It’s a new look Nevada football team starting with first year head coach Jeff Choate.
After consecutive two-win seasons Choate was brought in from the University of Texas, where he was the co-defensive coordinator and linebackers coach, to rebuild a once proud program which had fallen on hard times.
Choate didn’t come alone. The Wolf Pack features 56 newcomers including 34 transfers. The roster shows 25 players who were once part of a Power 4 program and there’s a strong Texas influence.
In addition to Choate other pickups from the national runner-up Longhorns include associate head coach Payam Saadat, passing game coordinator/secondary coach Joey Thomas and defensive ends coach Nico Johnon.
Then there’s four former Longhorns who are expected to play pivotal roles in running backs Savion Red and Kyle Woods, safety Kitan Crawford and defensive lineman Kristopher Ross.
Georgia Southern will have to contend with them when face the Wolf Pack at 7 p.m. Saturday at Nevada’s Mackay Stadium. Nevada is a two-point favorite.
All have played prominent roles as Nevada has gotten off to a somewhat unexpected 1-1 start including a 28-26 win at Troy last week which was a bit of an eye opener. The win came on the heels of a 29-24 loss to heavily favored SMU which had to score with 1:18 remaining to avoid a major upset.
The win at Troy was especially gratifying, said Choate in his weekly press conference as the Wolf Pack fell behind 14-0 against the defending Sun Belt Conference champions.
Choate, who had a four-year run as head coach at Montana State where he led the Grizzlies to the FCS semi-finals his last two years before going to Texas, was unsure of how his team would react at Troy after suffering the last- minute loss to SMU.
“One of the big unknowns for us was how are the guys going to react,” Choate said. “They went out (against SMU) and were competitive. In the locker room afterwards mixed with disappointment was hope and that’s good.”
However, that hope looked more like despair when the Pack trailed 14-0 on the road. Choate said he found out more about the makeup of his team, not only how it dealt with adversity but also how it handles success.
Nevada scored with 25 seconds left in the first half and then took the second half kickoff and went 75 yards on three plays to tie the game. From there it went up 28-17.
It was at that point, Choate said, he got a reminder from his coaches in the booth that “we have to remind these guys, who are not used to having any success, that we have to keep them in the right spot.”
Nevada was able to remain in that “right spot” as it held off a Trojan two-point conversion attempt with 21 seconds to play.
“I think we did a good job of reminding the guys to keep a level head,” Choate said. “They stayed in the sweet spot. Didn’t get too high, didn’t get too low.
“You learn a lot from a tough loss,” Choate said. “If you can back it up with a tough win, and I think we were able to do that, that changes the DNA of our team because now they know they can do it.”
One of Choate’s goals was to make Nevada a more physical team with a focus on running the football and that’s what the Wolf Pack did at Troy.
Red ran for 135 yards as the Pack had 214 rushing yards, the first time since 2021 it had surpassed the 200-yard mark. Red had a 69-yard run the longest run by a Nevada back since 2015.
Another key, Choate said, was red zone offense and defense.
“We were able to score four red zone touchdowns,” Choate noted. “They scored two red zone touchdowns and we held them to field goals two other times. That proved to be the difference.”
This is the third meeting all-time between the two teams. The two previous meetings came in the then Division I-AA playoffs: Georgia Southern beat the Pack, 48-38, at Nevada in the 1986 semifnals, and posted a 36-13 win in the 1990 national championship game at Paulson Stadium.
Choate has faced off against the Eagles once. He was the linebackers coach at Florida in 2013 when Georgia Southern pulled off a 26-20 upset.
