Insult plus injury for Pack
Nevada running back Brandon Fragger leaves the game Saturday after he suffered a bruised shoulder returning a kickoff in the second quarter of the Wolf Pack’s 69-17 loss to the Missouri Tigers. Fragger will miss four weeks before returning to Nevada’s already depleted offensive backfield. Photo by Amy Beck/Nevada Sagebrush
COLUMBIA, Mo. — Nevada running back Brandon Fragger left in the second quarter of Saturday’s 69-17 loss to No. 6 Missouri (3-0) with a bruised shoulder and will be out for the next four weeks.
“The faster I can come back, the better,” Fragger said. “I just don’t want to come back too fast.”
Fragger’s injury came in second quarter when he was returning a kickoff.
Nevada (1-2) will have a bye-week to regroup from suffering two major injuries in the offensive backfield. The Wolf Pack lost senior running back Luke Lippincott last week to a season-ending anterior crutiate ligament injury against Texas Tech.
Sophomore Vai Taua will be the feature back for the rest of the season in coach Chris Ault’s run-first Pistol offense.
“I’m going to have to hold down the number-one spot,” said Taua, who rushed for 47 yards on 15 carries in Nevada’s 69-17 loss Saturday to Missouri. “I’m going to have to be more of a leader and carry the load.”
Fragger, who graduated from College Park High School in Pleasantville, Calif., is in his junior year. He never redshirted and has one year of eligibility after this season.
Fragger rushed for 127 yards on 19 carries this season, but it was his threat as a route runner out of the offensive backfield that made him so valuable to the Wolf Pack. Fragger ranked fourth on the team with 32-receiving yards and four receptions.
Freshman Lampford Mark saw his first playing time of the season after Fragger left with his injury. Mark rushed for 25 yards on seven carries. Courtney Randall also played behind the quarterback and rushed for 10 yards on two carries.
Record setting weekend
If nothing else, the Wolf Pack can say it saw a couple of records fall Saturday.
Nevada’s defensive ineptitude led to a flurry of broken school records for the Tigers.
Quarterback Chase Daniel broke the Missouri school record for career passing yards with 405 on the day after he completed an 80-yard pass play to receiver Jeremy Maclin.
“It means a lot,” Daniel said. “That’s a big thing for me. I’m very honored to be in that class of quarterbacks and still have a long way to go.”
Daniel passed Brad Smith’s record of 8,799-passing yards. He now has 9,153-passing yards in his career.
The Tigers also set a school record with three receivers gaining more than 100-yards receiving: Maclin (172), Chase Coffman (127) and Tommy Saunders (100). Tiger receiver Jared Perry came two yards of achieving that feat with 98-receiving yards.
Missouri also set a school record for passing yards in a game with 519.
The one record that escaped the Tigers fell at the beginning of the day when Daniel failed to break his own consecutive completion record of 15. Daniel came into the game with 14 consecutive competitions, but threw an incomplete pass to start the game. He completed the next seven passes after snapping his streak.
Hurricane visitor
The Tigers’ offense wasn’t the only hurricane at Faurot Field on Saturday.
After the Wolf Pack’s 52-point blowout loss to Missouri, remnants of Hurricane Ike came in.
There was a steady rain for the majority of the game, but two hours after the final play, the heavens opened and dropped about two inches of rain, which broke the Columbia record last set in 1912 with 1.75 inches.
Ike was no longer classified as a hurricane, but that didn’t keep it from dropping a considerable amount of rain.
Emerson Marcus can be reached at emarcus@nevadasagebrush.com
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