Where have you gone, Carson Strong? The Wolf Pack offense has yet to approach any of the success it found under its former award-winning quarterback.
AP file
Sports Fodder:
The Nevada Wolf Pack football team's offense is, once again, starting over.
Ever since former head coach Jay Norvell left for Colorado State after the 2021 regular season and took offensive coordinator Matt Mumme and backup quarterbacks Clay Millen and Brayden Fowler-Nicolosi with him, the Wolf Pack offense has been on life support. Norvell, in his apparent desire to destroy everything silver and blue, also likely helped convince starting quarterback back Carson Strong to jump into the NFL draft as well as basically the Pack's entire wide receiver group to transfer elsewhere (mainly to Colorado State and San Jose State).
It was a thorough cleansing of the crime scene. Most coaches just take their playbooks with them when they head to another job. Norvell made sure there was no tangible evidence at all of his Air Raid offense ever existing at Nevada. And the Pack offense is still trying to stand on all fours without falling.
The Wolf Pack over the last three seasons without Norvell, Mumme and the Air Raid has won a grand total of seven games while averaging a whopping 19.8 points a game and compiling a record of 7-30.
But we are not here to remind you of the struggles of the past three years. We're here to tell you that even in the depths of 7-30 the last three years, there is a lesson to be learned. The Wolf Pack, in those glorious yet meaningless seven wins since Norvell and the Air Raid left town has averaged 31.4 points in its wins and 17.1 points over its 30 losses. Yes, Wolf Pack fans, offense wins games in college football, even for a gutted, struggling, stuck-in-a-rut football program like the Wolf Pack the past three dreadful seasons.
The Wolf Pack the last three years hasn't had a real offense. All it has had is a group of predictable, play-it-safe, energy-sapping plays its limited quarterbacks and playmakers could possibly execute well enough to not turn the ball over to the opposition twice a quarter. That strategy over the last 37 games produced just seven wins and nine games when the offense produced at least 25 points.
It needs to change. We are now heading to Year Four of a rebuild that never seems to end. But that's because the Pack is rebuilding a Maserati, Ferrari and a Lamborghini (the Air Raid) with spare Chevrolet Chevette, Vega and Citation parts (ask your parents or grandparents about the wonders of those models if you were born after 1985).
The Pack's Chevette, Vega and Citation the last three years has been quarterbacks Nate Cox, Shane Illingworth and Brendon Lewis. Lewis was the best of the lot, throwing for 3,603 yards and 18 touchdowns and running for 1,270 yards the last two years combined. But Lewis was a Point A to Point B, safety-first quarterback. Where he struggled was getting the Pack to Point C (the end zone) and Point D (the win column).
It's time the Wolf Pack, like it did with the Air Raid and Chris Ault's Pistol, lives in the end zone and the win column.
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The new and supposedly improved Wolf Pack offense this year will be led by quarterback Chubba Purdy and offensive coordinator David Gilbertson. Purdy is not all that new. He threw a pass in four different games last year (18-of-25 for 239 yards and a touchdown) when run-it-down-their throat head coach Jeff Choate preferred the safety-first, tuck-it-and-run-if-the-primary-receiver-is-covered Lewis.
Gilbertson, though, is indeed new, even if the name is a bit familiar to Pack fans who remember the Vega, Chevette and Citation. The son of former Idaho, Cal and Washington head coach Keith Gilbertson, he will be the fourth (after Matt Mumme in 2021, Derek Sage in 2022 and 2023, and Matt Lubick in 2024) Wolf Pack offensive coordinator in the last five years. Yes, there have been a lot of Wolf Pack playbooks torn up and thrown in a landfill somewhere in Northern Nevada this decade.
The younger Gilbertson has never been an offensive coordinator before and has spent his career at various stops with the word analyst stuck somewhere in his title. In case you are wondering about the Choate-Gilbertson connection, the two spent time together on the Washington State sideline in 2012 when Choate coached the Cougars' linebackers and Gilbertson was a backup quarterback who only stepped on the field to hold for field goals.
