Pack offense shines with 702 yards
Saturday’s 49-41 conference opening loss to Fresno State exposed serious flaws in Nevada’s defense and special teams.
Nevada out-gained the Bulldogs by 227 yards, yet still found itself trailing by 29 points early in the fourth quarter.
The defensive collapse started when Fresno State’s Clifton Smith returned Nevada’s first punt for a touchdown halfway through the first quarter.
Smith went 67 yards and was practically untouched.
“It was just poor defensive football,” coach Chris Ault said. “Special teams were just an abomination. I haven’t had a team play defensively and special teams that bad in a long while.”
In the second quarter, Colin Kaepernick, stepping in for an injured Nick Graziano, found Marko Mitchell in the end zone to bring the Wolf Pack within one at 14-13, but again the special teams and defensive unit folded.
Fresno State’s A.J. Jefferson returned the ensuing kickoff to the Bulldog 46-yard line and the next play freshman running back Ryan Mathews went 54 yards untouched to make the score 21-13 and start the rout.
“Every time we tried to close the gap something else happened on defense,” Ault said.
Nevada’s special teams unit stuck another dagger in the team’s comeback hopes when Brett Jaekle’s 46-yard field goal attempt at the end of the first half was batted away by Fresno State’s Bear Pascoe and returned 40 yards by Jefferson for another Bulldog touchdown.
“We just got out-physicalled in every aspect,” senior Matt Hines said. “Bad technique, bad tackling, just bad football all around defensively.”
After the blocked field goal, Nevada’s defense seemed to just give up.
On Fresno State’s first play of the second half, Ryan Mathews again ran through a huge gap in Nevada’s defensive line for a 67-yard touchdown. As Mathews pulled away, Nevada’s defenders slowed up, accepting that Mathews would score.
Mathews finished with 171 rushing yards and three touchdowns.
Ault said plays like that raise concerns about Nevada’s character and perseverance.
“The bottom line is you’ve got to find a way to rebound and that’s about your character,” Ault said. “That’s my biggest concern right now. I’m just disappointed in the way they responded when adversity hit. They were breaking 60 yards, 70 yards and it was consistent.”
Hines agreed the defense’s performance raises some serious questions.
“We were a flat defense, we had no emotion,” Hines said. “We had no fight in us. We’ve got to do some soul-searching. We’ve got a lot of work to do in one week.”
Senior linebacker Ezra Butler said the blocked field goal in the second quarter was the momentum changer.
The field goal was forced because of a personal foul by freshman offensive lineman John Bender on a third-and-eight play from the Fresno State 14-yard line.
On that play Kaepernick scrambled 14 yards for a touchdown that would have made the score 21-20.
Instead the Wolf Pack was hit with a 15-yard penalty and Jaekle’s field goal was returned for a touchdown, making the score 28-13.
“That personal foul really changed the momentum,” Butler said.
The defense gave up its biggest run of the game in the fourth quarter when Fresno State running back Lonyae Miller broke a 72-yard run to make the score 49-20 Bulldogs.
Nevada’s defense did recover two fumbles in the fourth quarter to give the offense a chance to make the score respectable, but it never showed the ability to shut down the Fresno State’s offensive machine.
“For us not to go somewhere in that game, recapture ourselves and our focus, our kicking game and our defensive team in particular, spelled the major difference,” Ault said.
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October 9th, 2007 at 9:08 am
how about we fire the defensive coordinator. Our DC last year was great, almost the exact same personnel and we held some good teams to less points. Meanwhile this year, Wilson has run our defense into the ground. We are the worst team in the nation in defending the run…fire this clown. DeRuyter left us for AFA and is missed more than any player on our defense that graduated or got hurt. Wilson coaches scared and refuses to call a damn blitz. UGH!