How missteps in coaching hires have impacted Nevada football since historic 2010 season

Editor's note: This column is part of a six-part series on Nevada football's post-2010 struggles. You can read the first part of this series here and second part here.

When Chris Ault resigned as Nevada's football coach after the 2012 season, there was optimism.

In retrospect, that was a weird feeling. Ault propped up the Wolf Pack and its shoestring budget during each of his three tenures, which included runs from 1986-1992, 1994-95 and 2004-12. Ault almost always put a proud product on the field, a group that was usually one of the nation's top teams in Division I-AA before Nevada's jump to the FBS in 1992 where it became a bowl regular under Ault after joining college football's top division, which included a historic 2010 season.

But even Ault admitted upon resigning in 2012 he could take Nevada no further after going 7-6 in back-to-back seasons post-2010, a 14-12 mark that included a 0-10 record against bowl teams. While a change might not have been needed, many thought it could help propel Nevada to a higher level. But Ault's resignation came with a warning. His longtime assistant, Jim Mastro, attended Ault's resignation press conference in 2012 despite working for Washington State at the time.

"You can call it a bittersweet day, but to me, it’s a sad day," Mastro told me in 2012. "As I’ve said a million times before, people aren’t going to realize what they had here until he’s gone. They’ll realize it now. There are tough times ahead.”

Tough times were indeed ahead, as predicted by Mastro, who now serves as Wolf Pack football's general manager. Since Ault resigned, Nevada is 60-74 overall and 36-44 in league. It has played in six bowl games in 11 seasons but never reached a Mountain West title game or had a nine-win season, making it the only current MW member not to record nine wins since 2010.

So, what happened?

While it's not 100 percent the problem, Nevada has not hired the right coaches. Ault was not consulted after he resigned in 2012 as the Wolf Pack, under athletic director Cary Groth and the search firm Collegiate Sports Associates, tabbed Texas A&M special teams coordinator Brian Polian to replace Ault. Polian was 38 years old at the time and not quite ready to run his own program. He certainly was not the best fit for Nevada's unique challenges.

Polian perhaps could have thrived under different circumstances, but the Wolf Pack isn't the perfect job. Nevada's football budget at the time was $4 million below the conference average; the school lacked the bells and whistles, namely an indoor practice facility, that many conference rivals had; and it required somebody used to dealing with a low-level infrastructure where overachieving was required simply to be bowl eligible.

Polian was more of a CEO head coach who had made his name as a top recruiter at heavily-funded schools like Stanford, Notre Dame and Texas A&M. He was best known for successfully recruiting Manti Te'o from the Hawaiian islands to South Bend, a major coup for the Fighting Irish. But you're not recruiting five-star kids like Manti Te'o to Nevada. You're recruiting players with a couple of FBS scholarship offers who are fortunate to get three-star recruiting ratings. Nevada is a player-development program where matching a perfect scheme with the skill sets of talented but flawed hard-working athletes leads to playing above your roster's talent level. That was not Polian's strength.

The New York-born Polian, who went to college in the Midwest and spent just two years of his career in the Pacific time zone, didn't work at Nevada, a crucial misstep as the Wolf Pack fan base was on board for a fresh slate from Ault. That was evident when Nevada sold a program-record 12,783 season tickets in Polian's debut year. The season-ticket base actually increased more from 2012 to 2013 than it had from 2010 to 2011, the year after Nevada finished 11th in the nation.

But the early results were difficult. Facing a brutal 2013 schedule, Nevada went 4-8 in Polian's first season, missing a bowl game and losing to rival UNLV for the first time in nine seasons. After back-to-back 7-6 seasons in 2014 and 2015, Nevada went 5-7 against the nation's easiest schedule in 2016 and Polian was fired with a year left on his contract. He went 23-27 overall, including 4-23 against bowl teams. Fairly or not, the Polian era, which brought great academic success, is largely remembered by Wolf Pack fans for Polian's sideline outbursts, including one in 2015 at home against Arizona that led to a $10,000 fine from Nevada's athletic department.

Dealt with another fresh slate, Nevada, under the direction of athletic director Doug Knuth, selected Jay Norvell to replace Polian. A deft eye for coaching talent, Knuth picked a strong under-the-radar option. Norvell had coached in a Super Bowl and national championship game. He had served as a successful offensive coordinator and been a head-coaching candidate several times without landing a job. He was well overdue for an opportunity. And after a 3-9 rebuild in year one, Norvell gave Nevada its most success since 2010.

Recruiting and developing hidden high school offensive gems like Ault did for so many years, Norvell built a powerful offense that pushed the Wolf Pack to records of 8-5, 7-6, 7-2 and 8-5 in his final four seasons, an accumulated mark of 28-18 with two bowl wins in four postseason appearances. Nevada lost its share of heartbreakers in 2020 and 2021 to fall shy of a MW title game appearance but was playing better-than-average football. Frustrated with a lack of financial and administrative support, Norvell left Nevada for the unprecedented move within the MW, accepting the Colorado State job a little more than a week after his team whipped the Rams, 52-10.

Knuth was again tasked with hiring a coach at a below-average budget, tabbing former Nevada assistant Ken Wilson, the 57-year-old college football lifer who had never been a head coach. The belief was Wilson would not leave for greener pastures if he had success. But that success was never manifested as Nevada bottomed out the last two seasons, posting arguably the worst back-to-back years in program history.

Tasked with one of the biggest rebuilds in college football after nearly two dozen players transferred out of Nevada following its coaching change, including several key players joining Norvell in Colorado State, Wilson's teams went 2-10 and 2-10 before he was fired last December. That included losses to FCS opponents each season and two defeats to rival UNLV. Nevada endured a school-record 16-game losing streak that bridged the two seasons with 16 of the 20 losses under Wilson coming by double-digits. The Wolf Pack's offense, once a point of pride, struggled to produce even 18 points per game. Each of Nevada's first three post-Ault hires tapped people who had never been a head coach.

Perhaps it was premature to fire Wilson given the situation he inherited, but his team had not given Wolf Pack fans or administration much hope for optimism, the kind that came when Nevada first looked to replace Ault more than a decade earlier. His hiring in December 2021 underlined another post-2010 issue. Groth hired Polian and was replaced as athletic director by Knuth three months later. Knuth hired Wilson but was replaced as athletic director by Stephanie Rempe six months later. In college athletics, alignment between the university president, athletic director and coach is key. But in two of Nevada's three hires — the two that failed the most spectacularly — the athletic director who hired the Wolf Pack football coach didn't even last until that coach's first game, truly a recipe for disaster.

What's happened to Nevada football?

Feb. 12: What’s happened to Nevada football since 2010?

Feb. 13:Post-2010 momentum stunted

Feb. 14: Coaching mistakes

Feb. 15: Loss of offensive identity

Feb. 16: A lack of investment

Feb. 17: Nevada football’s future

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