The intriguing thing about Gilbertson is that when he was holding for field goals in 2012, his head coach was Mike Leach, one of the forefathers of the Air Raid. Here's hoping Leach actually gave Gilbertson a playbook in 2012 and that Gilbertson, who was always a coach in the making since high school (he threw one pass in college), has kept that 13-year-old Air Raid playbook in a temperature-controlled environment for safe keeping.
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The real reason for hope when it comes to the Pack offense this year, though, is Purdy. He's a Cody Fajardo clone with a similar skill set, size (6-foot-1, 217 pounds) and self-confidence. He also knows a guy (San Francisco 49ers quarterback and brother Brock Purdy) who can text him a few Mike Shanahan plays at halftime if things aren't going well.
Purdy will be 24 when training camp opens in August and will be in his sixth season of college football (two at Florida State, two at Nebraska and one at Nevada). He's shown flashes in his career (103-of-188 for 1,085 yards and seven touchdowns) but no head coach has ever given him his very own offense or complete trust.
We'll see if Choate is the first coach to fully believe in the magic of Chubba. Let's hope Choate and Chubba become very chummy this year. Yes, we understand Choate can also go to A.J. Bianco, who has completed 63-of-107 passes for five touchdowns the last two years at Nevada. But Bianco will be on his third offensive coordinator in three years and might be better served standing on the sideline with Choate this year laying the groundwork for a future coaching job (as well as the starting job in 2026).
This is it for Purdy. His first two years in college football were the last two for Norvell at Nevada. So, he's been around a long time. He's been around so long he remembers the era when teams had to pay players under the table instead of out in the open. Chubba can give the Pack offense a swagger and confidence that will recall the days of Carson Strong throwing to Romeo Doubs, Cole Turner and Tory Horton. Chubba is a cool dude. He's so cool he can carry the nickname Chubba and pull it off even though his real name (Preston Purdy) is even cooler.
If Chubba is anything like his brother Brock and the rest of his competitive, athletic, good-looking, positive-thinking family, he will seize this opportunity as the Pack's starting quarterback and use it to springboard into the NFL career most everyone predicted for him when watching him at Perry High in Arizona.
Purdy has the ability to make it cool to be a Wolf Pack fan once again.
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Every team in first place in its division in major league baseball heading into Tuesday's games has a lead of at least four games, except for the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Yes, the Dodgers. The team that the national media has told us will win the next seven or eight World Series in a row, is the only division leader that might not be in first place by this weekend. The Detroit Tigers lead the American League Central by seven games, with the New York Yankees (A.L East), Houston Astros (A.L. West), New York Mets (National League East) and Chicago Cubs (N.L. Central) all leading by four games.
The Dodgers, with Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman, Yoshi Yamamoto, Teoscar Hernandez, Max Muncy, Will Smith and Tommy Edman, lead the San Francisco Giants by just a game-and-a-half. The San Diego Padres are just two games back. The team that was predicted to win 120-plus games might have to go to the playoffs as a wild card.
The Dodgers started the season 8-0 and seemed destined to fulfill all the lofty predictions. Since then, however, they've been just a mediocre 32-27. They've gone 16-16 in their last 32 games and are just 15-16 on the road this season in games not played in Japan.
What happened? Are the Dodgers just another AI-created fantasy? Stop it.
This is just the Dodgers being the Dodgers. They do it most every year.
First, the Dodgers, as is their tradition, have no less than 14 pitchers on the injured list. Getting hurt is what Dodger pitchers do. They even have a guy (designated hitter Shohei Ohtani) who isn't even among the 14 pitchers on the injured list who just might be their best pitcher and cannot currently take the mound now because of off-season surgery. Clayton Kershaw has been so injured in his career he starts every year on the injured list whether he's actually injured or not.
