Santoro: The real race in the Mountain West? Avoiding last place

Sports Fodder:

There is no shortage of candidates for the honor of being the worst football program in the Mountain West.

The Nevada Wolf Pack, of course, is at the top of that unfortunate list thanks to its seven total victories over the last three seasons. The Pack didn't even win a single conference game last year (0-7), when seven of the dozen teams in the league finished under .500 in league play.

But the Pack is not alone when it comes to residing in the muck and mire of the Mountain West this year. There is a very real chance that every team in the Mountain West except for Boise State can steal the title of “worst in the Mountain West” from the Wolf Pack. That, alone, should give Wolf Pack fans reason for hope just seven weeks before the season begins at Penn State on Aug. 30. Misery definitely will love company this year during the Mountain West football season.

All of this does not mean that Mountain West football will be boring, a bit sad, void of exciting moments, or not worth your attention. But just be prepared for the worst because, well, each and every Mountain West team (except, of course, Boise State) is just one NIL squabble away from going on a six-game losing streak.

There is no stability in the Mountain West anymore. You go in the hospital with a broken finger and the next thing you know you are flatlining because your quarterback just read on social media that some football factory in the Midwest wants to give him $3 million next season.

Frailty, thy name is Mountain West football.

Just three of the 12 Mountain West teams won more than seven games last year. Just two lost fewer than five games. Just three finished better than 4-3 in league play. Nearly half the league (five) finished exactly 3-4 in the conference. UNLV was 11-3 last year but lost its head coach and starting quarterback and others after the season. Fresno State (6-7 in 2024) also has a new coach as does Utah State (4-8) and New Mexico (5-7). San Diego State (3-9) was brutally awful last year, along with Wyoming (3-9). Nevada was better than its 3-10 record would suggest but also didn't win a game after Oct. 12.

Hawaii, San Jose State, Air Force, New Mexico and Utah State will throw a parade if they finish anywhere near .500.

We bring you this reality check on the eve of the Mountain West football media days in Las Vegas (Wednesday and Thursday) just so you don't get fooled. You will hear reports of how certain Mountain West teams are definitely in the running for the conference championship and how everyone plans on getting a bowl invite. Just go along with it. It's July and it's Las Vegas, where everything is fake and fantasy — you know, the same way listening to Adele is supposed to be worth roughly $1,500.

Mountain West football is yet another Las Vegas make-believe story. A bunch of millionaire coaches (in what other profession other than college football or basketball coach can you make a million dollars for being mediocre to bad most every week?) will speak of league titles, bowl games and how extremely competitive, underrated and difficult every Mountain West game will be this fall. They will tell you how well-coached every team is, how sneaky good all the FCS teams on the schedule will be and how difficult it is to play back-to-back games against San Jose State and Wyoming. And that horrendous trip to Hawaii? Forget about it.

But that's OK. Just nod your head in agreement and declare, "We're with you, coach. Let's go! Here's a hundred-dollar bill to give to that punt returner you have your eyes on during recruiting season."

But also keep in mind that each and every one of the Mountain West teams (except, of course, Boise State) can find itself dethroning the Wolf Pack as the Mountain West doormat this fall.

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You should, however, feel sorry for all of the millionaire Mountain West head coaches (except, of course, Boise State's Spencer Danielson) going into every season in this pay-for-play era of college football. All of them, after all, are shopping for used cars (not with their own money, of course) to fill their roster after every season in a lot full of potholes and rusted-out signs that used to belong to a smog check station just three months ago.

The football factory schools, the ones with enough NIL money to allow cheerleaders to afford yearly vacations on a beach in the south of France, shop for cars on a Cadillac, Mercedes, BMW, Maserati, Tesla, Porsche lot. All of the cars on those posh lots still have that new car smell, low, low mileage, new tires and fewer scratches in their paint than you have on your arms from your cat. Mountain West schools shop in the lot next to the 24-hour convenience store with steel bars over the doors with the smells in the cars coming from the 3-year-old McDonald's bags shoved deep under the front seats.

That's what these Mountain West coaches are dealing with now and what they will deal with forever. What they drive off the lot in January and February are rarely what they thought it was going to be come spring practices in April. The front end is now starting to rattle, the doors don't shut quite right, there's more oil on their garage floor that wasn't there the day before and they read what seems like every day in the media of some high school quarterback getting more money from their football factory school than they'll get from their Mountain West school to be head coach.

Nobody in the Mountain West truly knows what it has anymore from year to year no matter what all of the preseason internet predictions tell you. Everybody is just guessing and hoping for clicks. Coaches are just hoping to squeeze out six wins and a bowl game invite that nobody truly cares about. Heck, half your starting lineup will jump into the transfer portal the day after the season ends, anyway, and not even play in the bowl game.

