Santoro: Are things as bad as they seem with this Pack team?

Sports Fodder:

Before we are a bit too hasty and write off this Nevada Wolf Pack men's basketball season as one giant letdown and disappointment, it is important to take a deep breath, calm our nerves and relax.

Things are not as bad as they seem.

Feel better? Of course you don't. You want your Wolf Pack to already have 22-plus wins, a Mountain West regular-season title sewed up, a secure spot in the Top 25 and being considered as a lock to get a single-digit seed in the NCAA Tournament in a few weeks. That scenario, after all, seemed like a very real possibility when the Pack was 6-1 back in November and even 8-3 in the middle of December.

The reality is that things are not great. Maybe not the-season-is-a-bust bad, but also not March-Madness-is-definitely-going-to-be-exciting good. The truth is this Pack team won six of its first seven and eight of its first 11 games with some fancy scheduling, well-placed mirrors and home cooking.

Hey, all college basketball teams do it. It's called taking care of No. 1. College basketball coaches no longer have any control whatsoever over their players and roster. But they still have control over their non-conference schedule.

Pack coach Steve Alford clearly lost control of his team after Thanksgiving. The Pack has gone 10-13 since that 6-1 start and are closer to the doormats of the Mountain West (Air Force, Fresno State, San Jose State, Wyoming) than they are to the league's best (New Mexico, San Diego State, Utah State, Boise State, Colorado State).  

The Pack has now lost four of its last five games at the time of year when it is important to hit your stride, is just sporting a College Basketball Invitational-type 16-14 overall record, and has beaten just one team in the Mountain West currently with a winning record. And that team is UNLV, which is 17-13 and is just as nervous as the skittish Wolf Pack with the league tournament coming in less than a week.

But, again, things are not as bad as they seem. This is a not a dumpster fire team. The Pack, after all, is 8-2 against the dumpster fire Mountain West teams. This is a team that simply does not know how to win games against teams that can actually swim under water without drowning and walk and chew gum at the same time without choking.

The Pack lost to New Mexico twice this year, but it was just by five points combined. It lost to Boise State twice but by just 11 points combined. The two losses to Colorado State were by 10 points combined and one of the losses to Utah State was by just five points. Yes, we get it. We sound like David Carter trying to explain consecutive 12-19, 15-17 and 9-22 seasons.

There does come a point in the season that you are clearly what your record says you are. But the Pack is not at that point yet.

If the Wolf Pack wins at San Diego State on Saturday and struts into the Mountain West tournament full of confidence, spit and vinegar, then the season will have a much different feel. That could happen. San Diego State, after all, just lost to UNLV.

That's the beauty of the Mountain West. The supposed good teams in the league aren't truly all that good. New Mexico recently lost to Boise State and San Diego State and barely beat Nevada. Utah State just lost to Boise State and Colorado State. Colorado State and Boise State are playing well right now but neither one is a lock to make the NCAA Tournament.

Stay calm, Wolf Pack fans, for another 10 days or so. After that, if it will make you feel better, you can throw something at the television on Selection Sunday.

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The Wolf Pack simply can't beat good teams.

The Wolf Pack's 16 wins this year are against teams that currently have a record of 203-281 combined. Their 14 losses have come against teams with a combined record of 285-135. So, yes, a very distinct trend has been established, a trend that needs to end right now if the Pack wants to make sure its season doesn't end next week in the conference tournament.

The only wins the Pack owns right now over teams that currently have winning records are Santa Clara (20-11), Virginia Commonwealth (25-5), South Dakota State (20-11) and UNLV (17-13). Nobody is picking any of those teams to show up in the Final Four next month. The only one that is a lock to make the NCAA Tournament at all is VCU.

That win over VCU also took a very strange set of circumstances. The game was at a neutral site (Charleston, S.C.) and came less than 24 hours after VCU suffered a disappointing overtime loss to Seton Hall. It also took an uncharacteristic late second-half rally by the Wolf Pack, a team that usually wilts in the final 10 minutes or so of games against competent teams. VCU held a commanding 42-27 lead two minutes into the second half and was still up nine (50-41) with 11 minutes to play. VCU also was up 61-58 with under a minute to play.

The Pack clearly stole that victory. Make no mistake, that's all well and good. Good teams steal wins even when they don't deserve them. It's what good teams do. It's one of the reasons, maybe the biggest reason, why we were so excited about this Pack team after it beat VCU.

But the Pack hasn't stolen a victory since that weird day in Charleston. S.C. Good teams, even the Mountain West's version of good teams, have basically owned the Pack ever since.

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What happened to this Wolf Pack team?

Well, injuries happened. Tre Coleman broke a hand and Daniel Foster hurt an ankle. Losing two guys that were averaging a combined 11 points over roughly 50 minutes a game shouldn't be that big of a deal. But that's how fragile this Wolf Pack turned out to be.

It also must be noted that Coleman and Foster were two of the team's most influential leaders, maybe the top two. They were the heart and soul of the team, guys that were more concerned with winning and doing the little things than building up their stats so they could be named to the all-conference team.

So, you can't measure Coleman and Foster by their numbers alone. If the Pack had lost Nick Davidson and Kobe Sanders, well, it would be getting blown out by double digits every game. Things would be worse than they seem now. Losing Coleman and Foster has just left the Wolf Pack a frustrating team that can't get over the hump against good teams. Without Davidson and Sanders, the Air Forces and Fresno States of the world, let alone the San Jose States and Wyomings, would be laughing at the Pack.

The injuries, of course, also stabbed the Pack's depth in the heart. The Pack now has three guys (Tyler Rolison, Xavier DuSell and Brandon Love), that spent considerable time on the bench this year and have, at times, looked like they wished they were still on the bench.

