I was busy this week, and wasn't able to get this done in the normal fashion. So instead I'm going to post a quick one today only covering Nevada, since that's easiest for me (and its MWC relevant given the UNLV game). Fresno held with Ole Miss last Saturday until the fourth quarter, with Ole Miss pulling away late (box score). They take on Boise this week (click here for bluesyourdaddy's game preview). Hawaii handled La Tech fairly easily last week and has an open date this week.
Nevada Wolf Pack
UNLV Head Coach Bobby Hauck and UNLV AD in favor of Nevada/UNLV game being held near end of season
From Hauck:
"I’ve always been a proponent of playing the rivalry game at the end of the season," Hauck said. "Just philosophically, when we get to be in the same league, I hope we get to play this game at the end of the year."
From UNLV Athletic Director Jim Livengood:
"It just makes sense at the end of the year," Livengood told the Las Vegas Review-Journal last year. "Can you imagine the Rebels and Wolf Pack, with a traditional 1 p.m. kickoff? Wow."
I'd imagine the Nevada side feels the same way. I'd be fully in favor of this, though I'd have to get used to the idea of it not being near the beginning of the year.
For those of you lacking a little on the history of the trophy UNLV and Nevada play for, this is a good way to get caught up.
Ault: Part of the reason I came back to coaching was to beat UNLV
From Ault:
Ault said this week the losses to UNLV in the early 2000s were a key in him returning to the sidelines in 2004.
"There’s no question that was one of them," Ault said. "Those were very difficult years during that time. There’s always a quietness inside that you always remember the UNLV game and great rivalry we have up here."
"We’d have to sit down and write a book about them," said Ault, who has coached against eight UNLV head coaches. "There are too many great games to talk about. There are a lot of special, special memories. It’s a time when you want to sit down and have a beer and talk about it."
I can remember the years with Tormey at the helm, and I was none too happy with losing to UNLV on a consistent basis. Some were fairly unhappy with the Tormey firing thinking he got a pretty raw deal, but the results since are hard to discount. Link above includes a list of the results from games Ault has coached against UNLV.
Coach Ault on Fajardo's injury, Boise's fans, and compliments on UNLV this season
Pretty straight forward. Ault said Fajardo was not "mentally ready" to play versus Boise this past week. This comes on the heels of Ault basically saying Cody didn't show much desire to play versus Boise. It bugs the hell out of me when Ault airs these thing out in the media, but if Fajardo wasn't ready to play, then he wasn't ready to play. I'm sure that whole situation could have been handled better by the coaching staff all the way around, but oh well.
Ault went on to praise the Boise program and fans:
Ault said he was impressed with how Boise State's fans treated the Wolf Pack. "That's a class, class operation," Ault said. The coach said he thought there might be some hostility after last year's game, but that wasn't the case.
Finally, Ault also feels UNLV is praiseworthy for their season so far, focusing primarily on the Hawaii game. Should be a fun matchup this weekend. Nevada is certainly vulnerable and UNLV has improved, so it looks to be a better game than some of the recent match-ups. I still have Nevada winning but it could be close.