Santoro: What ever happened to the ‘Nevada Back’?

Sports Fodder:

The time has come for the Nevada Wolf Pack football team to recapture and rekindle a huge part of its identity.

When the Wolf Pack was winning games and conference titles on a regular basis, odds are a talented, productive and workhorse running back was a huge reason for the success. Those days, unfortunately, seem like ancient history now.

The Wolf Pack, which has gone 7-30 over its last three seasons, has not produced a 1,000-yard runner for the past eight consecutive seasons. Those eight seasons, from 2017 through last year, not surprisingly, have given us a sleep-inducing 40-57 overall record, four winning seasons, a 25-38 Mountain West record, four bowl games, three head coaches and plenty of empty seats at Mackay Stadium.

The Wolf Pack has fallen into a constant state of mediocrity and frustration since James Butler was the last Pack back to produce a 1,000-yard season in 2016 (1,336 yards). Yes, of course, there are more reasons than we can mention here for the overall struggles the program has suffered through since Butler's memorable season. Seven victories and seemingly non-stop double-digit deficits over the last three seasons, obviously, are not conducive to producing a thousand-yard back.

But if the Pack is truly serious about reversing the 7-30 trend of the last three seasons, why not bring back the Nevada tradition of 1,000-yard backs and see if it gets this program back on track? It's certainly worth a shot.

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Which came first, the lack of a thousand-yard back or the lack of overall success?  All we know is when Jay Norvell, a former college defensive player and a guy who made his mark as an assistant coach by tutoring wide receivers, took over the program in 2017 and installed the pass-happy Air Raid offense, the tradition of 1,000-yard Pack backs dried up immediately.

In case you've forgotten, former Pack coach Chris Ault based almost everything he did on creating what he called a "Nevada back," a physical, dependable, workhorse, no-nonsense runner who helped build leads and then protected them. Ault, when he returned to coaching for the third time two decades ago, even invented an entire offense (the Pistol) after the 2004 season that was designed to pump life into the running game. The Pistol revolutionized Wolf Pack football, giving the program its best season in history in 2010, and also transformed offenses all around the country. The Pack had 11 1,000-yard seasons under Ault and the Pistol from 2005-12.

A thousand-yard back every year under Ault seemed to be a given. Some years there were two (2008, 2010, 2012) and even three (in 2009). Ault coached the Pack from 1976-92, 1994-95 and 2004-12 and produced 24 of the 33 1,000-yard seasons in Pack history, from Wayne Ferguson in 1977 through Cody Fajardo in 2012.

This current eight-year 1000-yard drought is the longest in Pack history since Ferguson produced the first 1,000-yard season in school history in 1977. The longest stretch without a 1,000-yard back before this current era was a strange five-year run from 1989 through 1993, when the Pack threw the ball a ton with quarterbacks Fred Gatlin and Chris Vargas and didn't give anybody more than 164 carries (Dedric Holmes in 1991) in any one season. The Pack dominated Division I-AA in 1990 and 1991 (25-3 combined record) and made the transition to I-A in 1992 during this weird, transitional time that produced non-stop great thrills and even some devastating losses.

Jeff Horton took over for Ault as head coach in 1993 and quickly created what he liked to call the Air Wolf offense that produced a program-record 4,265 yards that year for Vargas during a 7-4 season. Marcellus Chrishon led the ground game with 809 yards on just 136 carries. Ault returned the very next year after Horton escaped to UNLV and guided Chrishon (1,076) and Ken Minor (1,052) to 1,000-yard seasons in 1994 and 1995 and an 18-5 combined record. The era of seemingly non-stop 1,000-yard seasons was born. The 23 seasons from 1994-2016 produced 23 1,000-yard runners and involved four head coaches (Jeff Tisdel, Chris Tormey, Ault and Brian Polian).

Polian, who likely only kept Ault's Pistol when he arrived in 2013 because he didn't have an offense of his own, sabotaged his coaching career when he abandoned the Pistol his last year at Nevada (2017) that started the current drought of 1,000-yard seasons.

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Every team in the 12-team Mountain West except Nevada has had at least one 1,000-yard back since Butler for the Pack in 2016. Seven of the other 11 teams have had three or more 1,000-yard seasons during that time. Boise State has had six (two each by Ashton Jeanty, George Holani and Alexander Mattison).

It was the Wolf Pack, though, that played a big role in helping transform the Mountain West from a conference that had a reputation of simply throwing the ball all around the yard every chance it got into a serious, physical league that first wanted to bury you in the turf with its bruising ground game.

The first 13 seasons (1999-2011) of Mountain West football without Nevada produced just 37 different 1,000-yard seasons by individual runners. The Pack and its Pistol offense entered the conference in 2012 and helped change everything. The conference suddenly produced a Mountain West-record eight 1,000-yard backs in 2012, led by league-leader Stefphon Jefferson (1,883) and Cody Fajardo (1,046) of the Pack.

