It’s a been a busy Monday. Jeff Choate is getting a third season as Nevada’s football coach, but three of his staff members, including offensive coordinator David Gilbertson, have been fired. Meanwhile, Nevada baseball coach Jake McKinley is leaving for an MLB job. And his top assistant, Jordan Getzelman, is being promoted to lead the program. College basketball’s NET rankings were released today, and it wasn’t so good for the Mountain West. And that conference has a controversial football championship game matchup. And, yes, the transfer portal is already percolating. Put that all together with the nearly 5,000 words written below and that explains my grade-A headache thumping right now. That’s right, it’s time for this week’s Monday Mailbag. Thanks, as always, for the inquiries, I guess (all 51 of them).

Three biggest positive surprises in Mountain West men’s basketball this season:

1) Utah State is a Top 25 team. Well, almost. I have the Aggies on my Top 25 poll, but they’re sixth among “others receiving votes” as of now. Utah State is 22nd in the NET rankings and 21st in “wins above bubble.” Basically this is a Top 25 team so far. I’d also like to note I had Utah State first in my initial MW power rankings in April, which made a lot of San Diego State fans butthurt when that was posted several months ago. More on the Aztecs later.

2) Wyoming could be a contender for a MW Tournament bye, which would require a top-four finish in the league. The Cowboys are second among MW schools in NET at No. 59. I don’t know how that is with Wyoming 0-1 in Quad 1 games, 0-1 in Quad 2 games and 1-0 in Quad 3 games. The Cowboys’ best win is over Austin Peay, and they lost to Sam Houston. But they also played Texas Tech within four points. I’m not sold on Wyoming, but its metrics are good and its better than last season.

3) The top-six scorers in the MW this season are transfers, with Nevada’s Corey Camper Jr. the only big surprise among those players. Camper was thought to be Nevada’s third-best transfer (at best) after Elijah Price and Tayshawn Comer, but he’s leading the Wolf Pack with 16 points per game while shooting 45.7/37.8/80. Camper is shooting the three way better than his stint at UTEP (32.1 percent with the Miners) and getting to the free throw line a lot more often, too.

Three biggest disappointments in Mountain West men’s basketball this season:

1) The MW will not go out with a bang. The most fun thing about the league the last half-decade has been its men’s basketball product, which has produced 18 NCAA Tournament teams in the previous four seasons. This year, there’s a better chance the MW is a one-bid league than places four-plus teams in the tournament for the fifth straight season. The MW is 0-13 in Quad 1 games, 5-5 in Quad 2 games and 11-11 in Quad 3 games. It also has seven Quad 4 losses. That’s just not good.

2) San Diego State has been mediocre. The Aztecs rank seventh out of 12 MW schools in the NET rankings at 123, which will make it very difficult to gain enough steam for an NCAA Tournament at-large berth. San Diego State needs to beat Arizona and go 16-4 or better in MW play to have any hope of an at-large bid. That’s probably not happening given how the team has played so far this season. Sean Newman Jr., who twice led C-USA in assists, is averaging 2.8 points and 2.8 assists at SDSU.

3) Josh Pastner has not fixed UNLV. Despite all the hoopla about his first transfer class with the Rebels, UNLV is 3-5 with three Quad 3 losses (Tennessee Martin, Maryland, Rutgers) and one Quad 4 loss (Montana). There’s enough talent here to win some games in MW play, but the new MW will need UNLV to be better in basketball than it has performed the last decade-plus, and Pastner’s first series of games, which has been impacted by injury, has not been enticing.

You can’t rule out an NCAA Tournament bid because of the presence of a conference tournament. The Mountain West is having a down season, so Nevada could theoretically get a top-four seed at the conference tournament and make a run for an NCAA Tournament spot via the automatic berth. I’ll stick with my preseason call of Nevada playing in the NIT/College Basketball Crown. I think Nevada wins around 19 games and goes around .500 in league play. It will need to show more on offense and in terms of its consistency for me to budge off those predictions.

1) I have Nevada men’s basketball at 11-9 in the Mountain West.

