This marks the last Murray’s Mailbag of 2024 as I will be off the next two Mondays to celebrate Santa and stuff. When I meet people around town — at Auntie Anne’s at the mall; the Italian Festival; Western Nevada Supply; the Subaru dealership; the little league fields or elsewhere — they almost always mention […]
This marks the last Murray’s Mailbag of 2024 as I will be off the next two Mondays to celebrate Santa and stuff. When I meet people around town — at Auntie Anne’s at the mall; the Italian Festival; Western Nevada Supply; the Subaru dealership; the little league fields or elsewhere — they almost always mention the Monday Mailbag, so for whatever reason, this has become my most popular column. I do hate this column. It takes me 3 to 4 hours to write each week and turns my Mondays into nightmares. But they seem to be enjoyable nightmares for the readers, so thank you for continuing to read these 3,000- to 4,000-word opuses each week. I know they take 20 to 30 minutes to read, and I appreciate that devotion. Who wants to ready for 30 straight minutes these days? Anyway, let’s get to this week’s Mailbag. Thanks, as always, for the inquiries.
Here is one present for all 11 of the Mountain West full-time schools.
Air Force: The end of the transfer portal because Air Force is not set up to withstand losing players from the portal without being able to add from said portal due to school rules.
Boise State: A revote of the Heisman Trophy because RB Ashton Jeanty got robbed over the weekend (Colorado’s Travis Hunter was a worthy winner, but I would have voted for Jeanty).
Fresno State: A second Dog House Grill next to campus, which would boost tourism in Fresno three-fold. For real, somebody in Fresno mail me one of those tri-tip sandwiches.
Colorado State: A hat, pair of sunglasses and Atomic Fireball for every citizen of Fort Collins. We’ll even toss in a free New Belgium of your choice.
Nevada: Ground breaking on the $400 million basketball arena at GSR and the $25 million on-campus indoor practice facility in 2025.
New Mexico: An “I’m sorry” note penned from Bronco Mendenhall to every New Mexico football season-ticket holder.
San Diego State: A good football team to put inside Snapdragon Stadium, a beautiful new stadium that has not been blessed by a beautiful football team (Aztecs football is 14-23 since the stadium opened in 2022).
San Jose State: A conference that would have played all of its matches against the Spartans’ volleyball team this season without boycott (just like it did the previous two seasons).
Utah State: Coal for the Aggies’ Benedict Arnold turnabout during this year’s Mountain West/Pac-12 conference realignment battle.
Wyoming: More oil in the ground of “The Equality State” so the Cowboys’ donors can beef up the funding for Wyoming athletics.
Personally, it was the Dodgers winning the World Series. Easy one.
Professionally, four local athletes — Luke Hobson, Perris Benegas, Steph Rovetti, Gabby Williams — winning Paris Games medals was the top local sports story in 2024.
1. Nick Davidson
2. Kobe Sanders
3. Xavier DuSell
Those three players will most dictate whether Nevada wins or loses games. They’re certainly not the only ones, as I’d argue Tré Coleman is an overall better player than DuSell. But DuSell’s ability to hit threes is an indicator of whether Nevada wins or loses. Brandon Love, Tyler Rolison and Justin McBride are all key players, too, but Davidson, Sanders and DuSell are the three that must play at an all-league-level for Nevada to win the Mountain West.
These are always hard questions to answer because we’ve seen multiple No. 16 seeds beat No. 1 seeds in the NCAA Tournament, so basically any team that gets in the field of 68 has a Sweet 16 ceiling by the nature of the tournament. We’ve seen plenty of mid-major schools get to the Final Four, and San Diego State just two years ago got to the national championship game out of the Mountain West. Given how Nevada has shot the ball from three, it’s not insane to say the team could get to the Final Four with a couple of hot games and the perfect draw. That’s obviously not likely. Overall, this year’s Wolf Pack seems to be a pure bubble team as one of the last eight into the NCAA Tournament or one of the top-eight seeds in the NIT. But, again, we’ve seen two First Four teams get to the Final Four, including VCU as a mid-major. So, as Kevin Garnett once said, anything is possible.
