Old WAC Foes Meet as MWC Opponents
It’s less than ironic, perhaps, yet certainly appropriate, that Nevada opens Mountain West Conference play at Hawaii on Saturday night. Perhaps it was planned that way.
New to the league but not to each other, the Warriors (1-1) and the Wolf Pack (2-1) have met each of the past 12 years as members of the Western Athletic Conference.
Hawaii won seven of those 12 games, and the Wolf Pack is 0-5 in Honolulu during that span.
Nevada coach Chris Ault would not attribute his winless record on Oahu to the long trip.
“We’ve had our opportunities to win in the fourth quarter and didn’t make the plays when we had to,” Ault said on this week’s Mountain West coaches’ teleconference. “... When you go to Hawaii, you’re playing a good football team.”
The Hawaii-Nevada matchup is not quite business as usual between the two old/new conference rivals. The Warriors have a new head coach, Norm Chow, and have scrapped the run-and-shoot offense they’ve employed the past 13 years.
And Nevada has a new offensive coordinator in Nick Rolovich, who worked at Hawaii the past five seasons.
The Nevada-Hawaii game will be telecast on the NBC Sports Network, starting at 8: 30 p.m. MDT.
AUSSIE RULES: Hawaii slot receiver/punter/ punt returner/holder Scott Harding is a former Australian rules football player. Harding, 26, a sophomore, played four years for the Brisbane Lions and one for Port Adelaide before deciding to give American football a try.
After two games this season, employing the skills of hand and foot he honed in the Australian Football League, Harding has caught three passes for 43 yards and a touchdown; returned five punts for a 12.6-yard average, including a 39-yarder; and punted 10 times for a 33.9-yard average. He has punted both right-footed and left-footed.
“It’s demanding what we ask of Scott,” Chow said. “But he’s mature; he understands the game; he works real hard at it.”
NINE GAMES OR 10: Several coaches were asked whether they favored a nine-game or an eightgame conference schedule in a 10-team league. The Mountain West this season has an eight-game conference schedule, each team not facing one league opponent — creating some inequities.
Air Force, for example, doesn’t have to play Boise State — and vice versa. Fresno State, on the other hand, doesn’t get to play UNLV.
The Mountain West will remain at 10 teams next year, with Boise State and San Diego State leaving, Utah State and San Jose State entering.
Air Force’s Troy Calhoun and Colorado State’s Jim McElwain told the Reno Gazette-Journal that, on balance, they prefer to have the nonconference scheduling flexibility created by an eight-game league schedule.
Colorado State plays a nonconference game against Colorado each year; Air Force is locked into nonleague games against Army and Navy.
“I think the plus of playing eight conference games is, you get a chance to change up your nonconference schedule a little bit, and I think that’s healthy to do,” Calhoun said.
A 2013 PREVIEW: Last week, Colorado State (1-2) lost 40-20 to future Mountain West rival San Jose State. Saturday, the Rams face Utah State, which also will join the league in 2013.
Colorado State offensive coordinator Dave Baldwin should be intimately familiar with Utah State’s defensive personnel; he was the Aggies’ offensive coordinator the past three years after a two-year stint at New Mexico under Rocky Long.
Conversely, Utah State head coach Gary Anderson knows a little about McElwain. Anderson was Utah’s defensive coordinator and McElwain was Alabama’s offensive coordinator when the Utes upset the Crimson Tide 31-17 in the 2009 Sugar Bowl.
One item of note in the Colorado State-Utah State matchup: former Lobo center Vince Natali (200407) is a first-year Utah State graduate assistant. Natali was a first-team AllMountain West selection as a senior.
COWBOYS’ LAMENT: Wyoming’s 0-3 start is perhaps the biggest surprise of the young season.
The Cowboys, 8-5 last season with a New Mexico Bowl appearance, have lost at Texas (37-17) and at home to Toledo (34-31) and Cal Poly (24-22).
Wyoming’s slow start is easier to understand when it’s noted that star quarterback Brett Smith suffered a head injury against Toledo and didn’t play against Cal Poly. Smith is listed this week as doubtful for Saturday’s game at Idaho.
“We know we’ve got to move on,” Cowboys coach Dave Christensen said. “We can’t change the past; we don’t focus on things we have no control over. All we control right now is what we do in preparation for Idaho.”