Head Coach: Jeff Choate is entering his 2nd season as the head coach of the Wolf Pack with a 3-10 record. While the record didn’t reflect it enough, Nevada was definitely improved in his first year and was competitive in a lot of games including against playoff participants SMU and Boise State. Choate has a lot of assistant experience but also was the head coach at Montana State where he woke up a sleeping giant at the FCS level.
Program Outlook: Nevada is a program that is most well known for the Pistol offense and Colin Kaepernick leading them to an upset over Boise State in a classic for the sport. For such a long time they were always consistently good but it’s been tough sledding recently. There’s challenges that have come up, Nevada’s facilities are behind the rest of the conference and so is support. Hope is on the way though, they’re finally getting an indoor practice facility in 2026 (critical when there’s snow or wildfires) and they’re investing more into the program again.
How does the 2025 Roster look?: Nevada ranks 125th in the country returning 34% of their production per Punt and Rally’s returning production rankings. Key players starts with QB Chubba Purdy (yes he’s Brock Purdy’s brother) who was once a decorated recruit but has yet to find his footing, this year with Nevada is his big opportunity, he needs to stay healthy. The run game will be helped by Purdy’s mobility but Utah State transfer Herschel Turner is expected to lead the way at RB, he flashed a lot of ability last year. Receiver is an interesting position, their leading returnee is slot receiver Marcus Bellon and they have some guys who they hope to see step up in Marshaun Brown and Nate Burleson II (do you feel old? I feel old), there’s some portal guys like Texas Tech transfer Jordan Brown who may factor in too. TE Jace Henry missed a lot of last year but could be a reliable target as well. Nevada’s offensive line loses some starters, it especially sucks to lose Isaiah World to Oregon, he’s a potential NFL player. Overall there’s some parts to sort out but the staff did a good job with it last year. Nevada’s defense will be led by LB Stone Combs (that’s a name you want your LB to have) and he may have a strong running mate in Nahji Logan who starred at UMass in 2023 but didn’t quite fit at Indiana, and Sacramento State transfer Nakian Jackson could factor in as well. Last year Nevada had to pull together a bunch of portal guys to man the secondary and it worked very well, now they get to try that again. The biggest question mark on defense looks to be the Dline. They have a returning starter in Thomas Witte on the interior and there’s also the hope that bringing in bigger stronger guys like Logologo Va’a and Bryce Echols can give them a boost against the run but they need some help from the pass rush, it was a big reason they couldn’t close out games last year. Dylan Labarbera came on late in the year and Jonathan Maldonado has potential, they’ll need to step up this year.
Screenshot from FBSchedules.com
2025 Schedule Thoughts: Nevada’s schedule is pretty rough. Starting with Penn State in Happy Valley isn’t a great way to build confidence, and then Nevada takes on a nemesis they can’t seem to escape in Brennan Marion and his Go-Go offense at Sacramento State. The most random part of Nevada’s non-conference schedule is they play both sides of the 100 Miles of Hate in back to back weeks. The Mountain West schedule isn’t bad, Nevada avoids Hawaii, Air Force and Fresno State but 3 of their home games might be against the 3 best teams in the conference. The schedule definitely provides some obstacles toward Nevada’s bowl hopes.
Final Thoughts: Jeff Choate is getting this program moving in the right direction, while the record didn’t show it Nevada was much better last year and their season could have looked completely different if not for 6 one score losses. Those losses didn’t happen at random though, the reason Nevada couldn’t hang on to those games was the fact that they were the worst team in College Football at stopping 3rd downs, that will be a huge key to work on in 2025 to help them pick up some more wins.
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