Biggest Dissapointment in the WAC [Archive]

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PackBlue

12-09-2009, 09:15 AM

according to Ghram Watson: (http://espn.go.com/blog/ncfnation/post/_/id/15530/western-athletic-conference-wrap)
Biggest disappointment: Nevada

A lot of people thought the Wolf Pack would give the Broncos a run for their money for a spot in the BCS. But an 0-3 start doomed those dreams quickly. The Wolf Pack did rebound to win eight straight, but they still couldn’t find a way to get past Boise State, which continues to be the mountain the Wolf Pack has yet to conquer.

Nevada finished 2nd in the WAC when everyone predicted we would finish 2nd in the WAC.

She also adds this:
Defensive MVP: Nevada defensive end Dontay Moch

Moch has helped Nevada become the nation’s top rushing defense. He leads the WAC and is eighth in the nation in tackles for loss with 19.5. He has 57 total tackles (35 solo), including 6.5 sacks. He's also broken up three passes and forced two fumbles.

Newcomer of the Year: Nevada wide receiver Brandon Wimberly

It’s hard to be a top receiver on a rushing team, but Wimberly managed to shine. He caught 46 passes for 653 yards and five touchdowns to lead Nevada and rank 10th in the WAC among receivers.

I just do not understand this lady.

Posturedoc

12-09-2009, 09:22 AM

according to Ghram Watson: (http://espn.go.com/blog/ncfnation/post/_/id/15530/western-athletic-conference-wrap)
[I]Biggest disappointment: Nevada

I just do not understand this lady.

Too much to cover, not enough time in the day to cover it properly and probably not enough brain-power to do it well even if she had the time. I'd bet it's mostly the first and second reasons, but there is enough plain stupid stuff in her blogs to make me suspicious of the third.

Pack Backer

12-09-2009, 09:30 AM

The first three games were absolutely a disappointment. But a bowl win would/will put a much better spin on the season as a whole. I said before the year started that I would consider nine wins a successful season, and that's obviously still attainable.

As far as disappointments go, I'd think LA Tech and San Jose State would have to be considered before Nevada.

NevadaFan

12-09-2009, 09:46 AM

If a 9-4 season can be considered a dissapointment, I think expectations of the Pack football program and have been raised. I think we need to string several of these together before it can be considered a dissapointment the Pack didn't reach a BCS bowl. To me, that was out of left field and completely ***ealistic.

A nine win season at UNLV would be considered historic, and their best season ever. Same for most other programs in the WAC not named Boise/Hawaii or Fresno, and significant for many teams in the MWC as well.

Next year 10 wins is attainable assuming we find a DC and we stay healthy.

battle.borne

12-09-2009, 09:50 AM

Packmike

12-09-2009, 09:58 AM

Stuck in Seattle

12-09-2009, 10:06 AM

I think her reason for Nevada being the biggest disappointment is that she had such high expectations. I think she thought we'd beat ND, was certain we'd beat CSU and expected a significant chance of victory vs Missouri. She also thought there was a chance to get by Boise. The biggest disappointment is either Nevada or LTU IMHO. And I agree it's probably Nevada.

Posturedoc

12-09-2009, 10:08 AM

I agree - calling the Wolf Pack biggest disappointment in the WAC is RIDICULOUS.

And this on top of Mark Schlabach's bowl "rankings" yesterday which had the Hawaii Bowl, featuring the nation's #1 rushing offense v. June Jones passing offense, as 16th, after such gems as Air Force v Houston (rematch of same bowl last year) and Pitt v UNC.

Ignorance and bias not a good mix.

To be fair to Schlabach, Jones in Hawaii is intriguing but SMU's passing offense is not yet what Jones put together at Hawaii. Maybe next season or the season following would lead to this being a more intriguing offense vs offense matchup, but it really doesn't seem all that interesting to me this year.

backsthepack

12-09-2009, 10:19 AM

Packmike

12-09-2009, 10:38 AM

This is true, SMU fell well short of Houston in CUSA as far as Passing game goes but still I think this bowl match up is exciting and deserves better than #16, especially with the June Jones returns to Hawaii story line...

Wolfhomie

12-09-2009, 10:46 AM

What about Fresno? She's a ditz...

