Boise St. vs. Nevada

So Nevada plays possibly the most complete game of the season and drops a spot in the BCS. Welcome to the BCS era ladies and gentlemen. Does this mean anything? Yes, it means if we lose to Boise St. we will be out of the ranking picture.

If there’s one thing different with this Nevada team this year than from years past its that they can step up to the big game. Look at Cal, BYU, and Fresno State. Sure BYU wasn’t as good as they were thought to be, but that’s a team that we easily would have lost to in the past. We also wouldn’t have beaten Cal in the past, and Fresno State would have been up for grabs. Nevada is not exactly a team that can win when they fall behind, so this year that was a positive, and we almost pulled it out against Hawaii as well. Boise State on the other hand is a completely different story, they might be the best team in the nation, definitely the most complete team if you ask me.

But Boise State has always brought out the best in us, we put up great numbers against them and they don’t seem to look so dominant. In years past we didn’t have the team that could beat them yet it was always close and a nailbiter. This year Nevada HAS the team capable of walking out of Mackay a winner and making talking about Boise State a thing of the past. The sad thing is if we win, we won’t get the recognition we deserve, and well Boise State will be talked about how they just were never a really good team. If we lose, I still don’t see Boise State moving up, even if Oregon and Auburn both lose, I can easily see a 1-loss team moving ahead of Boise State and TCU to play in the national championship game. (I’m working on a nice little piece on the BCS which I’ll post this week)

Judging by the spread for this game, the “experts” think it should be a pretty easy win for the Broncos. I beg to differ. I honestly believe that this game will be decided on the final possession of the game and the difference in score at the end will be 3 points or less.

The key to the game is to get the lead early and play mistake free. If Nevada’s defense can hold the Boise State offense on their first 2 possessions and score on their first 2 possessions, we could be looking at an upset. On the other hand if Boise state does the opposite and holds us on our first 2 possessions, we could be looking at a disappointing night. As far as mistakes, this will be a high intensity game and we could see some fights. Those could be a good thing, what’s a bad thing is Ricky Drake kicking another kickoff out of bounds, what is that? 4 times this year so far?

I don’t expect our defense to hold this team scoreless, but I do know that they are capable of forcing them to punt on 4-6 possessions. On the other hand, our offense, if it gets in rhythm can prove extremely difficult for the Broncos defense to contain. I’m expecting the Nevada secondary to back off a little and allow short passes but try everything to prevent the long ones. Maybe even some 3 deep coverage on 2^nd down?

If Nevada is behind by more than 10 at half it’s going to be a tough game to win. Anything closer than that and its anyone’s game. This might prove to be one of the best games of the year

Final Score Prediction

Someone 45 – Someone 48

Utah State vs. Nevada

Lets all hope that 2 weeks ago was a wake-up call for our team.

Utah State might not have the stats numbers we have but they are still a good team. A far cry from San Jose State.

In the past few weeks if you watched Nevada, you could see that they were tired. The emotion that they started the season with had dwindled away. This bye week that just past should have been a nice rest for the team and should allow them to come back out refreshed. I believe that this Nevada team will come out Saturday night and have shades of the Nevada of past, before our slump.

I expect our defense to step up their game, and the offense to go back to firing on all cylinders. Utah State's passing game might be the only question affecting the score. If it's hitting, they will keep up for a bit, if its not, it will be over soon.

Final Score Prediction:

Utah State 10 - Nevada 45

P.S. In a text sent to me by #4 Brandon Wimberly after the Hawaii game, he simply said "It won't happen again". Let's hope he's right.

In Defense of a Great Coach

Lets all point the finger at Ault!

That’s going to be the talk on campus come Monday and it will probably be echoing throughout the community.

Why do we have to mimic Philadelphia fans? Get real here people, last time I checked Ault doesn’t put on a helmet and shoulder pads and line up in the field of play. This is college football, anything can happen on any given day. If we’re going to start chanting “fire Ault”, then Alabama fans should be chanting “fire Saban” and Ohio State should be chanting “fire Tressel”. I mean come on, those were teams ranked #1 when they lost. We were ranked a measly #19, and quite honestly, with the way we’ve been playing, we didn’t deserve that.

Do we lay the blame on Kaepernick? I mean he did have 2 fumbles, 1 of which should have been a touchdown, and 2 interceptions? Or do we lay the blame on Wimberly because he let the last interception go off his hands? How about Dontay Moch for not having more sacks in this game? No, you move one. These aren’t professionals, they went out there and, maybe not in the 1^st half, but in the 2^nd half played with every last drop of heart and energy they had. So you applaud them on a valiant effort.

Lets face it, if we would have gotten a BCS game, it might have been against Alabama or Auburn, or Ohio state, and as must as I would love to say we would have hung in there (notice I’m not saying win here), we would have been slaughtered. I’m talking 70-3 type stuff here. But that’s not the point, the point is we got the BCS game right? Let me tell you something, I’m a Buffalo Bills fan, we went to 4 straight Superbowls, and lost them all. When I tell someone I’m a Bills fan and they say “Boy I Love Losing Superbowls” or how we couldn’t win one, I say at least we were good enough to get to 4 in a row…and you get laughed at because it means NOTHING. Anyone remember Hawaii’s Sugar Bowl experience? Exactly, its not brought up.

We can only hope that this game was a wake up call for the team, that we go into this bye week focused, and that we come out like a real football team and not one that struggles to pull away from San Jose State and UNLV. We beat Cal and BYU, big deal, I hate to break it to you but those teams suck.

All I’m saying is the man has over 200 wins. He’s had teams lead the nation in passing in one year and rushing in another year, the only coach in history to be able to claim that. He’s in the college football hall of fame. He invented an entire offensive system that’s taking the game of football by surprise. The only thing he hasn’t done is parted the Red Sea. Give the guy a break and think for yourself before you follow the masses.