2) I wrote a whole story on the contaminated soil at the GSR.

In the current climate of college football, you can’t forecast a decade ahead. One coaching change or one bad transfer-portal class can change a school’s trajectory. Rosters are no longer sticky enough to say, “Team A is going to be good at football for the next decade” at the Group of 6 level. The closest there is to that is Boise State, and the Broncos fell off with one bad coaching hire (Andy Avalos). But I would rank the future Mountain West in football as follows in the short term:

Championship contention: UNLV, New Mexico

Should be a bowl school: Air Force, Hawaii

Competitive: Wyoming, San Jose State, Northern Illinois

Bottom of the league: Nevada, UTEP

Going from “bottom of the league” to “championship contention” will be a lot easier in the new MW than the old MW, though. Nevada could make that jump in a year or two, as New Mexico has shown.

I would have invited the Montana or Dakota schools, but the Mountain West was concerned FCS additions would be blocked by the Power 4 and the league would not be able to hit the required eight football-player members, so it took UTEP and Northern Illinois instead for football. I didn’t like that move, but I understood it. The Group of 6, in terms of football strength, will go something like (1) American Athletic; (2) Pac-12; (3) Sun Belt; (4) Mountain West; (5) Conference USA; and (6) MAC next season. It could be worse, but it’s not great. UNLV and New Mexico being good is huge for the MW. Now it needs Air Force to get back to where it was a couple of years ago and for Northern Illinois, Nevada, Hawaii and San Jose State to play to their potential.

Agreed. There are a number of examples of coaches creating quick turnaround in less-than-ideal situations with New Mexico under first-year head coach Jason Eck being one of 2025’s best examples. He also was able to bring a lot of key players with him from Idaho, which helps. While Nevada can rightfully use facilities and NIL budgets to help explain its recent woes, the coaching has also been an issue and must be improved. Nevada is making changes to its offensive staff to try and address those things, but you can’t average 19.2 points per game (the Wolf Pack’s total the last four seasons) or 20.4 points per game (Nevada’s average in Jeff Choate’s two seasons) and expect to win many games. The offense must be fixed, and that can’t be attributed solely to facilities and NIL. Great coaches find a way to win games in poor circumstances.

Probably not. If Nevada goes 5-7 next season, I imagine Jeff Choate would get a fourth year with the Wolf Pack. After all, his buyout after the 2026 campaign is still $2 million. And going from three wins to five wins can be sold as tangible progress, even if that comes in a lesser league, which the Mountain West will be in 2026 given the five defections to the Pac-12.

Even if Nevada went 3-9 next season, which is obviously not some kind of guarantee, I don’t know that Jeff Choate would be fired with a $2 million buyout still remaining on his deal after 2026. It’s also not all that likely Nevada would be able to hire a better coach than Jeff Choate if it made a move this offseason. It’s not an attractive job. Now, if you had Nick Rolovich or Bryan Harsin or somebody like that lined up, it’d make sense. But would a coach like that take the risk of accepting Nevada’s job at a place that has barely won outside of the Chris Ault years?

I’ve broken this down in previous Mailbags, so I’ll just copy and paste:

Nevada would owe Jeff Choate $2.7 million if it fired him this offseason. That would be paid out in monthly installments for the remainder of his contract, and includes offset language if he gets another job with compensation. Thus, Nevada would owe Choate a starting point of $900,000 next season. The Wolf Pack makes about $3 million annually in ticket sales. Even in its high points where it was one of the Mountain West’s top teams under Jay Norvell, that figure doesn’t move much. Nevada football made $3,044,546 in ticket revenue in 2021 when it was a MW contender. It made $3,123,302 in ticket revenue in 2023, which was Ken Wilson’s last season when the team went 2-10.