The other thing the Dodgers do every year is get bored. The Dodgers treat the regular season in much the same way Brad Pitt, George Clooney or Leonardo DiCaprio treat late-night talk shows when they are forced to promote a movie. They either fake injuries, do a friend's podcast or simply do it while gritting their teeth. The Dodgers know their seasons are only judged by what happens in the postseason.
So don't get too excited, Giants and Padres fans. You, too, Arizona Diamondbacks fans. The Dodgers are just playing with you like you are an annoying ball of yarn on the floor. You might get them all tangled up now and then in the regular season but come the postseason you'll be lost under the couch or the bed, never to be found again.
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The Baltimore Orioles (Brandon Hyde), Pittsburgh Pirates (Derek Shelton) and Colorado Rockies (Bud Black) have already fired their managers this season.
Who will be the next fired manager? We might have to wait until this fall or even next season to find out. There doesn't seem to be an obvious choice right now to be shown the door anytime soon. All of the awful teams (Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Colorado, Chicago White Sox, Miami Marlins) have either already fired their manager or just hired one since last season ended.
A couple guys (the St. Louis Cardinals' Oliver Marmol, the Los Angeles Angels' Ron Washington) are doing better than expected and most everyone else will likely survive the season, short of a complete collapse. That leaves a lot of managers who are not on the hot seat just yet but could be once the season is over, such as Mark Kotsay (Athletics), Dave Martinez (Washington Nationals), John Schneider (Toronto Blue Jays), Dan Wilson (Seattle Mariners) and Alex Cora (Boston Red Sox).
The 49-year-old Kotsay, the A's manager since 2022, might be the safest among the group waiting to eventually be fired. Kotsay's A's are just 26-42 in their first season in West Sacramento, but they are competitive and they've been thrown in a horrible situation, playing in a minor league park.
Kotsay, therefore, likely won't be on the hot seat until the A's move to Las Vegas for the 2028 season. Kotsay is just 205-349 as A's manager and has yet to win even 70 games in a season. But since the organization has no real fan base and no real home, nobody really seems to notice anymore. But Kotsay is cheap, doesn't badger the front office to sign high-priced free agents and is generally loved by his players because, well, they are just kids and will love any major league manager that plays them.
Kotsay, despite his record, has done a solid job with the A's, an organization that is simply made up of guys too old and washed up or too talented to remain in Triple-A. The A's are competitive this year and are, like always, just giving experience to talented, young players (namely Jacob Wilson, Tyler Soderstrom, Lawrence Butler, Mason Miller) who are just waiting to become free agents and leave.
The A's can develop players. They just can't keep them. It takes a special manager to accept all that, know he's eventually going to be fired, and not complain. But it seems inevitable that Kotsay will be dumped eventually. The A's will continue to lose attendance in West Sacramento because, well, who wants to pay major league prices in a sardine can minor league stadium? A's ownership likely will want a new face to lead the organization when it moves to Las Vegas.
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Aaron Rodgers, if he stays healthy at the age of 41, will lead the Pittsburgh Steelers to the playoffs this season.
Rodgers played well a year ago with the New York Jets, completing 63 percent of his passes for 3,897 yards and 28 touchdowns with 11 interceptions. Yes, he won just five games, but he stayed healthy for the entire 17-game season and, by the way, the Jets had a fake head coach in Jeff Ulbrich for the last dozen games.
Rodgers, who will have wide receiver D.K. Metcalf at his disposal, will throw for over 4,000 yards and 30 touchdowns and will make the Steelers relevant again. The only way this goes sideways is if Rodgers gets hurt again like he did his first season with the Jets. He'll turn 42 in early December, so anything is possible. But what choice did the Steelers have? Mason Rudolph? Will Howard? Skylar Thompson?
The Steelers' first game will be at the Jets on Sept. 7 and Rodgers will also get to play Green Bay in late October. So, yes, even the NFL schedule-maker has a sense of drama and humor.