Nevada vs. Hawaii

So you want a shootout? There probably wont be a better one this season.

This weeks game against Hawaii is far from being called a sure thing. Hawaii may not be able to run the ball well, but their passing attack more than makes up for it. Their starting quarterback, Moniz, already has 2,245 yards through the air. For comparison Kaepernick is standing at 1,321. Big deal right? Well here’s the thing, our secondary is starting to struggle again and this game could be a trap.

Defensively this year we turn it up in the second half, evident of most teams scoring the majority of their points in the first. Pressure from the defensive line has to be enough to make Moniz make bad throws because Hawaii’s receivers will beat us down the field. If we can keep those receivers contained however, we could have quite a nice number of sacks on the evening.

Offensively we have to avoid the stupid penalties we’ve been committing as of late. I don’t see their defense being able to stop us, but Kaepernick has thrown 3 interceptions, 1 in each of the last 3 games, this could hurt as here as stopping them on defense will be tough.

There will be critical performances expected of Brandon Marshall and James-Michael Johnson as they will find themselves in man to man coverage on wide receivers. Isaiah Frey needs to turn his head, which he probably won’t. Some how we need to force 3 turnovers or it will be a nail-biter.

I hate to say it but I see this one close till the end.

Final Prediction:

Nevada 55 – Hawaii 45

Total Yards Prediction:

Nevada 660 – Hawaii 595

SJSU vs. Nevada Recap

WOW

Talk about ugly.

The last 2 games have been far from pretty. I don’t know what has gotten into this team but I do not like it. We have been playing down to our opponents’ level. Last year we annihilated SJSU and this year we struggled to pull away? 8 penalties for 89 yards? Missing chip-shot field goals? Let’s get serious here, this is the BCS era, a win is not just another W unfortunately, there’s style points and computers involved.

Then there’s a trend developing that I really hate, any idea what it is? It’s Drake, not the rapper, the kid on the team. I wasn’t a fan of you last year, I started to like you a little this year, and then you go and kick a kickoff out of bounds in 3 consecutive games? Do me a favor and quit the team please. You have one job, probably the easiest on the team, kickoffs. Punters and place kickers have more demanding jobs. You kick from the SAME spot every time and you can’t even be consistent, well I guess you are consistent in giving the other team great field possession.

Our defense played extremely sloppy in the first half. It started looking like last year’s defense all over again. Against a team like SJSU, that’s unacceptable. A big shout out to Dontay Moch who had a hell of a night and became the WAC’s all-time leader in tackles for a loss (which they should have announced at the game by the ways). A record that will only stand ~5 years as I see the WAC as soon being non-existent, but still a record to be damn proud of.

Our offense played like it usually does, potent and methodical but struggling to get in the endzone in the second half reminiscent of what happened in Provo. What’s killing me is how we managed to put up 640 yards of offense but only scored 35 points?

What happened to that team that played Cal? If we continue to play the way we have the last 10 quarters we don’t stand a chance against Hawaii, Fresno, and definitely not Boise St. This team needs a drastic turn around, that bye week can't come soon enough it seems.

And a special message to the students in the endzone section who started chanting “underrated”, if you knew anything about football you would know that based on our last 2 performances, were overrated. But I should know better because you’re probably the same fans who said we were going to get “smoked” by Cal before that game. Yes we’re 6-0, but our strength of schedule sucks and were doing the bare minimum to get by of late.

Nevada vs. unlv Recap

Ok, so the cannon will stay blue, is that any surprise?

The only surprise that should come from this game is how poor we played. Yes we won, no we didn’t do it how we were supposed to. That’s not to say there weren’t any good things but the bad outweighed the good:

Need to improve on

1. I don’t know where these stupid turnovers are coming from, but they will kill us. Courtney Randall, hold on to the damn ball!

2. I know it’s a rivalry so there’s going to be penalties (in the stands too) but it needs to stop. 1 or 2 is ok, but 5+ in a game in unacceptable.

3. The secondary is starting to give up big plays again, this needs to stop immediately.

4. Our special teams looks horrible. We’re giving up huge return yardage; we got lucky that unlv did not return one on us. Drake, just when I was starting to be lenient on you, you go and kick another kickoff out of bounds? You have less responsibility than you had last year, stop f***ing up!

What I’m liking and you should too

1. Red zone defense. Our defense has a LOT of work to do to get to where we need to be, but our defense when backed up into the 20, is impressive.

2. Linebacker play. Brandon Marshall has stepped him game up! James-Michael Johnson has kept him game up! This is a good linebacking core and they are playing impressively.

3. Offensive production. This offense can NOT be stopped. I know it’s unlv but our average yards per play was 7.5. That’s retarded…in a good way. And aside from incompletions and the 1 interception, I don’t think there were more than 3 plays that we did not gain positive yardage.

The bottom line is we played horrible. We struggled to pull away from one of the worst teams in college football. This game should have been over after the 1st quarter, we let them hang around way to much. Nevada is ranked #21 in the AP Top 25 this week. We don’t deserve it. Rankings are supposed to tell you where you stand in a certain group. Being ranked #21 means that we should be able to beat everyone else from #22-120 right? Well I’m sorry but that’s not going to happen. USC, Texas, Penn State, Oklahoma State, Florida State, West Virginia, UCLA…yea, not going to happen. We have the talent and the personnel to beat them but we’re not playing like we should. Our last 6 quarters of play has not been Nevada football, that needs to change next week against SJSU and it needs to continue till after the bowl season otherwise this season can end up as a huge disappointment.