The injuries, though, are just part of the Pack's downfall. This team, for some reason, has never learned to play with any true toughness, grit or heart. They never have quit or stopped playing hard or refused to listen to their coaches. You don’t dare do that to a Steve Alford. But they also never seemed to truly fight back and give as many punches as they receive in games against competent teams. If they did, they wouldn't be 0-9 against the top five teams in the league.

Those top five teams are, by the way, 54-4 combined against the other six teams in the league. The only teams in the bottom six that have beaten a top five team this year are San Jose State, which stunned New Mexico, and UNLV, which somehow found enough grit to beat both Utah State and San Diego State (twice).

Maybe the Pack should set its sights on San Diego State, New Mexico and Utah State. 

•••

The Las Vegas Raiders should do everything in their power to sign quarterback Aaron Rodgers. They've already gone out and added a 73-year-old Pete Carroll as head coach. Why not go out and get a 41-year-old Rodgers?

The Raiders, who have the No. 6 pick in the draft, can still get their quarterback of the future in April. But is any quarterback in the draft going to be as good as Rodgers in 2025? The Raiders are probably drafting too late to get Cam Ward of Miami and maybe even Shedeur Sanders of Colorado. But Jaxson Dart (Mississippi), Quinn Ewers (Texas), Jalen Milroe (Alabama), Will Howard (Ohio State), and Riley Leonard (Notre Dame) should be available at No.6 and maybe even in the second, third or fourth rounds.

The Raiders should sign Rodgers, draft Boise State running back Ashton Jeanty at No. 6 and then grab a quarterback in the second round or later (preferably later).

Rodgers can still play. He passed for 200 or more yards in 11 games this past season. He had two or more touchdowns in 10 games. He completed 20 or more passes 12 times. He also played in all 17 games, passed for 28 touchdowns and 3,897 yards and was intercepted just 11 times. And he did it all on a pathetic New York Jets team that was a complete mess without a true head coach.

Rodgers would be perfect for a Raiders team has been desperate to establish any sort of identity since it moved to Las Vegas for the 2020 season. That Halloween costume Black Hole mystique from Oakland simply hasn't translated to Las Vegas, no matter how hard they try. It's actually become a little sad.

The Raiders have been to one playoff game since moving to Las Vegas and have had just one winning season (10-7 in 2021). They've fired three head coaches (Jon Gruden, Josh McDaniels and Antonio Pierce) in five Las Vegas seasons. 

Carroll didn't come to Las Vegas for a long rebuild. Did we mention he's 73 years old? Well, he will also be 74 come Week 3. He needs Rodgers to get this franchise pointed in the right direction before he joins Gruden, McDaniels and Pierce in the Raiders' Fired Football Coaches Association.

Carroll would also be perfect for Rodgers, a guy who doesn't listen to anyone anymore but the voices in his head. Carroll has always been a players' coach. He convinced the Seattle Seahawks to play with and win a Super Bowl with Russell Wilson, didn't he?

Rodgers would give the Raiders some of that old Halloween costume Black Hole swagger.

•••

Jim Mastro's return to the Wolf Pack sidelines (or up in the coaches’ box) is the best thing to happen to the Nevada Wolf Pack football program in quite a while.

Mastro, one of the original architects of the Pistol offense, was named the Wolf Pack's running backs coach last week. He has been the Pack's general manager (whatever that is) since 2022 when the Pack went 7-30 combined. But since there's nothing to "generally manage" at a struggling mid-major like Nevada except the complaints among the staff about not having enough NIL dollars, Mastro was obviously not being used correctly.

Head coach Jeff Choate changed all that last week.

Mastro is definitely back where he belongs as the running backs coach. Yes, he should have been named the Pack head coach probably after the 2012 season when Brian Polian was the choice, but that mistake has finally been corrected now that Mastro is a Pack coach once again. Mastro, who coached under Chris Ault at Nevada from 2004-10 and under Chris Tormey from 2000-03, returns as a Pack coach this time with a resume that also includes Washington State and Oregon.

Mastro coached under Ault, but he was always more than just an Ault helper. He also has a strong connection to Mike Leach, one of the more innovative and bold coaches in college football history. Mastro was a running back at Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo in 1987 when Leach started his coaching career at the school. Mastro then coached under Leach at Washington State from 2012-17. So, he'll bring Ault's obsession with detail, order and seriousness along with Leach's wildness and go-for-broke-at-all-times craziness. He's probably more like Choate, who coached with Mastro and Leach at Washington State in 2012, than Ault in that way.

Mastro, who came to Nevada on head coach Chris Tormey's staff in 2000 (he was with Tormey at Idaho in 1988 and 1999), coached legendary running backs at Nevada such as Chance Kretschmer, Vai Taua, Luke Lippincott and B.J. Mitchell. Don't forget that in the Pistol at Nevada (with Mastro the Pistol will definitely make some sort of a comeback at Nevada), the quarterback (Jeff Rowe, Colin Kaepernick) was also treated like another running back, a philosophy that Chubba Purdy should thrive in this fall.

Mastro and the Pistol cranked out 1,000-yard rushers at Nevada faster than you can say Nevada Back. He had three (Taua, Lippincott, Kaepernick), in one year alone (2009). At Idaho under Tormey in the late 1990s when a pistol was just a gun, he also had Joel Thomas (1,229 yards in 1998), one of the best running backs in Big West Conference history.

After Mastro left (after 2010) and after Ault left (after 2012), the Pack has had just two running backs rush for 1,000 yards in a season. James Butler did it twice with 1,342 yards in 2015 and 1,336 in 2016 and Don Jackson had 1,082 in 2015. Toa Taua couldn't even do it once in five seasons, though we blame pass-crazy Jay Norvell (2018-21) and an overwhelmed Ken Wilson (2022) for that, not Taua.