2022 Mountain West Football Top 50: #3, Nevada DT Dom Peterson

The Wolf Pack’s stolid lineman is the top-ranked Mountain West defender on this year’s countdown of the conference’s best.

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A big man rises to the top.

Top-flight defensive tackles can be hard to come by, which makes the Nevada Wolf Pack fortunate in that they’ve had one of the best for a long time now in Dom Peterson, the next athlete on our countdown of Mountain West football’s best.

After taking a redshirt year in 2017, Peterson saw the field quite a bit starting the following year, making ten starts in 13 games throughout 2018 before earning a first-team all-conference selection in 2019 with nine sacks and 15 tackles for loss. He’d be just as productive during the shortened 2020 campaign, as well, with 4.5 sacks and seven TFLs.

Last year, as you might expect, looked like more of the same for Peterson, too, as he racked up 40 total tackles, 5.5 sacks, and ten TFLs. In four seasons, he’s never posted a PFF grade lower than 77.8, which include a 83.0 mark that ranked second among interior defenders in the Mountain West in 2021. His 42.5 career tackles for loss puts him in a tie for the second-most in program history while his 22 career sacks are tied for fifth-most among all Wolf Pack defenders.

Knowing all of this, and knowing that Nevada is reloading along its defensive line this fall, Peterson could see plenty of double teams as offenses focus on slowing him down. One way or another, however, he’s going to leave Reno as one of the best Wolf Pack players ever.

More MW Top 50!

2022 Mountain West Football Top 50: #4, Utah State QB Logan Bonner

2022 Mountain West Football Top 50: #5, Fresno State WR Jalen Cropper

2022 Mountain West Football Top 50: #6, Boise State QB Hank Bachmeier

Story originally appeared on Mountain West Wire