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Which Mountain West football school has the most difficult non-league schedule this year? Well, it's certainly not Nevada, which opens with a monster game at Penn State but then follows with three very winnable games against Sacramento State, Middle Tennessee and Western Kentucky. Penn State, which will give the Pack about $1.5 million to play the role of the Washington Generals or Colorado Rockies on Aug. 30, will pay the Pack bills while Sac State, Middle Tennessee and Western Kentucky will help coach Jeff Choate get a contract extension in a year or two.

The easiest non-league schedule likely belongs to Air Force, which plays Army, Navy, Bucknell and Connecticut. San Diego State, which has seemingly forgotten how to play the sport, only has to deal with Stony Brook, Washington State, California and Northern Illinois, while UNLV likely will find three wins among Idaho State, Sam Houston, UCLA and Miami (Ohio). Colorado State coach Jay Norvell hopes his Rams will capture the State of Washington's Apple Cup trophy this year by playing both Washington and Washington State.

San Jose State, which likely has larger bills to pay than Nevada simply because it is in California (everything costs more in California), will play at Texas and Stanford. Boise State will get paid to go to Notre Dame (about $1.4 million) only after they sail through South Florida, Eastern Washington and Appalachian State. You don't want those precious Broncos to sweat too much in August and September, or they might jump to Oregon or Colorado in January. New Mexico, which lost coach Bronco Mendenhall to Utah State after he won just five games, will go to Michigan and UCLA while Hawaii goes to Arizona. The Rainbow Warriors also somehow got Stanford to come to their tiny Clarence T.C. Ching Athletic Complex (about 15,000 capacity this year, they say). Playing in paradise does have its benefits. High and mighty Stanford, it seems, won't come to Reno even with the promise of free buffets, a tour of Legacy Hall with Chris Ault and a team photo under the arch.

The most meaningful Mountain West game this season is, of course, Boise State at Notre Dame on Oct. 4. But it won't mean as much for the Mountain West simply because Boise State is one of five lame-duck Mountain West programs (along with San Diego State, Utah State, Colorado State and Fresno State) before they sail off to the Pac- 12 in 2026. None of the other big-name games for Mountain West schools has any real meaning and won't be noticed east of Denver (San Jose State at Texas, Nevada at Penn State, Utah State at Texas A&M, New Mexico at Michigan) because they likely will be less meaningful than a spring scrimmage on Tuesday for the home teams.

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If Bronco Mendenhall can leave New Mexico for Utah State after winning just five games, how many wins will it take for Jeff Choate to leave Nevada?

There's a very real chance Choate can win five or more games this year. He won three last year by the first week of October. Would any school worth leaving Nevada for even look at Choate after a 5-7 season? Probably not. Choate might need to win eight to bother even updating his resume.

Mendenhall after last year had something Choate has yet to build — a reputation as a head coach. Mendenhall already had six years at Virginia in the Atlantic Coast Conference (where he was just 36-38) and 11 at BYU, where he was a solid 99-43. And five wins at New Mexico is like winning at least eight or nine at every other FBS school. New Mexico, everybody knew, was just his way of getting back into the game after sitting out two seasons following, he says, his resignation from Virginia.

Mendenhall really didn't accomplish much of anything last year at New Mexico where he had, by the way, a five-year deal. He started 0-4, even losing to Montana State in the opener. But he then won five of his next seven, including a 50-45 win at Utah State when he likely secured his next job. It was reminiscent of the Wolf Pack hiring Chris Tormey of Idaho after Tormey's Vandals beat Nevada the previous season in 1999.

Choate, though, isn't yet in the Bronco Mendenhall category. A 5-7 season this year will only get him a few pats on the back from his easy-to-please president and athletic director. A few pats on the back will also only come from the fans if, and only if, one of the five wins is Nov. 29 against UNLV at home. A loss to the Rebels and Pack fans won't be in the patting-on-the-back mood.

So, expect Choate to still be the Pack coach a year from now. But there really is no reason for Choate to stay at Nevada long term unless, of course, nobody else ever truly wants him. He fits in well at Nevada and nobody in Northern Nevada wants him to leave just yet. He's a solid coach who seemingly has integrity, grit and a work ethic. He also seems to know how to instill those qualities in his players. And that is more than enough for him to stay here as long as he wants, provided he wins a little.

But this is the final year of the Mountain West as we know it. Without Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State, Utah State and San Diego State, the conference will have little impact nationwide. It will have little impact outside of its own campuses, no matter what the coaches tell the media in Las Vegas in July.

Choate also is not a guy to allow his career to stagnate and die on the vine. He seems to like to apply for jobs. This is a guy who once jumped from Boise State to Washington State to Florida to Washington in a span of just four (2011-14) seasons. He's a confident, in-your-face kind of guy who probably thinks he should be the head coach at Texas right now.

