Nevada Football: Ranking 2022’s Opposing Quarterbacks
Who are the best quarterbacks that the Wolf Pack will defend against in 2022?
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Is most of the challenge in conference play?
12. New Mexico State – Diego Pavia or Dino Maldonado
Last year’s starter, Jonah Johnson, departed the program through the transfer portal, so new head coach Jerry Kill has some work to do to identify his new starting quarterback. Maldonado is a holdover from 2021 who flopped against rival New Mexico but performed better against FCS South Carolina State, but Pavia seems to have the upper hand after leading New Mexico Military Institute to the National Junior College Athletic Association title last season and impressing in spring.
11. Incarnate Word – Kevin Yeager or Lindsey Scott
The Cardinals offense erupted last year under Cameron Ward and rode that all the way to the FCS playoffs, but Ward is at Washington State now and the race to replace him is far from settled. Yeager ended 2021 as Ward’s backup and appeared in four games, but Scott’s edge is that he started for Nichols State last year and proved to be uniquely dangerous for the Colonels. He threw for 2,083 yards and six touchdowns with eleven interceptions, but he also led the team in rushing with 1,074 yards and scored nine times on the ground.
10. UNLV – Cameron Friel or Doug Brumfield or Harrison Bailey
The Wolf Pack have certainly benefited from UNLV’s quarterback chaos more often than not over the years and 2021 was no exception. Friel played perhaps his worst game of the year against Nevada, so while he might be the reigning conference freshman of the year, he’ll have to earn the QB1 job again against a healthy Brumfield and Tennessee transfer Bailey.
9. Texas State – Layne Hatcher
In terms of passer rating, the Bobcats haven’t ranked in the top half of the Sun Belt since finishing first back in 2014, but Hatcher’s arrival from Arkansas State might just turn that around. If the name sounds familiar, that’s because he split time with current Utah State quarterback Logan Bonner in 2019 and 2020, but his numbers were decidedly more mixed after he beat James Blackman for the job last season: A 58.1% completion rate, 7.1 yards per attempt, and 19 touchdowns against 13 interceptions on 341 attempts.
8. Hawaii – Brayden Schager or Cammon Cooper
Schager saw the field ahead of schedule when Chevan Cordeiro got hurt, but he had his moments in three weeks as the starter. He helped rally the Warriors against Fresno State before a rough game against Nevada, but then he picked himself up and had his best overall game against New Mexico State.
Is that enough to earn the job again in a new offense? That will probably depend on beating out Cooper, who saw limited playing time at Washington State in a similarly wide-open passing attack.
7. Colorado State – Clay Millen
Talk about a sore subject. Millen almost certainly would’ve been the front-runner to start for the Wolf Pack had he not chosen to follow Jay Norvell to Fort Collins instead. The hype surrounding the redshirt freshman is real, but it’s been a decade since the Rams have turned to a quarterback like him, when injuries forced Conner Smith into action.
6. San Diego State – Braxton Burmeister
Aztec quarterbacks don’t typically go off but the tandem of Lucas Johnson and Jordon Brookshire improved down the stretch last season, so the bar isn’t under ground like you might expect. There are some expectations for Burmeister, then, which start with improving a completion rate that has actually decreased with the more action he’s seen since 2018.
5. San Jose State – Chevan Cordeiro
Cordeiro had some ups and downs in his years at Hawaii, but he was mostly sharp whenever he set foot on the field against the Wolf Pack. He missed last year’s game with injury but played one of the best games of his career in the Warriors’ win two years ago, so with a fully stocked offense now at his disposal in the South Bay he could make a lot more noise.
4. Iowa – Spencer Petras
Petras is the exemplar of Iowa quarterbacking in that he’ll give you exactly what you need and nothing more. In two years as the Hawkeyes starter, he’s only been asked to throw the ball 26.7 times per game and, in so doing, essentially carbon-copied his 2020 campaign in 2021. One potential hangup: His interception rate rose from 2% to 3.1% last year, something about which head coach Kirk Ferentz is certainly aware.
3. Air Force – Haaziq Daniels
Daniels didn’t have to personally do too much in the Falcons’ victory over Nevada last year, but that’s because his decision-making enabled Brad Roberts and DeAndre Hughes to run wild instead. He hasn’t received as much attention as some of his peers in the conference over the last two seasons, but he improved his yards per attempt and accounted for 18 total touchdowns while engineering the nation’s most dangerous running game. He’s very good.
2. Boise State – Hank Bachmeier
The Broncos lost their matchup with Nevada last year, but you can’t really pin that on Bachmeier. He did everything he could to try and bring Boise State back, taking a lot of punishment in the process, and he still established single-game career highs in completions (34) and passing touchdowns (four) while throwing for 388 yards. That he continued to improve across the board last year despite battling through injury means that the Wolf Pack could have their hands full once again trying to stop him.
1. Fresno State – Jake Haener
If there’s one team against whom Haener has been lights out in his collegiate career, it’s the Wolf Pack. Between the two contests in 2020 and 2021, the Bulldogs quarterback threw for 741 yards, the most he’s had against any one team, with four touchdowns and zero interceptions in 103 attempts. Now that the Nevada defense is reloading, it may be even tougher to stop Haener the third time around.