The difference in ticket revenue whether Choate is the coach next season or he is fired and another coach comes would be negligible unless that coach is Nick Saban or John Gruden or something. And Nevada can’t afford those coaches. The Wolf Pack sells out its premium seating in football almost regardless of the on-the-field product, and the get-in price for normal season tickets is so low there’s not a huge delta in revenue when Nevada is good or bad. Simply put, the Wolf Pack would not make up a $900,000 difference in ticket revenue by firing Choate and hiring a new coach who in theory would increase interest. That said, I do expect Nevada’s football ticket revenue to increase in 2026 if the premium seats in the north end zone are completed. You can argue in favor of a coaching change on merit. But to think it will somehow boost ticket revenue is not based in fact.

Also, it’s not fait accompli Choate’s team will not have success in 2026. There’s some part of the calculus here that has to account for the potential of a turnaround because you believe in the coach you hired 23 months ago. If Nevada was guaranteed to be bad again next year, yes, there would be more merit to a coaching change. But I doubt athletic director Stephanie Rempe believes there’s no pathway to success under Choate and that she’s just waiting things out until the buyout drops.

I also feel like I’m put in a bad situation with all of these questions about firing Choate because I have to give the financially sensible answer. Fans can just fire whoever and not have to worry about balancing a budget. Nevada doesn’t have the kind of money required to buy out Choate. That doesn’t mean the last two years have been good. They’ve been a disaster, as were the two years before that. Wolf Pack fans deserve better. Wolf Pack fans also need to step up and support the program if it’s going to become a winner. Truth is Nevada has had a lot of coaches who have underachieved the last decade but keep their job because the school can’t afford to buy them out. Some of those coaches eventually turn things around. Other don’t.

That’s a more interesting hypothetical. With a $0 buyout, I could see Nevada making a change. I might even say that’s more likely than unlikely — I’ll go 70 percent a change would be made. But that’s not the case, so Jeff Choate will get a third season, as I reported this morning. Thankfully for him he got a strong buyout in his contract when agreeing to become Nevada’s coach in December 2023, and I’m sure that was something that was required given the rebuild he was undertaking.

Marv Levy.

Everything former Nevada football head coaches would tell me off the record, Jeff Choate says during his press conferences on the record. Is that great for the Wolf Pack? I don’t know. But he’s honest and transparent in describing Nevada football’s shortcomings, and I appreciate that. And he’s telling fans things they probably haven’t heard enough about before. I understand that can come off as a coach making excuses. But it’s also the reality. And not exposing that reality and being open with the fan base on what is required to build a winning infrastructure hasn’t worked for the Wolf Pack post-Chris Ault. I don’t think discussing these things publicly undermines the program. It’s not like Nevada isn’t getting players because Choate says the Wolf Pack’s facilities and NIL aren’t great. The fact that Nevada’s facilities and NIL aren’t great are the things keeping the Wolf Pack from getting those players.

I doubt they liked them, but as noted above it’s a different approach than other coaches have taken and become frustrated about. Maybe voicing the issues educates the Wolf Pack fans base to pitch in, and I’m sure it’s cathartic for Jeff Choate. What he’s saying is also true. People shouldn’t be afraid of the truth. If you don’t like that truth, do something to change it. As for Nevada’s sales pitch to players, it’s about playing time and character development. Those are the things to hit if you’re the Wolf Pack.

Nevada football has long struggled to draw fans and tried to come up with ticket incentives to get fans to games. The larger problem I see is in men’s basketball, whose attendance this season has been really bad compared to its recent history. In fact, for the first time in 15-plus years, Nevada has yet to give me its season-ticket base in men’s basketball, which I asked for more than a month ago before the season began and have asked for multiple times since then. And that team’s coach was not hired by current athletic director Stephanie Rempe, whose tenure will surely be examined by UNR president Brian Sandoval when her contract comes up for renewal in summer 2027. I did speak with Sandoval last week to get his thoughts on Nevada athletics, which you can watch here. He called the Wolf Pack’s on-field results during his tenure “a mixed bag,” which is probably generous.

Did I do that? If so, I’ll stick with it. Makes no sense to change now. For that to happen, though, Dan Mullen will need to be lured away by a Power 4 school. He’s a great offensive mind, and UNLV clearly had Power 4 offensive talent this season. With the Fremont Cannon battle now 29-22 in favor of Nevada (the Wolf Pack won one game via forfeit), I don’t think UNLV takes the series lead by 2040. The Rebels would have to go 11-3 in the next 14 matchups, which is doable but not easy.

