Editor's note: With the 2020 Nevada football season delayed, NevadaWolfPack.com is taking a look at the Wolf Pack program on a position-by-position basis this fall. This week's focus: quarterbacks.
 
There's no sugar coating it, Carson Strong is the Wolf Pack's QB1 for the 2020 season. And with the type of freshman campaign he put together in 2019, it's hard to argue against it.

Strong joined the Wolf Pack out of Vacaville, Calif. and Wood High School as a true freshman in 2018 and made a brief appearance in the tail end of Nevada's 2018 season opener against Portland State. With just that one appearance, Strong redshirted in his true freshman season and picked things up in 2019 as a redshirt freshman ready to lead the Wolf Pack. He won the starting quarterback job in fall camp and helped lead Nevada to a come-from-behind win over Purdue in his first collegiate start. In that game, Strong threw for 295 yards and tossed three touchdowns to no interceptions to aid in the Pack's 34-31 victory over the Power 5 opponent.

All-in-all, Strong totaled 2,335 passing yards in his 10 games in 2019, added 11 touchdowns and completed 63.4 percent of his passes. He averaged 233.5 passing yards per game, which ranked fifth in the Mountain West. He really came into his own at the tail end of the season, throwing for 351 yards against UNLV and a season-high 402 yards in the season finale, the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl against Ohio. That marked the first 400-yard passing performance of Strong's collegiate career.

Heading into 2020 Strong has a different outlook on the season being the starting quarterback coming into fall camp, rather than battling for that position. He has garnered some national preseason recognition as well as he was placed on the preseason watch list for the Maxwell Award, which is presented annually to the nation's most outstanding player. He was also named a preseason All-Mountain West performer by Athlon Sports, a national college football magazine. Along with national organization recognition, Strong has garnered attention from his coaching staff and fellow teammates as well as he was recently chosen as one of four team captains for the 2020 season.

Behind Strong will be a couple of talented junior college products as junior Nate Cox and sophomore Jake Barlage joined the Pack in the offseason. Cox, who is listed as the tallest player on the Wolf Pack at 6-9, transferred to Nevada from Garden City Community College where he spent the 2019 season. In his one season, Cox completed 131-of-253 passes for 1,891 yards with 12 touchdowns and five interceptions. Barlage joined the Pack from Riverside City College where he completed more than 69 percent of his passes for 2,786 yards with 30 touchdowns and just five interceptions. He helped lead Riverside CC to a perfect 13-0 record and a California state championship last season.

Nevada has two other quarterbacks on its roster who will be competing for spots on the depth chart in sophomore Hamish McClure, who was with the Pack last season and made an appearance in the Oregon game, and true freshman Jonah Chong out of Honolulu, Hawaii.