As I wrote in last week’s Mailbag, my win total required for Nevada to get into the NCAA Tournament is 25. Your projection above is 26 wins, so that would be enough. I can see Nevada getting to 25 wins and getting back to the NCAA Tournament. I could also see it falling short. It will come down to how the Wolf Pack fares in close games. Barttorvik.com currently has Nevada at 22 wins at the end of the regular season, which would put the Wolf Pack in a tough spot headed to the MW Tournament, where it has not historically fared well.
Barttorvik.com has Nevada with a 20.1 percent chance of an at-large bid (32.8 percent overall).
TeamRankings.com has Nevada with a 22 percent chance of an at-large bid (40 percent overall).
The mathematical consensus is a one-in-five shot of an at-large bid. The loss to LMU really hurt.
Program B, easily. A trip to the Elite 8 is worth several first-round exits. Throw in a second trip to the Sweet 16 and that’s an easy call. First-round berths are going to become more commonplace when the NCAA Tournament expands to 76 teams, especially if you consider “First Four” games a first-round appearance (I do not).
Binding contracts for the players. The only way to compensate the players while also somewhat limiting player movement is multi-year binding contracts with buyouts just like the coaches have. Let’s say Nevada signed Brendon Lewis to a three-year, $250,000 contract when he joined the Wolf Pack prior to 2023. He’d still have one year left on his contract for 2025 and have to stay with the Wolf Pack or pay a buyout to leave. That would allow players to get paid but the school to have some strength in the matter, too. It’s the same with coaches. Heck, it’s the same with media. I have a contract with NSN that if I break before it’s over, I owe a buyout. Will binding multi-year deals become the new norm? I don’t know. But it’s the only solution I can see that is fair to players and schools.
On secondary markets, probably, but Nevada said before the start of the season the entire lower bowl was sold out for season tickets.
We are not allowed to stream the games we broadcast on YouTube. We also can’t put game highlights on YouTube. That would be a violation of our contract with the Mountain West. The MW doesn’t allow its third-tier media partners to stream games on YouTube as it tries to maximize its streams on the MW Network. We can stream the games we broadcast on our website since we use an embed code that plays the MW Network feed. This is actually something to watch with the Hawaii situation as the Rainbow Warriors become full-time members of the MW in 2026. Hawaii has a television deal with Spectrum Sports and uses a third-party streamer, but the MW is going to want to keep those streams in-house.
Depends on the school. You could make the argument the $12.4 million Nevada spent building a locker room for its basketball teams would have been better spent on NIL salaries, but the Wolf Pack is so far behind in the facility game, it really needs to upgrade those in the short term before pouring money into NIL. It would have been interesting, however, if Nevada went in front of the Board of Regents earlier this month asking for a $3.50-per-credit fee for NIL rather than the fieldhouse project. That surely would have been voted down. But I don’t think we’re too far off from schools asking students via fees to pay into an NIL pot to recruit and retain the best athletes. In terms of your question, though, Nevada has to build some must-have projects with its donations before putting all of that into NIL. That’s also the tricky thing about NIL. If you ask a supporter to donate $500,000 to build a facility, that donor knows it’s a one-time thing. If you ask a supporter to donate $500,000 to NIL, that donor knows they have to do it every year. It’s a big ask.
Nevada is only trying to keep up with those in its conference, the Mountain West. It knows it can’t keep up with the future of college football at large. And here’s the thing — the big-money MW schools are about to join the Pac-12 with San Diego State, Colorado State, Fresno State and Boise State among the MW’s current top spenders in football. So, the combination of those schools leaving and Nevada potentially putting an extra $10 million into football each year could put it at the top of the new MW in spending, which could lead to a championship-level team year in and year out.
On top of that, Nevada is essentially looking at return on investment. Yes, you could put a lot more money into an Olympic non-revenue sport. But that’s not going to make you more money. Nevada wants to put money into football because packing Mackay Stadium on a regular basis could substantially change how Nevada athletics does business financially. The Wolf Pack has generally done a good job at getting fans into Lawlor Events Center — it could be better — and has still run an athletic deficit of around $25 million over the last decade. Just drawing in men’s basketball is not enough to break even. Nevada must fix football to become financially solvent, and the Wolf Pack is betting on investment seed money sparking that revenue generation.
