Nevada quarterback Carson Strong watches the defense on Mackay Stadium’s jumbo screen against Idaho State on Sept. 11, 2021. (Photo: Thomas Ranson/NNG)
It makes absolutely no sense for Carson Strong, Romeo Doubs and Cole Turner, the three Nevada Wolf Pack players the NFL is drooling over, to play in a bowl game later this month. Why risk injury, a professional football career and, yes, millions of dollars for a meaningless bowl game that does nothing but put some extra bonus money in head coach Jay Norvell’s pockets?
Strong is already playing on fragile knees and goes to bed seeing visions of Aztecs, Bulldogs and Falcons bearing down on him. He was sacked nearly 40 times this year and is merely one hit or awkward step away from never playing a down in the NFL. Doubs and Turner, of course, are hardly ever in danger of getting hurt because they are faster, tougher, stronger and more athletic than any player on the field. They shed tacklers the way the Northern Nevada winds treat patio umbrellas.
But why risk it? Why risk your lifelong dream when it is finally right there staring you in the face? For the love of the silver and blue? To carry those potatoes off the field in Boise one more time? To whip yet another sleep-inducing Mid-American Conference team? Stop it.
Yes, of course, Strong, Doubs and Turner no doubt love the University of Nevada, their coaches, teammates and fans and would want to go to battle with and for them one more time. But Strong, Doubs and Turner have spent every single day of their Nevada Wolf Pack lives doing what is best for the Wolf Pack, the university and their coaches. They only get one pro football career. The Wolf Pack will go to meaningless bowl games every single year.
The time has come for Strong, Doubs and Turner to do what is right for themselves. They’ve earned it.
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The Wolf Pack also deserves better than the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl. Two years in a row is more than enough. Three in a row would be cruel and unusual. Send Boise State to the Potato Bowl. At 7-5 they earned it.
The Pack also deserves better than the Arizona Bowl, the Hawaii Bowl and the New Mexico Bowl. Been there, done that and sick of that. Heck, the Pack deserves better than the Mountain West, too, but that’s a discussion for a later date. But that, unfortunately, is why the dynamic and exciting Wolf Pack has been rumored by noteworthy web sites to be going to the New Mexico Bowl to play UTEP, the Hawaii Bowl to play Memphis and the Arizona Bowl to play Central Michigan.
Excited? Of course not. The Wolf Pack is one of the most explosive and entertaining teams in the nation. Strong-to-Doubs is one of the most thrilling combinations in all of college football. The Mountain West should do everything in its power to display the Wolf Pack on its biggest stage, for the good of the entire conference. The Pack should be going to the Los Angeles Bowl to play some unsuspecting overconfident and overrated Pac-12 team.
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We understand that bowls have affiliations with conferences and matchups are decided by people who have no clue about how to stage an interesting contest. It's why college football's postseason is so laughable. But let’s fantasize for a few moments and dream of which teams the Pack could pound in a bowl game this year and make a national statement.
How about Florida, Auburn or LSU? All three are 6-6 and would be ripe for a Pack picking. How about Miami (7-5), North Carolina (6-6), Louisville (6-6), UCLA (8-4) or Penn State (7-5)? Those are the types of opponents that could lure Strong, Doubs and Turner back to the field one more time and even help their NFL draft prospects.
Norvell grew up a Carson Strong bomb away from Camp Randall Stadium in Wisconsin. Don’t you think he’d love to go to a bowl and beat the 8-4 Wisconsin Badgers? But, alas, the Mid-American Conference is filled with teams with 6-8 wins. The Mediocre American Conference and the Mediocre West Conference are made for each other come bowl time.
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Strong, despite all he did this year, might only be the second most interesting and (dare we say it?) loved quarterback in Northern Nevada right now.
Cade McNamara, a Damonte Ranch High graduate, beat Ohio State last week and has his Michigan Wolverines in the Big Ten title game against Jay Norvell’s Iowa Hawkeyes this weekend. The Wolverines are also one of the four teams in the College Football Playoff right now along with Alabama, Georgia and Cincinnati. So, yes, Northern Nevada might raise a quarterback that could win the national championship while the Wolf Pack has yet to raise one to even win a Mountain West title.
