State of the Program: Nevada Wolfpack

Head Coach: Jeff Choate is in his first year coaching the program, he comes over after being an assistant at Texas, but had immense success as the head coach at Montana State. You can read more on his profile and our coach hire grade for him here: https://updogsportstalk.com/2024/02/29/college-football-coach-hire-grades-nevada/

Program Outlook: Nevada brings Choate in at a time where the program is at its lowest. Jay Norvell bolted for another program within the conference because Nevada doesn’t have as many resources, and Nevada had a couple lost years after. Despite not having the most resources, this is a very proud program that’s won more often than not the last few decades. For now, they are just looking for positive momentum.

How does the 2024 Roster look?: There’s work to be done here. On the offensive side of the ball there’s hardly anywhere to go but up, they couldn’t sustain drives at all last year. Incumbent QBs Brendan Lewis and AJ Bianco are back, they both threw most picks than touchdowns last year but I’m not sure how much of a chance either had. Chubba Purdy (yes, the brother of Brock Purdy) transferred in from Nebraska and will get his shot at the job too. Sean Dollars returns at RB, it feels like he has some potential and he will be joined by Patrick Garwo who ran for 1,000 yards at Boston College in 2021. The offensive line at least returns some experience but it definitely needs to be better, far too often the defense found their way into the backfield against the Wolfpack’s offense. The other issue the last couple years is it felt like their offense just didn’t have any identity, no clue what it wanted to be, at a minimum they won’t have that problem. Choate is going to want to build this offense with the ground game first, some mobile options at QB and a couple good backs will help with that, it’s also necessary because receiver is a huge unknown. Nevada struggled almost as bad defensively as well last year. The linebackers and backend of the defense seem very promising as long as some transfer safeties pan out, but the question is whether they’re going to be on an island again. The defensive line was invisible last year making it difficult for the Pack defense to be effective, but one piece that will help a lot of 6th year end Henry Ikahihifo who was denied eligibility by the NCAA last year because he was one of the unlucky athletes they randomly decided to pick a fight with. Ikahihifo gives them a leader and at a minimum someone up front that the opposing offense will have to think about on each play.

Screenshot from fbschedules.com¹

2024 Schedule Thoughts: I don’t want to criticize Nevada too much because it’s a good thing to challenge yourself and schedules are made damn near a decade in advance these days so you never know what you’ll get, but wow this schedule is doing them no favors. Nevada took on a 13th game, they were eligible to do so thanks to the Hawaii exception, but this non-conference is brutal. I’d be surprised if any of their 4 FBS opponents didn’t make a bowl this year, and Nevada continues to set themselves up for abuse with their FCS opponent. Two years ago they played a tough foe in Incarnate Word and lost in a shootout, then played an even tougher Idaho team last year and got blown out. Eastern Washington had a disappointing season last year but with an experienced team back Nevada will have their hands full once again. Honestly the conference schedule isn’t much better, Nevada has to face basically every conference title contender. I also enjoy the fact that CBSSN has already claimed Jay Norvell’s 2nd return to Reno in primetime on November 2nd.

Vegas Projection: Nevada has their win total set at 2.5 with the odds geared toward the under. A year 1 reset appears to be at hand.

2024 Best Case: Nevada carves out a road running on offense and the defense finds some footing to make them competitive. They give SMU a run for their money and then find some fortune with Troy not being as good allowing the Wolfpack to take them down. They follow it up with a home win over Georgia Southern the next week. They take their lumps to Minnesota but handle Eastern Washington. Down the line Nevada moves to 6-4 by beating down Jay Norvell and Colorado State to solidify an extremely disappointing year for the Rams. Finally with bowl eligibility on the line, Nevada takes down their hated rivals UNLV for the Fremont Cannon. Nevada is going to a bowl and UNLV isn’t, what a twist of events! The Wolfpack close it out by winning their bowl game, and its apparent Choate will get the Wolfpack into MWC contention soon enough.

2024 Worst Case: The offensive line doesn’t allow the run game to get anywhere and the defense, left on an island struggles as well. Nevada isn’t competitive at all in losing their first 4 games and it gets even worse with a double digit loss to Eastern Washington. It doesn’t get any better in conference play either, Nevada isn’t able to compete in any game including blowout losses to Colorado State and UNLV who play each other for the Mountain West championship, UNLV win it’s and goes to the playoff while Nevada goes 0-13 and ranks dead last in college football.