I have, however, long argued Nevada should shift how it spends money on its Olympic sports to a sport that could actually do damage at the national level. Nevada’s highest-cost women’s sport is basketball, and that sport is exceptionally top heavy. UNLV has been awesome in women’s basketball the last three years but not won an NCAA Tournament game. The MW hasn’t won an NCAA Tournament game in women’s basketball since 2012. There’s a low ceiling in that sport for a MW school. I would divert some of that money into softball or volleyball, a sport where a mid-major school can legitimately win a national title. Why not go all-in in one women’s sport — I would pick softball — and fund that sport at twice the level of all the other MW schools to see if you can build a powerhouse?
NIL budgets are not public record, so hard to say.
I can tell you Montana State is the No. 1 team in the FCS and the former home to Nevada head coach Jeff Choate. The Bobcats’ football budget is $8,920,885; Nevada’s is $13,222,437. If you put this year’s Nevada team in the FCS, it would probably be a Final Four squad. Would it beat Montana State? The Bobcats are 44th in the Sagarin ratings, ahead of Syracuse, which is ranked in the Top 25. Nevada is 121st in those Sagarin ratings behind seven FCS teams. The Wolf Pack would be a solid underdog against Montana State.
He gets a third season.
Nevada left tackle Isaiah World is being recruited by Ohio State, which means a truckload of money is coming his way.
Nevada left guard Tyson Ruffins committed to Stanford, which means he’s getting a degree from a top-10 university in the country.
Nevada right tackle Josiah Timoteo was no longer on the team’s roster at the end of the season, so something happened there I’m not fully aware of.
At least Nevada was able to retain center Andrew Madrigal, who will enter his fourth season as a starter in 2025. Can’t really blame World for taking the money or Ruffins for taking that degree.
1) Offensive line
2) Edge rushers
3) Interior defensive line
4) Cornerback
5) Safety
6) Wide receiver
I guess I could have just said everything but linebacker and quarterback, although I would not be opposed to bringing in another quarterback to compete for that job.
Buy. It’s why Chubba Purdy came back from the transfer portal after initially entering it. But then Brendon Lewis entered the portal, opening the job again. I would say there’s an 80 percent chance Purdy starts the season opener at Penn State, 15 percent chance it’s A.J. Bianco and a 5 percent chance its somebody not currently on the roster.
Jeff Choate said he wasn’t going to rush the decision and wanted to make sure all the coaching dominoes had fallen before making a move. But I would guess running backs coach Mike Lynch gets promoted there with offensive line coach Brian Armstrong continuing to oversee the run game.
The ideal spot for Brendon Lewis would be a high-level Group of 6 school or a lower-level Power 4 school. He’s been at the latter of those options before at Colorado. Lewis is probably a $300,000-$400,000 quarterback on the NIL market, which puts him in that tier of schools between 40-70, although his Pro Football Focus grade was elite, which could elevate him a little higher if he wants to compete for a job at a better school. In that 40-70 range, he should have the job outright.
As for Drue Watts, it seems like the entire Mountain West has offered him a scholarship, but why leave Nevada for that? Memphis has offered Watts, and that makes some sense. He also is a good candidate for a high-level Group of 6/lower-level Power 4.
I have no insight on the potential list of schools, but a school back in Texas, his home state, would make sense. I would say SMU where he visited several times as a prep recruit, but the Mustangs have Kevin Jennings coming back, so that’s not happening. Houston just landed Texas A&M Aggies transfer Conner Weigman, although Lewis is better than him. Baylor has its quarterback in Sawyer Robertson. Same with Texas Tech and Behren Morton. Same with TCU and Josh Hoover, although he could be reunited there with ex-Nevada head coach Ken Wilson, who is a defensive assistant for the Horned Frogs. I’ll skip West two states and say Brendon Lewis lands at Arizona under former San Jose State head coach Brent Brennan.
