Santoro: Pack actually has three bowl games this month

Sports Fodder:

The Nevada Wolf Pack has lost three of its last four games to fall to 3-6 overall and 0-3 in the Mountain West. So, yes, you can put away your dreams of the Pack getting an invitation to the 12-team College Football Playoff this year.

But that doesn't mean the Wolf Pack season is over. In fact, quite the opposite is true. This season, as far as pure entertainment value is concerned, is only just now beginning.

The Pack's final four games will be at home against Colorado State and former Nevada coach Jay Norvell on Saturday, at Boise State on Nov. 9, at home against Air Force on Nov. 23 and at Las Vegas on Nov. 30. The Pack needs to win its final four games to qualify for a bowl but the all-important games against Colorado State and Norvell, Boise State and UNLV are just like having three bowl games in a month.

Those games are, without question, better than any meaningless, sloppy bowl game the Pack could get into at 7-6. They would be better because they all have tremendous meaning to its battered and frustrated fan base who deserves better than it has gotten the last two-plus seasons.

Pack coach Jeff Choate and his merry band of assistants, vagabonds and transfer portal purchases might not understand how important beating Norvell, Boise State and UNLV are to their new fan base. But they better learn quickly. Give Wolf Pack historian Chris Ault a call. He'll tell you. This is not like playing Georgia Southern, Troy and Eastern Washington or even San Jose State, SMU and Hawaii. Colorado State, Boise State and UNLV will make or break this entire Wolf Pack season.

Yes, we are now at the point in this season when the fans get to set the standards. It was perfectly fine for Choate to set the standards the first nine weeks. It was OK for him to tell us not to obsess about a 27-0 loss at Minnesota because Minnesota has more money than the Pack. It was OK for him to tell us his team was playing hard and improving week to week. We bought it. We trusted him.

But where has all of that actually gotten us? It's gotten us to 3-6 and still looking for the first Mountain West win as we flip the calendar to November. And that's fine. We all knew the garbage of the last two years would take more than nine games to clean up. But now it’s time for the fan base to tell the coaches and the players what is important.

And this fan base needs Choate and the Pack to beat Norvell, Boise State and UNLV.

A victory against any of the three (Norvell, UNLV, Boise) will give Pack fans hope that this program has indeed turned a corner and put the misery of the last two 2-10 seasons in the rear-view mirror. Losses to all three, and a final record of 4-9 (Air Force might be the worst team in the conference this year) or 3-10, would signal that nothing of substance has really changed, that this season has been nothing more than yet another new set of coaching cliches from a new head coach who did what every new coach does and simply hired all of his friends to help him do his job.

We've seen this show before.

Losses to Colorado State, Boise State and UNLV would mean that Choate is still a member (for another year, at least) of the Wolf Pack's revolving door club of coaches that also has Jeff Tisdel, Chris Tormey, Brian Polian and Ken Wilson spinning non-stop for eternity.

It's definitely Save The Season time for the Wolf Pack.

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The Wolf Pack clearly should not be in this type of desperation mode with a month to play. They should have beaten Georgia Southern. They could have beaten SMU. There's no way the Pack should have gone 0-3 against San Jose State, Fresno State and Hawaii.

Beating Oregon State 42-37 at home three weeks ago proved all that. The win on the road at Troy also showed that, as well as fighting toe to toe with SMU and Fresno State before losing. But this team and this rookie coaching staff simply does not know how to win games yet on a consistent basis.

That, maybe more than anything else, is what this team and this coaching staff needs to learn over these last four games. Yes, of course, nobody outside Northern Nevada will believe the Pack has any chance of beating Boise State and UNLV. All we really ask out of those two games is that the Pack keeps those final scores respectable. A win in either game and, well, where can we get 2025 season tickets?

But Colorado State and Air Force at home are certainly games the Pack can win. Air Force, at 1-6, 0-4, is a mediocre-to-bad football team this year. Yes, they still run the triple option offense that has been a nightmare for the Pack over the last decade or so. But those triple options only lead this year to Air Force punting on fourth down most of the time.

Colorado State, too, is struggling on offense. Norvell's Air Raid, which flourished at Nevada with a ridiculous amount of pass-happy talent (Carson Strong, Romeo Doubs, Cole Turner, Justin Lockart, Tory Horton, Melquan Stovall) is now the Run Raid. The Rams have won three in a row, but they are simply grinding out ugly wins over mediocre and bad teams (31-24 over San Jose State, 21-13 over Air Force, 17-6 over New Mexico). They didn't have to leave the state of Colorado for any of the three.

But give Norvell's Rams credit. They are winning the ugly games while the Wolf Pack is losing them. Saturday's game could be extra ugly. Remember the 17-14 slopfest the Rams won at Mackay two years ago?

The Pack better have the stomach on Saturday to get down in the dirt and win an ugly battle. The only way you learn how to win ugly games is, after all, by actually winning ugly games.

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Brendon Lewis, who sat out the loss at Hawaii for health reasons thanks to Fresno State the week before, has done nothing to lose his starting quarterback job. And, make no mistake, we are not suggesting the Pack quarterback position should morph into some Chubba Purdy-Brendon Lewis exotic blend of quarterback parts.

