Move over Pack basketball, it’s the football team’s turn
Nevada head football coach Chris Ault, right, talks to Wolf Pack quarterback Colin Kaepernick last year when the team played Missouri. This year, the football team will battle Missouri again and also has a game lined up with Notre Dame. Photo by Amy Beck / Nevada Sagebrush.
Here we go again.
In the 1990s, Nevada was looked at as a football school.
Yes, the Wolf Pack was a part of the lowly Big Sky Conference and Big West Conference, but the success it had was unprecedented.
From 1990-97, our beloved football team was 71-26 (a .732 winning percentage) and won seven — count ‘em — seven conference championships. Nevada won the Big Sky in ’90 and ’91 and took the Big West crown in ’92 and from ’94 to ’97.
There was no stopping these guys.
Well, actually they did prove to be beatable. The Wolf Pack went just 14-31 from ’98-2001.
So at that time, another one of our sports teams stepped up and took the spotlight: the baseball squad.
From ’97-00, the good old boys went 146-82 and brought home three Big West Conference championships (Nevada athletics joined the Western Athletic Conference in 2000).
After this era, they too started to fall off (55-58 record from 01-02).
No need to worry, men’s basketball’s got your back.
In 2003, the Wolf Pack hoops team stepped onto the scene in a big way.
Under Trent Johnson, Nevada went 25-9 and won the WAC Championship. The success would continue.
The Wolf Pack would go on to win four more consecutive WAC titles and reached the NCAA Tournament four straight years (03-06) during this span. During the four-year period the Wolf Pack became a regular in the Big Dance, the team went 106-27 (.797 winning percentage).
Well, it’s been back to the drawing boards in the past two years for Nevada. The basketball team has gone 42-25 and has been marked with first-round exits in the College Basketball Invitational in the past couple of seasons.
Wow, we went from watching the Wolf Pack play nationally in the NCAA tourney on CBS to hitting refresh on our keyboards as we followed Nevada’s CBI game on GameTracker.
Where do we go now? The football team’s got it covered.
I know the Wolf Pack was just 7-6 last season, but its future is very bright.
Take a look at this year. Nevada has upperclassmen leaders returning on both sides of the ball. Offensively, Colin Kaepernick, Vai Taua and Luke Lippincott are all back. Over the past two years, that trio has combined to rush for 4,880 yards and 58 touchdowns.
On the defensive side, our stellar defensive ends Dontay Moch and Kevin Basped are both stepping into their junior seasons while three out of the four defensive backfield spots will likely be manned by seniors (Anotine Thompson, Mo Harvey and Jonathon Amaya).
What I’m saying is next year looks really, really good for Nevada football. We have big-time schools like Notre Dame and Missouri on our schedule. The Wolf Pack will be put into the national spotlight. It’s our time to shine.
As far as the basketball team goes, it’s sad to say this, but some people want nothing to do with that program right now.
It’s really weird because during the past few years, as soon as basketball season ended, people would start yapping about how much they couldn’t wait for next year’s basketball year to start.
But now, some folks can’t wait for football season to come around to put all of April’s men’s basketball madness behind them. And I don’t blame them.
The basketball program is losing recruits left and right and is even danger of losing guys who were on last year’s team. Malik Cooke has one foot out the door, but Nevada Athletic Director Cary Groth has the main gate locked (she’s not letting him go that easily).
The point is times are a-changing, guys. Our rise to football prominence seems imminent and the demise of our basketball program has added to the hype for the football team.
Juan Lopez can be reached at jlopez@nevadasagebrush.com.
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