If Nevada plays in 2026 exactly as it did in 2025, it probably goes 4-8 overall and 3-5 in the Mountain West. The new MW is a touch better than Conference USA. Throw in two Conference USA non-conference opponents next season (Western Kentucky and Middle Tennessee) and there are a lot of winnable games. But to win those games, Nevada must be much better on offense while also improving on defense and special teams. It’s not fair to assume Nevada won’t raise its level of play next season. That’s possible with staffing changes and roster improvements.

There’s not public lists of candidates or finalists. When Nevada hired Jeff Choate, the only other name I heard who had any significant traction was Bronco Mendenhall (he’s done a good job at New Mexico and Utah State). When Nevada hired Ken Wilson, the only other name I heard was Troy Taylor (he ran into some major issues at Stanford). When Nevada hired Jay Norvell, the other coaches to visit campus for interviews were Andy Ludwig (no longer coaching) and Beau Baldwin (flamed out at Cal Poly). When Nevada hired Brian Polian, five candidates got interviews in Dallas. That list also included Tom Mason (now coaching in the European Football League) and Chris Klenakis (Vanderbilt’s offensive line coach). The other two names from that search never leaked, although I always thought Mario Cristobal was a candidate but couldn’t confirm it. Unless Cristobal actually was a candidate, there aren’t a lot of misses in there among people who got to the final stage of a Wolf Pack coaching search. Nevada is not the most attractive job.

No. Do you find similarities between an ant and a humpback whale?

It’s hard to fully assess the portal needs until you know which players you lose to the portal. For example, Nevada is super strong at defensive end if Dylan LaBarbera and Jonathan Maldonado return. But if they both hit the portal, that becomes a major issue in need of portal additions. As of now, Nevada’s biggest needs are wide receiver, interior offensive line, secondary and tight end. I also would add a transfer quarterback. I know Nevada likes freshman quarterback Carter Jones, but it must add somebody who has had success at the FCS or FBS even if it will be costly and soak up some of the NIL you have to spend. The offense, and pass game, in particular, must be upgraded. In terms of the market for current Nevada players who could enter the portal, LaBarbera and Maldonado are the top two who could have options. Offensive tackles Jack Foster and Zach Cochnauer, too. None of the other returners would have a big market that includes Power 4 schools.

Addressed above, but the No. 1 goal has to be fixing the passing game. That was the program’s biggest issue in 2025.

Nevada fired offensive coordinator David Gilbertson, wide receivers coach James Price and senior offensive analyst Matt Wade over the weekend. The passing game was obviously a major issue. Hopefully those coaches get jobs elsewhere in the FBS. It always sucks to see people lose their jobs, especially when they pour their lives into that profession by working 70-plus hours per week.

Unlimited Raising Cane’s coupons.

As noted earlier, I’d add a veteran quarterback to the competition. The issue here is salary. A somewhat established quarterback is going to be costly, and Nevada has a limited budget. If you truly believe in Carter Jones and you have to prioritize how you use your NIL, you don’t want to spend on a quarterback who you don’t envision starting. But Nevada’s pass game was the sixth worst in the FBS last season and needs to get a lot better really quickly. I’d add a quarterback to compete with Jones, who showed some flashes but was not good enough you ignore adding to that position via the portal.

I disagree. Coaching matters. Obviously the players are highly important, and it’s harder to get and retain players in the NIL era than ever before. But I don’t subscribe to the theory that the coaching doesn’t matter. It’s a 50-50 split. And having the money to hire and retain good assistant coaches is probably as important or more important than having NIL money for players. A good offensive coordinator will find a way to post 25-plus points per game.

I’ll set it at 25.5. Remember, there’s only one portal window this year, that running from Jan. 2-16. In previous years, there also was a portal window after spring camp.

Last year, around 3,400 FBS scholarship players entered the transfer portal. Last year, there were 11,390 scholarship spots at the FBS level. That’s just shy of 30 percent of those players hitting the portal, although not all of them found homes at new FBS schools.