That's the kind of guy Nevada wants. But it's also the kind of guy Nevada loses the first chance that guy gets to move on.

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Choate did a much better job last year than his 3-10 record indicates. The Pack was, at one time, 3-4 and coming off an impressive 42-37 win at Mackay Stadium over Oregon State. They truly could have been 6-1 at the time. Three of the four losses (29-24 to SMU, 20-17 to Georgia Southern, 35-31 to San Jose State) could have, and should have, been victories. The only one-sided loss was 27-0 at Minnesota and Choate publicly chalked that loss up to NIL dollars and facilities. So, yes, in his mind, he really should have been 6-0 on the evening of Oct. 12 because he only brought his team to Minnesota for the $1.2 million payday.

It was difficult to argue with him. Pack football, at that precise moment, had turned a corner after two dreadful 2-10 Ken Wilson years and was headed back to glory.

But then the injuries and the losses piled up and 3-4 quickly turned to 3-10. The year ended with a 38-14 loss at UNLV, and nobody really seemed to care.

Even during all the injuries and all the losses the final six weeks, there was hope. Three of those losses (24-21 to Fresno State, 28-21 to Boise State and 22-19 to Air Force) could have been victories if Choate had some of that early 1990s and 2010 Chris Ault luck. But Choate had absolutely zero good luck last year and a possible 9-3 season turned into 3-10. He needs to reverse that bad-luck trend if he's ever going to find success in a town like Reno.

Choate coached last year like he was a 9-3 coach. It's just that by the last two months of the season he didn't have as many 9-3 players as he needed.

It will be very surprising if he doesn't win six-to-eight games this year.

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We don't know what Chris Ault will say as the featured speaker at this year's Governor's Dinner in Carson City because we're writing this the morning of the speech. I'm sure he will talk about some of his greatest moments and memories because there's nothing Chris Ault likes better than to talk about Chris Ault. But that's OK. He's earned it and people in Northern Nevada should never be allowed to forget what Chris Ault did for their football program.

The Wolf Pack would be the Idaho State Bengals if not for Ault and, more often than we'd like to remember, has been the Idaho State Bengals since he retired after the 2012 season.

Talking about that 2010 win over Boise State, the 1990 win over Boise State or the 1991 win over Weber State is all well and good and perfectly fine for the $350-a-plate dinner circuit. But if Ault truly wants to help the Nevada football program like he says he wants to, then he needs to channel his younger self. He needs to stand at that podium in front of all those boosters and give them and the Pack football program a healthy dose of reality like he did to his own teams from 1976-2012 (with brief vacations in 1993 and 1996-2003).

He needs to tell them to get tough, stop whining and making excuses, and get to work.

Ault still has the fire. Yes, his hair is whiter and there's less of it. But he still looks great, looks to be in great physical shape (especially at 78) and could still command a sideline like he did back in 1978, 1986, 1990 or 2010. Ault is a natural-born coach, motivator and innovator. He's tough as nails and expects everyone around him (players, assistant coaches, university presidents and, yes, even the media) to get on board or get out of the way.

Make no mistake, Ault hates that anybody but him is now coaching his football team. It's why he retired three times and came back twice. He hated that anybody but him was coaching the Wolf Pack when he was a Pack player and then a Northern Nevada high school football coach and then a UNLV assistant. Confidence is never something he has lacked and it’s no different now when he's 78. In his heart nobody can coach the Pack like he can. And he's right. He's always been right, and he always came back to show us he was right when we started to forget.

Ault, to be sure, is the only coach the Pack has ever had who knew what it takes to win at the school up on N. Virginia Street. It requires the same qualities that made this state great. You shut up, you work your tail off, you don't ever make excuses, and you celebrate your successes and make sure everybody knows about them. That applies now more than ever, especially the stop-your-whining part.

All you hear now is that the Pack can't possibly compete with top teams because it can't afford to buy the top talent. NIL has killed the mid-majors like Nevada. The FBS (Division I-A) that Ault pulled his Pack kicking and screaming into in 1992 no longer exists. It is gone forever and isn't coming back. Ault had no right coaching that 1992 team to a Big West title and bowl game. That wasn't a I-A school with a I-A roster or I-A budget. It still isn't and rarely has been the last three-plus decades.

But Ault instilled a confidence in his teams because the alternative just wasn't acceptable to him. And his teams rarely let him down because they wouldn't let their parents, teammates, Ault or even the community down.

Complain about the lack of facilities and budget. That was never allowed when Ault was the coach. It shouldn't be allowed now.

No more excuses. Choate made a ton of excuses after he lost to Minnesota last year. Ault, we're sure, probably just shook his head.

Here's hoping that Ault will pull the Pack kicking and screaming into a new no-excuses era at the Governor's Dinner.