Stuck in Seattle

12-09-2009, 11:02 AM

What about Fresno? She's a ditz...

I agree she's a ditz. Especially putting Troy and Ohio ahead of Nevada in her NonAQ top 10 (the Pack isn't in it). But who expected anything out of Fresno? I thought there was a good chance they'd finish in 4th place. LTU won a bowl last season and was expected to be tough.

The CSU loss is worse than any loss by Fresno, LTU, Hawaii or Idaho. UNLV beat CSU by almost 3 TDs. The only two teams Notre Dame beat by more than a TD are Washington State and Nevada. And they beat us by 9pts more than they beat WSU; a team that won one game all season.

Those were two MAJOR $%#@ the bed moments for a team with the talent of Nevada. It's actually more disappointing in hindsight than it was at the time as many of us thought ND was better than they turned out to be and nobody thought CSU was one of the worst teams in all of college football. They lost 9 straight after beating the Pack.

Posturedoc

12-09-2009, 12:23 PM

I agree she's a ditz. Especially putting Troy and Ohio ahead of Nevada in her NonAQ top 10 (the Pack isn't in it). But who expected anything out of Fresno? I thought there was a good chance they'd finish in 4th place. LTU won a bowl last season and was expected to be tough.

The CSU loss is worse than any loss by Fresno, LTU, Hawaii or Idaho. UNLV beat CSU by almost 3 TDs. The only two teams Notre Dame beat by more than a TD are Washington State and Nevada. And they beat us by 9pts more than they beat WSU; a team that won one game all season.

Those were two MAJOR $%#@ the bed moments for a team with the talent of Nevada. It's actually more disappointing in hindsight than it was at the time as many of us thought ND was better than they turned out to be and nobody thought CSU was one of the worst teams in all of college football. They lost 9 straight after beating the Pack.

I can only console myself with the thought that some teams begin the season quickly - they seem to play as well as they are ever going to right from day one - and some teams start the season like dookie and make giant strides from there. Clearly, Nevada has a recent history fitting the latter description and especially this year. CSU won it's first three and then the rest of the teams caught up with them; they never improved. You can make the same argument for ND. I thought they looked pretty darned good to start the season and wonder how many good teams (teams that finished the season well) they would have beaten that day. I'm not sure I'd be willing to bet that ND would have beaten a lot of good teams that day, but believing they were capable of it helps me deny just how crappy Nevada must have been those first two games and for part of the next two as well.

Darth Kaepernick

12-09-2009, 01:52 PM

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I can only console myself with the thought that some teams begin the season quickly - they seem to play as well as they are ever going to right from day one - and some teams start the season like dookie and make giant strides from there. Clearly, Nevada has a recent history fitting the latter description and especially this year. CSU won it's first three and then the rest of the teams caught up with them; they never improved. You can make the same argument for ND. I thought they looked pretty darned good to start the season and wonder how many good teams (teams that finished the season well) they would have beaten that day. I'm not sure I'd be willing to bet that ND would have beaten a lot of good teams that day, but believing they were capable of it helps me deny just how crappy Nevada must have been those first two games and for part of the next two as well.

I suspect that giving ND's D-Coordinator all summer to decide how to defend us was a big step towards that outcome. They abused us with the blitz package. And for us, teams that decided to blitz on every down took a little bit to figure out. I bet if you switched the Missouri game to the first game of the year and the ND game to the 3rd game, we get a beat down by Missouri and play ND tuff.

I'm really hoping (and I understand if it doesn't happen because of $) that we can get a D1AA team in here at home to start the season. I think if we get that game to gel a little, the CSU game at home to work out the last of the kinks, that we can head into the Cal game with a great opportunity to get a big win. I'm not sure that if we have to gel with new players AND shake out the kinks all against CSU that we can be ready to display our best stuff the following weekend. Maybe. There will be lots of seniors so they shouldn't have any excuses. I do believe though that Ault will put in even more new stuff (I'm hoping with the short passing game) that we'll need some time to figure out.