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Gary McNamara, Cade’s father, is a former Fresno State baseball player and Galena High head baseball coach and Wolf Pack assistant coach.
Cade was born May 28, 2000, the day after the Wolf Pack baseball team (with Gary as an assistant) was eliminated from the Stanford regional by Alabama. Cade is also the greatest high school quarterback in Nevada’s history. He passed for a record 12,804 yards and 146 touchdowns at Damonte Ranch, numbers that even Carson Strong would be jealous of.
Why didn’t McNamara end up at Nevada? Well, McNamara first committed to Notre Dame before switching to Michigan. Enough said. That’s just the reality for the Wolf Pack.
If Cal would have wanted Carson Strong four years ago he likely would have been a Golden Bear the last three seasons (and, yes, trapped in a lifeless offense). McNamara, though, has been trapped in a lifeless Jim Harbaugh offense the last two years and found a way to make it work. So go ahead, Northern Nevada, cheer on the Michigan Wolverines. McNamara, after all, is truly Battle Born. And if Michigan wins the national title the Wolverines and the Big Ten will have Northern Nevada to thank.
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Northern Nevada will be rooting for McNamara the rest of this season and the Wolf Pack should do the same for the Cincinnati Bearcats. Cincinnati, now 12-0 out of the American Athletic Conference, is also currently one of the four teams that would be involved in the College Football Playoff. That is great news for the Wolf Pack and other Group of Five teams who are always searching for some meaning for their limited existences.
A Group of Five team has never been in the four-team playoff and still might not do it this year. Computers, after all, have had a way of ignoring unbeaten Group of Five teams before. But if the Bearcats get there, they will be doing it for the Pack and the other competent Group of Five teams who have been ignored since college football invented this ridiculous system.
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Cincinnati’s rise is yet another example of what might have been for the Pack this year. The Wolf Pack should have been the Bearcats of 2021. The Pack should be 12-0 right now and on its way to a 13-0 season and a Mountain West title.
We should be anticipating an important bowl game for the Pack and not just another glorified Air Raid scrimmage. ESPN right now should be doing story after story on Strong, Doubs, Turner and the Air Raid. Offensive coordinator Matt Mumme, the Wolf Pack's Mike Leach, should be sitting next to Stephen A. Smith every other week on some mindless discussion show.
This Pack team was that talented, experienced and motivated. And, yes, that interesting. It was the season the Pack has been gearing toward for the past 11 years. Can you imagine the confusion and debate an unbeaten Wolf Pack and Cincinnati would have caused for the biased College Football Playoff system?
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The following might disturb some Wolf Pack fans. But it needs to be said just the same. It would benefit the Mountain West and, yes, even the Wolf Pack, if UNLV finally finds a way to field a competitive football team year after year.
The Rebels believe they are on the way to doing just that (stop laughing) but we’ve heard that one before. UNLV, we remind you, finished 2-10 this year so if they are indeed on the road to respectability they are merely merging into traffic from the on-ramp.
Wolf Pack fans, of course, are perfectly happy to have UNLV as a doormat. Pounding the Rebels has become a Wolf Pack tradition, you know, except for the years when the coaches mess things up. But the Fremont Cannon game is not a rivalry right now as much as it is a Black Friday sale on the internet. All you need is an active credit card and when the merchandise gets to your door you discover you really don’t even want it.
The Pack needs a competitive UNLV to give its top rivalry legitimacy and to make the Mountain West more attractive nationally. The Pack beat UNLV 51-20 this year and it meant nothing except the cannon was still blue. After that game the Pack proceeded to underachieve for three weeks in a row, beating a mediocre San Jose State team just 27-24 and losing to both San Diego State (23-21) and Air Force (41-39). Beating UNLV seemed only to make the Pack, fat, fed, bloated and overconfident.
So while it is always nice to feel fat, fed and bloated and have a blue cannon off in the corner to decorate around the holidays, all it really gets you is a bowl game against a MAC team.
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