Nevada Wolf Pack Betting – Nevada Wolf Pack 2011 College Football Preview
Among the ranks of MLB baseball betting gurus and those who do not follow college football very closely, it’s still likely that the Nevada Wolf Pack made themselves known last season. When you alter the complexion of the national championship race and affect the composition of the Rose Bowl game, you gain a lot of attention and make a name for yourself in the consciousness of American sports fans. This is exactly what happened in Reno, Nevada.
Yes, the Nevada Wolf Pack had their best football season in program history in 2010. That’s not an exercise in hyperbole – it really is an accurate statement. The Wolf Pack finished a season in the top 25 for the first time. The number 11 national ranking was also the highest ever for the program. Nevada also made a calculated decision to jump conferences in 2012, heading from the Western Athletic Conference to the Mountain West Conference. Such leverage could not have been attained without a share of the WAC title earned in a stunning overtime upset of Boise State on the day after Thanksgiving. The tour de force performance in which Nevada overcame a 24-7 halftime deficit marked the high-water mark for Wolf Pack on the gridiron. Nevada knocked its foremost conference competitor out of the Rose Bowl and sent shockwaves through the college football world. What else could a team want from a season, given that it lost at Hawaii in October? The larger future is promising for Nevada football, a program on the upswing. The 2011 football campaign, however, will be rife with questions after key figures on last year’s team move on to other pastures.
Nevada will have holes to fill on the offensive side of the ball. The centerpiece of last year’s team will not return; that’s unfortunate, because he is the best player ever to don a uniform for the Wolf Pack. Quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who amassed an astounding 14,000 yards of total offense over his four-year career for Nevada, moved on to the NFL. Vai Taua is also gone, after rushing for more than 1,300 yards in each of the past three seasons. Any reputable sports betting expert will downgrade Nevada this season, based primarily on the team’s loss of core playmakers on offense. Thankfully for head coach Chris Ault’s crew, the defense returns seven starters, including All-WAC performers James-Michael Johnson and Isaiah Frey.
The Wolf Pack face a brutal non-conference schedule, traveling to Oregon, Texas Tech, and Boise State – in what will now be a non-conference game (it will be a league game next year) – during the first month of the season. If Nevada can get through that brutal stretch without a significant negative effect on its temperament and disposition, the rest of the schedule is quite manageable. Home games against UNLV, New Mexico, Louisiana Tech, and Idaho should help the Wolf Pack toward bowl eligibility. Winnable road games against New Mexico State and Utah State are very important for postseason qualification and for maintaining some semblance of the good vibes that coursed through Reno last year in a memorably magical autumn.
A percentage-based sports bet on this team would expect losses to the big boys. However, within the Western Athletic Conference, Nevada should remain at the top of the heap alongside Hawaii. Eight wins seems just about right for a program that simply can’t hope to match the feats forged by last year’s legendary group.