The end point is college athletics blowing up with the revenue sports becoming minor leagues and the Olympic sports ceasing to exist. We just don’t know how long that will take.

That used to be an easy question to answer but no longer is because we don’t know if the NCAA will grant junior-college players an extra year of eligibility in 2026 like they did in 2025 or if Vanderbilt quarterback Diego Pavia will be able to sue his way to endless eligibility. But you can go to Nevada’s online roster and see which players are listed as seniors. Those guys are more than likely out of eligibility, depending on future NCAA changes.

I wrote a full story on that last week with 15 coaches listed. Dan Mullen made the top 10.

UNLV football won two games or fewer 10 times in an 18-season stretch from 2004-21, a period in which it had just one winning record. That is rough. But it pulled out of it. So, Nevada could do the same.

I got a call today from a former Nevada head coach complaining about how hard it is to win in the NIL era. I also got a text today from a different former Nevada head coach about something not related to NIL. Big day for ex-Nevada coaches reaching out to me. But the point is no mid-major schools really thrive in the NIL era. They try and survive. Nevada basketball has at least survived in recent years, although it’s not been able to find a championship ceiling. Nevada football hasn’t gotten off the mat post-Jay Norvell when it comes to the NIL era, and that’s under two different head coaches.

That’s usually a wind-based answer, although the wind at Mackay Stadium usually blows west to east with the end zones north and south. With the student section being moved from the north to the south end zone, opposing teams would want to be going to the north end zone in the fourth quarter, but that doesn’t supersede that day’s wind pattern.

1) Nevada has around 75 returning players with eligibility in 2026. I’ll guess 50 return next season.

2) As for Steve Alford and the NCAA Tournament, his seat is not hot. After this season, Alford still has three years and $4.35 million left on his contract that is fully guaranteed.

Nevada is good when it plays defense and passes the ball well without turning it over. The Wolf Pack is not built to score in the halfcourt or in isolation situations. This team doesn’t have that kind of one-on-one offensive talent. So, it needs to get stops, run, move the ball and not turn it over. When it has done that, it has shown a pretty high caliber of play. When it doesn’t do that, the floor is really low. That’s going to lead to some wide-ranging results. Nevada has three “game scores” this season of 90 or better (out of 100). In its other five games, Nevada has been a 52 or lower, including a pair of 31-point game scores. It all starts with the defense triggering the offense.

Nevada’s win over San Francisco on Friday was the first time since the 2022-23 season when three freshmen played 15-plus minutes in the same contest. Three years ago, it happened six times with Darrion Williams, Nick Davidson and Trey Pettigrew those freshmen. I imagine Nevada would be pleased if two of Peyton White, Myles Walker and Ethan Croley turned into Davidson and Williams level players. In 2020-21, Nevada also had a quartet of freshmen (Alem Huseinovic, DeAndre Henry, Daniel Foster, Tre Coleman) played extended minutes together.

No.

Lane Kiffin prayed on it and God told him to abandon his players shortly before Ole Miss’ playoff run began so he could get a larger buyout from LSU when he is eventually fired by the Tigers for only winning 72 percent of his games.

Don’t look at me. I’ve never talked to Lane Kiffin in my life, nor have I had a positive impression of him, nor have I peddled his message.

Jimbo Fisher!

Although I’d hire Willie Fritz, who I stumped for when Nevada instead hired Brian Polian in 2013.

My recent Nevada football hires would have been Willie Fritz (instead of Brian Polian) in 2013, Beau Baldwin (instead of Jay Norvell) in 2017, Troy Taylor (instead of Ken Wilson) in 2022 and Bronco Mendenhall (instead of Jeff Choate) in 2025. Those were my preferred candidates when the jobs opened. I have no idea if any of them would have taken the job, but I wrote each time about that being my top candidate.

