Wolf Pack finding creative ways to hand out scholarships to walk-ons

The Wolf Pack football team ends every practice with kicker Spencer Pettit attempting a field goal.

The only difference Tuesday was where Pettit’s kick was coming from. Since it was “Competition Tuesday,” as coach Jay Norvell dubs it, the head man told Pettit he’d have to make one from 60 yards out.

“I said, ‘Coach, if you put me out there, I’ve got it,'" Pettit said.

But right before the ball was about to be snapped, Norvell called for an imaginary timeout.

“I’m going ice him,” Norvell yelled.

Norvell then asked Pettit to turn around. Behind him was a sign that read, “Congratulations Spencer Pettit. You have just kicked your way into a scholarship at the University of Nevada.”

Norvell gave Pettit a hug and his teammates collapsed on the sophomore kicker. Pettit was the second walk-on to be given a scholarship in advance of the 2017 season. The first came Sunday when Reed High graduate Trae Wells, a junior tight end, was awarded a scholarship. Nevada revealed that scholarship in a team meeting at the end of a look-alike slideshow that compared coaches to famous people.

“We have great walk-ons who really give a lot to the program,” said Norvell, who was hired in December. “For us as coaches, we haven’t really been around these kids very long, so we’ve wanted to watch them since last December and see how they worked in the offseason and we've watched them in practice. Pettit has had a great offseason, he’s kicked extremely well out here and he’s certainly deserving of it.”

What once was a behind-the-scenes maneuver – giving scholarships to walk-ons – has become a viral phenomenon in recent years as colleges try and upstage one another with their scholarship reveals. The more creative, the better. Norvell said he was teasing Pettit the entire day leading up to the reveal.

“Earlier in practice, I iced him and called timeout a couple of times,” Norvell said. “He was really zeroed in (on that last kick) and it probably never hit him what the sign said. But that’s fun stuff.”

Pettit, who is entering his third season at Nevada, earned the Wolf Pack’s starting job halfway through last season. The Snohomish, Wash., native was 7-of-9 on field goals and 18-of-19 on extra points. Pettit has had a strong fall camp and should be one of the top kickers in the Mountain West this season. Now, he’s on scholarship and said after practice ended his first call would be to his mom.

“I had no idea it was coming,” Pettit said. “I saw Trae get put on scholarship on Sunday and (Coach Norvell) gave a pretty good speech about it. He talked about, ‘If everybody does their job, everybody has a spot, whether you’re on scout team, on special teams or a starter.’ As I started kicking last year and started playing more, it felt like the more I did, the better I got, the more I deserved it.”

Wells is in his fourth season at Nevada. The 6-foot-1, 210-pound local product made his Wolf Pack debut last season, appearing in seven games, largely on special teams. He’s mixed into the two-deep depth chart on offense – at tight end and H-back – and will be a key special teams player this season.

“Trae is one of those blue-collar guys, and you really can’t have a team without those guys,” Norvell said. “They don’t get noticed much. They don’t get a lot of stats. He’s on every special teams, he plays H-back for us, he does all of the dirty work in the run game and is just a fabulous kid. We’ve really talked a lot since I’ve been here that every man has an obligation to the team. He has to bring something to the table and add to what we’re trying to do. Trae has certainly done that.”

With 2½ weeks until the start of the season, the Wolf Pack could put a couple more walk-ons on scholarship (FBS teams are allowed a maximum of 85 scholarship players). Norvell wasn’t ready to tip his cap on whether he had a couple more scholarships to hand out, perhaps because he doesn’t want to ruin any upcoming surprises.

“I don’t know,” Norvell said. “We’ll see. The week’s not over with yet. We’ll see what happens. We certainly have a lot of kids who are deserving and a lot of kids who are really working hard and whenever we can reward them we’ll try and do that.”