But if you looked past the ugliness on the scoreboard on Saturday, you saw a guy who was born to play the position. Purdy can run like Cody Fajardo, throw like John Dutton and excite a crowd like Colin Kaepernick. Yes, of course, we are fantasizing a little too much but, hey, what else was there to do past the first quarter on Saturday?

We now know that Florida State and Nebraska weren't crazy when they signed Purdy. We now know for sure why the Pack jumped at the chance to grab him last winter. Purdy threw short and long (a 63-yard touchdown to Marcus Bellon) against Hawaii and completed 13-of-18 passes efficiently for 155 yards. He also led the Pack in rushing with 41 yards on just eight carries. And he did it despite trying to shake of layer upon layer of rust after sitting on the bench for the better part of four-plus years.

He certainly wasn't perfect. The interception he threw on his final pass in the fourth quarter was an eyesore. But we'll just chalk that up to a guy who has never been given an honest chance at playing regularly since he left his Arizona high school after the 2019 season.

His throw to Bellon down the middle on the 63-yard touchdown was a work of art. His 19-yard run in the third quarter was electrifying, as was his 14-yarder in the fourth quarter. The Pack didn't allow him to throw long often (eight of his completions were for six yards or less) but he did find Bellon for 16 and Cortez Braham for 31 (before Braham fumbled the ball away).

Yes, Lewis can also do all of those things. He's the unquestioned Pack starter when healthy and has earned that title. But we've likely already seen the best of Brendon Lewis. There seems to be a distinct ceiling on what he can do in this offense.

The Purdy possibilities seem endless.

Imagine Purdy playing every down on game day week after week after getting all of the starter's reps in practice. Imagine what he could do if the offense was specifically tailored to his many talents. Letting your mind wander and thinking those sorts of happy thoughts is not a bad way to spend a Saturday night when the Pack is getting pounded on the scoreboard on an island in the middle of the Pacific.

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Chris Ault used to have a favorite saying. Well, yes, he had a lot of favorite sayings. But the one that always seemed to hit at the heart of what Wolf Pack football was about, was when Ault would describe a “Nevada Back.”

A Nevada back wasn't just a guy with speed, moves and talent. A Nevada Back was a guy you could count on. A Nevada Back was a guy his teammates and his coaches could count on. He got the tough yards. He got the yard on fourth-and-1 in the fourth quarter. He put his team on his back at just the right time. The best quality a Nevada Back could have was showing up to compete each and every game on each and every down.

Frank Hawkins, Charvez Foger, Stefphon Jefferson, and Vai Taua were Ault Nevada Backs. B.J. Mitchell, Lucius Floyd and Anthony Corley. There have been others. You didn't even have to play for Ault to be a Nevada Back. James Butler and Toa Taua come to mind. You didn't even have to be a running back. Quarterbacks like Colin Kaepernick, Eric Beavers, Mike Maxwell and Chris Vargas come to mind.

Nevada Backs don't leave games. Nevada Backs play hurt. Nevada Backs don't even get loose until they are hurt.

Here's hoping that Savion Red, who has all of the qualities a Nevada Back requires, didn't get seriously injured on Saturday at Hawaii. Here's hoping he never misses a down the rest of the season.

The Pack, as we saw on Saturday, needs Red in its backfield. Even more, the Pack needs Red to be a Nevada Back.

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UNLV deserved to beat Boise State on Friday at Allegiant Stadium. The Rebel fans (some of whom were disguised as Boise fans) deserved the victory as a UNLV-record 42,228 showed up.

UNLV held Boise State running back (and Heisman Trophy candidate) Ashton Jeanty to 128 yards on a grueling 33 carries. The last time Jeanty had under 150 yards when he had 20-plus carries in a game was at Memphis (82 yards, 23 carries) in September 2023. Jeanty was averaging 208 yards a game and 9.9 yards a carry this year before Saturday.

The Rebels turned him into a workhorse back.

Boise State went up 20-10 at the half. UNLV led 24-23 going into the fourth quarter. Boise won 29-24 when Jeanty capped off a 75-yard drive with his first and only touchdown of the game early in the fourth quarter. The Broncos then secured the victory by keeping the ball for the final eight minutes.

It was a game the entire Mountain West could be proud of, one of the best in the conference's history. When the founding fathers of the Mountain West dreamed of what their renegade conference could grow into, they pictured what went on in Las Vegas on Friday.

It's a shame the Mountain West will lose Boise State, Fresno State, Colorado State, Utah State and San Diego State after the 2025 season. That, too, was what came out of Friday night in Las Vegas.

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Boise State seems to have a clear path to the Mountain West title game now, with just San Diego State (3-4, 2-0), Nevada (3-6, 0-3), San Jose State (5-3, 3-2) and Wyoming (1-7, 1-3) remaining on its conference schedule. But UNLV, which gets a much-needed bye this week to lick its Boise State mental and physical wounds, had better be careful if wants to go to Boise State for the league championship game.

We still think Nevada has a puncher's chance at UNLV in the season finale on Nov. 30. It's a rivalry game. This Wolf Pack team could be drooling, desperate and determined to spoil the Rebel season. The Rebels also have to play at Hawaii, which is never easy for any visitor. UNLV will also host San Diego State, a team that is more bark than bite right now but also seems to be improving. The Rebels also have to go to San Jose State, a team that is dangerous at home.

UNLV will likely be favored in its four remaining games, but they better not be too focused on their possible rematch with Boise State. The conference needs the rematch.