It does except for situations where all the teams in the tie have not all played each other. And since San Diego State and UNLV did not play each other, the four-way tie atop the Mountain West in football was decided by a computer tiebreaker. New Mexico and Boise State were both 2-1 against the teams in the first-place tie while San Diego State was 1-1 and UNLV was 0-2. Yet, the computers favored UNLV and Boise State. Sucks for New Mexico and San Diego State. Although New Mexico lost to San Jose State and San Diego State got crushed by Hawaii. So, there’s some self-inflicted blame as well.

It is partially explained above, but since all four teams that tied for first didn’t play each other, the composite score in four computer metrics determined the top-two teams. UNLV’s average score was 45.50 with Boise State at 47.75, San Diego State at 51.0 and New Mexico at 54.75. As a few people pointed out, the Mountain West should have just held a semifinal week (UNLV vs. New Mexico and SDSU vs. Boise State) and championship game (winner of those two) since they’re out of contention for a College Football Playoff berth. That would have been cool, although impossible to pull off in such a short time period.

So, Boise State is the sellout traitor and UNLV is the most hated team? It’s a Friday night game. Go do something fun. You don’t have to watch the game. The new Predator movie isn’t bad. (The new Stranger Things season is pretty bad, though.)

Who said “every conference game in the SEC is a playoff game?” The goal should be to get the 12 best teams in the nation in the playoff bracket. If four of those teams come from the SEC, that’s fine. Texas won’t make the CFP this season because it played in the SEC. If it had stayed in the Big 12, it would have been in the playoffs because it would have had an easier schedule.

If James Madison and Duke both win their respective conference titles, the ACC will be left out of the College Football Playoff’s at-large spots. The top-five ranked conference champions are guaranteed spots in the playoff, and those spots this year would go to the SEC, Big Ten, Big 12, American and Sun Belt since James Madison would be ranked higher than Duke, which is 7-5 and would not jump ahead of James Madison with a win over Virginia if it won the ACC. Miami is still alive for a CFP spot. It is behind Alabama and BYU for a top-10 spot and at-large CFP berth. But the Tide and Cougars both play in conference title games this weekend, so if they both lose you could see the Hurricanes leap both, which would mean you’re penalizing teams for making their conference title game and rewarding teams for not making their conference championship. Yes, that’s a horrible precedent.

No. Ohio State and Indiana are ranked 1-2 this season and will play for the Big Ten title. The loser of that game still deserves to be in a 12-team playoff. It’s not like the NCAA basketball tournament only features conference champions. With the Power 4 gobbling up schools and growing to 16 or 18 teams, you’re going to see more playoff teams come from the same league.

Well, Carter Jones did hit that mark this season, passing for 1,019 yards to lead Nevada. But that’s the lowest figure for Nevada’s passing leader since 1983 when Eric Beavers had a team-best 832 yards through the air. That team still went 10-4 and won the Big Sky with a 6-1 record.

There actually was an eight-week in-season documentary series of that team called “Running with the Pack: University of Nevada Basketball” that was produced by Stadium and ran on NSN. The best docuseries are those where the subject doesn’t have final edit. In this case, the subject did have final edit. Imagine if that wasn’t the case regarding Nevada’s game at Utah State that season. That would have been a fun episode. The Wolf Pack put the “Running with the Pack” segments on its Nevada men’s basketball YouTube page back in the day. They should still be there.

Is hockey not a major sport? The teams don’t do mingle after games in hockey except for the end of playoff series. And in baseball, there are 162 games. These people see enough of each other. They don’t need to acknowledge each other after every game when they are three- or four-game series whereas other sports are one-off competitions that would lead to more postgame interaction.

1. NFL kicker makes a 70-yard field goal (that could happen this year; kickers are amazing these days)

2. Nevada football goes .500 (going .500 in college football isn’t crazy tough)

3. Raiders football goes .500 (it’s time for Tom Brady to play for the team he co-owns)

4. Nevada men’s basketball is ranked (that’s going to be hard in the new Mountain West)

What? Were you tripping on shrooms when you tweeted this?

See y’all next week!

Columnist Chris Murray provides insight on Northern Nevada sports. Contact him at crmurray@sbgtv.com or follow him on Twitter @ByChrisMurray.