In the 12 full seasons (the 2020 season was shortened by COVID-19 restrictions) starting in 2012 when the Pack joined the league, the Mountain West has produced 70 1,000-yard seasons (more than double the amount it had in its first 13 seasons without the Pack). The Pack's Butler and Don Jackson were two of nine runners in the Mountain West with 1,000 or more yards in 2015 and Butler was one of eight in 2016.

Since 2016, though, when the Wolf Pack's 1,000-yard seasons suddenly dried up, the Mountain West has churned out 32 1,000-yard runners, even with the shortened 2020 season that failed to produce one (the Pack's Toa Taua led the conference that year with 675 yards). In case you are wondering, the Pack went 18-22 (.450) in league play from 2012-16 when it had six 1,000-yard rushers and has gone 25-38 (.397) from 2017-24 without a single 1,000-yard rusher.

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What has happened to the Pack running game since 2016? Well, a lot of things.

First of all, the Air Raid happened from 2017-21. Norvell and offensive coordinator Matt Mumme had careers and an identity of their own to establish starting in 2017 and, by golly, they were going to do it with an offense that was going to fill the air with footballs. It was fun to watch and did produce a solid record of 33-27 (30-19 the last four years) and four bowl games in five years. Unfortunately, it also produced contract offers for Norvell and Mumme at Colorado State after the 2021 season and if they never left, we likely wouldn't be worried about the lack of 1,000-yard seasons at Nevada over the last eight years.

But Norvell and Mumme only ran the ball when they were at Nevada to give quarterbacks Ty Gangi and Carson Strong and their never-ending stable of receivers a chance to catch their breath. Norvell always insisted that the Air Raid was based on an effective ground game, but nobody ever believed him. We will point out that Norvell finally produced a 1,000-yard back just last year in his eighth year as a head coach (ex-Pack back Avery Morrow had 1,006 yards) when his offense struggled through the air.

After Norvell, Mumme and the Air Raid left after the 2021 season the unbearable non-stop losing happened. It's hard to run the ball, after all, when you are routinely down by two or more touchdowns midway through the second quarter. So don't blame running back Toa Taua for the lack of 1,000-seasons at Nevada when he was leading the team in rushing every year from 2018-22. You can be sure a tough, fearless, give-me-the-damn-ball back like Taua would have had at least 1,200 yards a year in Ault's Pistol or Ault's run-heavy Frank Hawkins-Charvez Foger-Otto Kelly-Anthony Corley offenses from 1978-88. Taua also would have had 1,000-plus yards in 2022 when he finished with 911 on a Pack team that got blown out most weeks on the way to a 2-10 season.

The backs haven't been the problem since the 1,000-yard seasons vanished after 2016. Blame the coaching philosophies and the mind-numbing losing.

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Jeff Choate, a gruff, physical, hulking man with a tough, in-your-face enthusiastic demeanor, likely is the right man to revitalize the Pack ground game. Choate, after all, witnessed first-hand the damage the Ault Pistol inflicted on opponents when he was a Boise State assistant and declared when he was hired that he was going to emphasize the ground game.

Choate, to be sure, likely would have ended the Pack's streak without a 1,000-yard runner last year in his first year at Nevada if not for injuries.

The Pack won three of its first seven games under Choate with a solid ground game led by quarterback Brendon Lewis and running backs Savion Red and Patrick Garwo. After seven games, Lewis already had 513 yards, Red had 593 yards and Garwo had 233. Garwo had three touchdowns and Red had two against Eastern Washington and Red had four by himself against Oregon State.

But then it all fell apart because of injuries.

Lewis had just 262 rushing yards over the final six games (all losses) while Red and Garwo both got hurt. Garwo had just four carries and 16 yards over the final six games while Red had just 33 carries for just 94 yards. After the 42-37 win over Oregon State that gave the Pack a 3-4 record, it's likely both Lewis and Red would have flirted and surpassed 1,000 yards last year. But Lewis finished with a team-high 775, Red ended up with 687 and Garwo topped out at 249.

Choate, despite the injuries in the second half of the season, clearly made good on his pre-season promise of emphasizing the run. The Pack last year ran the ball 462 times for 2,125 yards (4.6 a carry), its first 2,000-yard rushing season since 2016 (2.08 yards). The 462 carries are also the most since 2016 (474).

Red has since jumped into the portal and headed to Sacramento State, but the Pack now has a stable of promising backs that could all threaten 1,000 yards this season if they stay healthy and the Pack routinely avoids two-touchdown deficits in the second quarter. Returners Caleb Ramseur, Ky Woods and Ashton Hayes are still on the roster and will be joined by a handful of transfer portal purchases who didn't come to Nevada simply to block.

Fleet-footed quarterback Chubba Purdy, who could become the second coming of Cody Fajardo with the green light from Choate, could also go over 1,000 yards by himself.