy Avalos, among others. Those others, in case you are wondering, are Nevada's Ken Wilson and New Mexico's Danny Gonzales, who won just 15 games between them in six seasons combined.

Two Mountain West coaches (Fresno State's Tim Skipper and Utah State's Nate Dreiling) are interim head coaches this year. But that title shouldn't scare them or give the other coaches in the league a feeling of superiority. Boise State's Spencer Danielson was an interim coach late last year and all he did was win the league championship and get the permanent head coaching gig after the season.

The Mountain West is clearly suffering from a clear and distinct head coaching identity right now.

•••

Who is the best football head coach in the Mountain West right now? That unofficial honor has to go to Air Force's Troy Calhoun.

Calhoun, Air Force's head coach since 2007, is still just 57 and has won 130-of-212 games. He's led the Falcons to 13 bowl games in his 17 seasons, winning his last five in a row (8-5 overall).

Every coach knows what Calhoun is doing in every game. But hardly anyone has figured out a way to stop the Falcons' triple-option offense.

The current head coach that is second in seniority in the Mountain West behind Calhoun is Norvell at Colorado State. Norvell has been a Mountain West head coach for seven seasons, five (2017-21) at Nevada and the last two at Colorado State. New Mexico's Bronco Mendenhall was BYU's head coach for six years (2005-10) when the Cougars were in the Mountain West.

Hawaii's Timmy Chang is fourth in Mountain West head coaching seniority (among current head coaches) with two seasons under his belt. UNLV's Barry Odom (one year) is fifth.

Boise's Spencer Danielson is sixth with just four games of head coaching experience while Fresno's Tim Skipper coached the Bulldogs' bowl game after last season and is seventh in seniority.

Nevada's Tim Choate, San Diego State's Sean Lewis, San Jose State's Ken Niumatalolo, Utah State's Nate Dreiling and Wyoming's Jay Sawvell have never been a head coach in the Mountain West before this season.

•••

Major League Baseball has a Home Run Derby problem. The event on Monday ranged from a disaster (Ingrid Andress' rendition of the national anthem) to simply boring and meaningless (Teoscar Hernandez's Derby championship).

Does anybody really care about anything Teoscar Hernandez wins? Hernandez is a solid, productive player and was certainly a smart signing by the Los Angeles Dodgers this past offseason, but he will never move the needle on the excitement meter. He's on his third team in the last three seasons and fourth in his nine-year career.

Where was Aaron Judge, Juan Soto, Bryce Harper, Shohei Ohtani, Yordan Alvarez, Elly De La Cruz, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Freddie Freeman? They are all All-Stars and were in town anyway. Why not invite sluggers Kyle Schwarber, Rafael Devers, Nolan Arenado and others?

Where was the star power? Everyone in the Derby is a star player on some level but does anybody want to watch Alec Bohm, Marcell Ozuna and Adolis Garcia hit batting practice pitches?

There was more star power (Terrell Owens, Deion Sanders, Dez Bryant, Pedro Martinez, Jennie Finch) in the Celebrity Softball Game over the weekend.

The Home Run Derby, like the NBA's Slam Dunk contest, has run its course. The superstars don't want to do it. When a guy makes $70 million a year (this means you, Shohei) shouldn't he feel obligated to do his sport a favor by hitting batting practice pitches over the fence?

How about raising the interest level by inviting retired stars to the Derby? How about Barry Bonds, Alex Rodriguez, Ken Griffey Jr., Mark McGwire, Frank Thomas, Miguel Cabrera, Albert Pujols, Gary Sheffield, Jose Canseco and Vladimir Guerrero Sr.? Bring the fences in a few yards, serve them juiced baseballs and let them use metal bats.

•••

Nevada Wolf Pack pitcher Jason Doktorczyk was selected in the ninth round by the Minnesota Twins on Monday. Doktorczyk, who won eight games and struck out 150 batters in two seasons at Nevada, is the latest in what is becoming a long line of Pack pitchers drafted by major league baseball.

The last 10 seasons (2015-24) has seen Kade Morris (2023, third round), Peyton Stumbo (2023, 20th), Owen Sharts (2021, 13th), Grant Ford (2019, fifth), Ryan Anderson (2019, 12th), Sam Held (2016, 29th) and Carson High's Adam Whitt (2015, 16th) all drafted off the Peccole Park mound.

The decade before that (2005-14) Pack pitchers drafted were Carson City's Colby Blueberg (2014, 24th), Tyler Wells (2014, 25th), Braden Shipley (2013, first round), Brent McMinn (2013, 18th), Tyler Graham (2010, 22nd), Colin Kaepernick (2009, 43rd), Rod Scurry (2008, 31st and also 2007, 31st), Dan Eastham (2008, 36th), Matt Renfree (2007, 24th) and Tim Schoeninger (2006, 23rd).

That doesn't include the two dozen or so Pack position players that have been drafted over the last two decades.

Kaepernick, by the way, never pitched for the Pack and didn't even consider signing with the Chicago Cubs after the 2009 season. He was a second-round pick of the NFL's San Francisco 49ers after the 2010 season and led the Niners to the Super Bowl after the 2012 season.

The first Wolf Pack pitcher drafted was Don Weir by the Kansas City Royals in the 80th round in 1969. The Wolf Pack now plays at Don Weir Field at Peccole Park.