As for Nevada being the biggest disapointment? I wanted a ten win season. If we win the bowl game that's nine. It's hard to believe that a nine win team would be the biggest disappointment out of 50+ teams. Western Michigan with star senior QB Tim Hiller finished 5-7 and no bowl game. Notre Dame was supposed to contend for the BCS and finished 6-6 and no bowl game (by choice of course). La Tech at 4-8 with a good coach in Dooley is pretty off from where I expected they would be.

backsthepack

12-09-2009, 01:59 PM

As for Nevada being the biggest disapointment? I wanted a ten win season. If we win the bowl game that's nine. It's hard to believe that a nine win team would be the biggest disappointment out of 50+ teams. Western Michigan with star senior QB Tim Hiller finished 5-7 and no bowl game. Notre Dame was supposed to contend for the BCS and finished 6-6 and no bowl game (by choice of course). La Tech at 4-8 with a good coach in Dooley is pretty off from where I expected they would be.
Nevada was the biggest disappointment in the WAC by her, over all it was New Mexico which I doubt anyone will contest(they lost to the Raggies :confused:).

backsthepack

12-09-2009, 04:14 PM

She also has Zo and Vai on her first team All Non-AQ (http://espn.go.com/blog/ncfnation/post/_/id/15457/2009-all-nonautomatic-qualifying-team) and Wimberly and Baker on her first team All Frosh Non-AQ (http://espn.go.com/blog/ncfnation/post/_/id/15501/non-aq-all-freshman-team).

Jeg315

12-09-2009, 04:29 PM

I don't know how you can disagree with her (although I don't agree with some of the points she made). I'm a die hard Nevada fan, and the hype on this board before the ND game was at an all time high. Everyone was talking up a 10-12 win season and an outright WAC title. If you look at this board before the ND game and immediately after it would be hard to argue that we had a disappointing season compared to the hype we had coming into the first game.

NevadaConvert

12-09-2009, 05:57 PM

She really thought that we should be a BCS contending team this year? Maybe a Top 25 team, but BCS buster? Come on, even the most biased Nevada fans didn't expect that. Maybe an outside chance, but no one in their right mind expected that. Next year has always been the projected possible BCS busting year. We ended up in 2nd in the WAC, and that's where everyone predicted we'd end up at.

The most disappointing team in the WAC should be LA Tech. They were expected to a contender for the title like we were, but really under-performed in enough games to matter a lot. Sure they had a lot of injuries and showed a ton of heart when they tried to hang in there against Boise. But still, most thought they'd be tougher.

Packmike

12-09-2009, 06:18 PM

I suspect that giving ND's D-Coordinator all summer to decide how to defend us was a big step towards that outcome... I bet if you switched the Missouri game to the first game of the year and the ND game to the 3rd game, we get a beat down by Missouri and play ND tuff.

TOTALLY agree. BTW I sat next to yr parents on the flight back to SF the next day and had a very nice conversation with them. Despite the loss it was still great to see the Pack open the season there...

DiVo

12-09-2009, 09:04 PM

LT is by far the biggest dissapointment, they were predicted by some to beat BSU, while Nevada was their biggest problem. They got something right at least.

Wolf Pack Jack

12-10-2009, 07:30 AM

We were certainly disappointming in our OOC, but not in WAC play. We won all the WAC games we were supposed to and gave Boise a game IN BOISE. Nobody does that.

IMO the OOC play by this coaching staff has to get better if we are going to get over that hump with the community and ESPN writer's like Watson. ND was a tremendous opportunity that was squandered. Zero points? On national TV? Whole city watching? Major F up.

Nevada needs to win this bowl game to erase some of the disappointment from OOC.

I think Packblue is on to something about our record when we are big favorites. Lets hope it holds up. I think we were big favorites agaionst Hawaii and didn't cover but still won. Same style of offense for SMU.

This is a good bowl match up IMO

NEVADAFan1997

12-10-2009, 01:20 PM

I don't think NEVADA was the biggest dissapointment of the WAC. We were slated to come in second and the team did just that. I think LT or SJSU were bigger disspointments.

I think Pack fans can be dissappointed in that the three games we and the team had circled all ended in losses. Another year without a breakthrough win. With respect to all the pre-season hype, (warranted or unwarranted) expectations of the fan base and CFB in general were more than what this team delivered.

As for me, I said after the ND loss that anything less than 9-3 (pre-bowl) would be a disspointment. But I am still struggling with my expectations - were they more than this particular team could live up to? One day I say no, the next I say yes.