QB Hunter Fralick among 16 players leaving Wolf Pack

Show Caption Hide Caption Watch: Highlights from Wolf Pack's 2016-17 season The Wolf Pack had plenty of highlights during its most recent athletic campaign.

The Wolf Pack football team’s returning players are back on campus this week for summer weights and speed work but the roster isn’t quite as robust as it was for April’s spring camp.

Sixteen players who were on the spring camp roster, including nine who were on scholarship, won’t return to the team, first-year coach Jay Norvell told the Reno Gazette-Journal on Tuesday. Among those players is junior quarterback Hunter Fralick, the former Spanish Springs High star who competed for the starting job in 2015.

In addition to Fralick, quarterback Dante Mayes, cornerback Cameron Turner, defensive end Nakita Lealao, receiver Victor Gonzalez, receiver David Harvey, defensive end Jarid Joseph, offensive lineman Daren Echeveria and tight end Evan Faunce, all of whom were on scholarship last season, won’t return.

Mayes, Lealao and Echeveria have graduated and decided to stop playing football. Gonzalez, Harvey, Joseph and Faunce were all medically disqualified with concussions. Turner will transfer to FCS school Tennessee Chattanooga.

In addition to those scholarship players, seven walk-ons won’t return: offensive linemen Reece Backman, Ilya Lopez and Tyler Rosentreter; receivers Joe Pyle, from Fallon, and Jason Elenberger, formerly of Air Force; kicker Evan Rios; and punter Fernando Pujals, which leaves the Wolf Pack with only one kicker and no punters on its roster.

Norvell said he and his staff had some frank discussions with players during and after spring camp.

“The whole spring was an evaluation period for us, trying to get the kids to learn how we want to practice,” Norvell said. “It was a transition period. I was really disappointed with the first three weeks of practice. We really challenged our players. We had several players who weren’t improving, who weren’t getting any better. I challenged them. I told them, ‘If you aren’t getting better every day, there’s something wrong. You’re either not listening to the coaches, not focused in what we we’re trying to accomplish or you're really not into it.’ We evaluated a lot of kids and talked to them after spring practice.”

Players who decided against continuing to play will remain on scholarship, Norvell said, under a recent NCAA provision that allows players who gave up the sport following a coaching change to remain on scholarship. Among the departures, Joseph, Lealao, Echeveria and Gonzalez logged the most playing time last season.

Echeveria, who was entering his junior season, started four games and appeared in 17 during his first two years at Nevada. Joseph, also a junior-to-be, played in all 12 games last season, posting 15 tackles and three sacks. Lealao, a senior-to-be, started seven games in 2017 and had 15 tackles. Gonzalez, a speedster plagued by injuries, caught three passes for 86 yards during his two seasons with the Wolf Pack.

Turner, who was entering his sophomore season, is the only departing scholarship player expected to transfer to another school, Norvell said. Turner, a native of Alabama, recently announced on his Twitter page he was headed to Tennessee Chattanooga. As a freshman, Turner had two tackles in nine games.

The biggest name to leave the program is Fralick, the local product who set a number of records at Spanish Springs. When Fralick signed with Nevada in 2014, rebuking offers from San Diego State, UNLV and Northern Colorado, he became just the fourth local quarterback to earn an FBS scholarship since 1970. After redshirting in 2014, Fralick battled Tyler Stewart for the starting job in 2015, with the gig ultimately going to Stewart.

Fralick finished his Nevada career 0-for-3 – all in mop-up duty in a season-opening win over Cal Poly in 2015 – but he did score in the regular-season finale that season on a 4-yard run off a fake field goal against San Diego State. Fralick fell to third on the depth chart last season and was with the fourth string this spring.

Norvell, who was hired in December and signed his first recruiting class in February, said improving at quarterback, along the front seven defensively and on the offensive line have been areas of focus as he rebuilds Nevada's roster.

“We’re in a transition,” Norvell said. “We feel like we really have some major improvements we need to make defensively. We don’t have the physicality or strength in the front seven that we need. You look at the statistics from last season and where we were in rush defense (last in the FBS), we need to improve our personnel. We need more physical players and we need more speed. We need to get in the weight room and get stronger. The kids that we bring in need to be physical, hard-nosed kids who like to play and can run.”

WOLF PACK ADDS TWO LINEBACKERS

Nevada has filled its 2017 recruiting class but continues to add scholarship players for next season.

The Wolf Pack received commitments from a pair of junior-college linebackers last weekend who will join the team for this season but count against Nevada’s 2018 scholarship allotment. Those players are Dymund Richardson, whose father and brother both played in the NFL, as well as Kyle Adams. Both players have three seasons of eligibility remaining and add depth to a position that remains thin.

Richardson is a 6-foot-4, 215-pounder who also had offers from Purdue and San Jose State. He had 15 tackles, one forced fumble and one pass breakup for El Camino (Calif.) College in 2016. Richardson’s father, Paul, played in 1993 for the Eagles. His brother, Paul Jr., was a 2014 second-round pick by Seattle. Both were receivers. Richardson was a defensive back at the JC level but will move to linebacker at Nevada.

Adams is a 6-foot, 225-pound linebacker who had 54 tackles, including five for loss, one sack and blocked two kicks as a freshman last season for Saddleback College in Mission Viejo, Calif.. Nevada’s linebacker corps included only one returning starter (Gabe Sewell) as well as nine freshmen, leaving the position green.

Those additions give Nevada five players who will join the team in 2017 but count toward the 2018 recruiting class. The others are JC quarterback Griffin Dahn and prep recruits Daiyan Henley, who will play receiver at Nevada, and Marquette Jackson, who is expected to play linebacker.

Nevada’s junior-college transfers are expected to join the team later this week for a summer session while the freshmen class will arrive June 25.