Dumb. He does not have the coaching experience required to run an FCS program. Deion Sanders had a first-round draft pick at quarterback in his son to help him bridge the gap. If Mike Vick to Sacramento State does happen, it could juice home attendance for that Nevada game, though. For what it’s worth, Sac State quickly debunked the Adam Schefter report.
For the Mountain West, it’s all about maximizing the media-right deals and strengthening football and men’s basketball as much as possible. I could see Northern Illinois strengthening the media-right deals with a school in the Central time zone near Chicago with a good football pedigree. Here’s the latest the MW potentially adding Huskies. I don’t know what UC Davis adds, honestly. I didn’t understand that move.
Nope. Nine is the magic number for football because you can play an eight-game league schedule but don’t cut the media-rights money into too many pieces. If the Mountain West adds Northern Illinois, I think it will hold steady with that membership for 2026. Here’s what the membership would look like.
Full members: Air Force, Hawaii, New Mexico, Nevada, San Jose State, UNLV, UTEP, Wyoming
Football-only members: Northern Illinois
Non-football members: Grand Canyon, UC Davis
Of course, if Texas State wanted to join the league, the MW would add the Bobcats, but that would have already happened if it was happening.
Pretty well. You could argue it would have been the league’s third-best team behind Boise State and UNLV, although it did need two defensive touchdowns to beat 5-7 New Mexico, so we could be overrating the Bobcats to put it in the Mountain West’s top three. It was second among MW teams in the Sagarin ratings behind only Boise State (30). Montana State was ahead of UNLV by seven spots (44 to 51). The next-best MW team was Fresno State at 83. The Bobcats are really good.
Recruiting will not be an issue with Bill Belichick. Players are going to want to play for the best coach ever who boasts eight Super Bowl rings. But I could see retention being an issue if he doesn’t take a different approach to player relations. He wore out grown adults with his coaching critiques, so he’ll have to find a way to better connect with the younger audience.
1) No update that I know of. Hawaii’s president fired a popular athletic director and it backfired and will cost the school donations.
2) Blake Anderson accepting Southern Mississippi’s offensive coordinator job shouldn’t impact his lawsuit against Utah State where he was previously the head coach.
3) I’ll take Nevada to beat New Mexico and Utah State and lose to UNLV and Fresno State, so 2-2 against the Mountain West’s first-year head coaches in 2025.
SONIC! BOOM!
It costs a lot of money to take concessions in-house, and Nevada hasn’t wanted to make that investment since it draws pretty small crowds. You’d have to hire a full staff to oversee food services, which might make sense if you’re drawing big numbers to your events. But as is, that’s not the case for Nevada, so the return on investment for such a move would be minimal, it seems, while creating a potential headache.
Five best Christmas songs
5. Don’t Believe in Christmas — By Pearl Jam (a cover of The Sonics song)
4. Angel — By Pearl Jam
3. Strangest Tribe — By Pearl Jam
3. Some Day At Christmas — By Pearl Jam (a cover of the Stevie Wonder song)
1. Let Me Sleep (It’s Christmas Time) — By Pearl Jam
Five best dips (any time of the year)
5. Guacamole
4. Nacho cheese dip
3. Hidden Valley Ranch dip
2. Seven-layer dip
1. Fun Dip
Five end-of-the-year fun fact
5. If a tear first emerges from your right eye, it means they’re tears of joy. If a tear first emerges from your left eye, it means they’re tears of pain.
4. Giraffes are 30 times more likely to get hit by lightning than people (because they’re tall).
3. Armadillos are bulletproof — but do not take this as an invitation to shoot them.
2. Identical twins do not have the same fingerprints, so they are not actually identical.
1. UNLV is paying Dan Mullen $3.5 million per year to coach its football team. That’s insane — and a Merry Christmas to him!
See y’all in 2025!
Sports columnist Chris Murray provides insight on Northern Nevada sports. He writes a weekly Monday Mailbag despite it giving him a headache and it taking several hours to write. But people seem to like it, so he does it anyway. Contact him at crmurray@sbgtv.com or follow him on Twitter @ByChrisMurray.
