UNR has BCS and championship aspirations following hot 2010 start

By Case Keefer (contact)

Sunday, Oct. 3, 2010 | 2:14 a.m.

A true “BCS buster” is a team that no one sees coming.

So forget TCU and Boise State, two top five programs from non-BCS conferences. As good as those teams are, it would shock no one if either went undefeated and reached a BCS game for the second year in a row in January.

UNR, on the other hand, would come as a surprise. It must be considered as a possibility after UNR improved to 5-0 Saturday night at Sam Boyd Stadium by beating UNLV 44-26 to keep the Fremont Cannon for the sixth year in a row.

“It’s great to win on the road two times in a row and come back home next week,” UNR coach Chris Ault said. “We need to get better, though. We’re not where we need to be to compete at a championship-level consistently.”

UNR opens its WAC schedule next week with a home game against San Jose State. The Wolf Pack are looking to win their first conference title since 2005.

UNLV got to see a blueprint of how its rival plans to do that Saturday night, behind the legs of senior quarterback Colin Kaepernick and senior running back Vai Taua.

Kaepernick rushed for 97 yards, threw for 124 and accounted for two total touchdowns. Taua rushed 19 times for 188 yards and four total touchdowns.

It was the encore performance for the two, who finished their careers undefeated against UNLV.

“That’s the thing that’s real exciting,” Ault said. “The seniors never lost to UNLV and that’s real special.”

UNR entered the Silver State Showdown ranked 25th in the country. This week was the first time the AP Poll included the Wolf Pack since 1948.

They are off to their best start since 1991, when they went 10-0 in the regular season and won the Big Sky Conference as a Division 1-AA program before falling to Youngstown State in the playoffs.

“This is where we want to be,” senior defensive end Dontay Moch said. “We want to start chasing championships. That’s where we belong.”

The historic start from UNR has made fans to look forward to Friday Nov. 11, when it hosts No. 3 Boise State in what could be a battle of two unbeaten teams. But UNR has a couple of tests along the way.

The Wolf Pack must travel to Hawaii in two weeks, where they haven’t won in six tries and last beat the Warriors on the road in 1948. They also have a road contest with Fresno State two weeks before the Boise State showdown.

Ault, of course, insists he’s not looking that far ahead and says UNR needs to correct mistakes if it plans to be competitive in all of its remaining games.

He was particularly upset with the kickoff team, which allowed big returns to Marcus Sullivan and Tim Cornett.

“That’s stuff you can’t do. I’m disappointed with that part of the game,” Ault said. “You look at it and I tell everybody we’re not a great football team. We’re a good team and we get better every week, but we’ve got to continue to get better on both sides of the ball.”

Kaepernick wants nothing more than to make a run at a conference championship and BCS berth in his senior year, but says the Wolf Pack must cut down on their turnovers. They committed three against UNLV.

“F or the most part, they are mistakes we are making ourselves not stuff they are causing us to make,” Kaepernick said. “That’s stuff we can fix.”

Ault not happy about ‘UNR’ field passes

Before Chris Ault would address the media after the game, he had a complaint to voice.

Ault held up a stack of field passes that said "UNR Coach" and handed them to a sports information assistant with a message.

“Give these back to them and tell them we won’t wear them again,” Ault said. “We’re Nevada.”

Ault went on for a bit about the sign of “disrespect” while Wolf Pack fans cheered outside of the locker room at his comments.

Then, unprompted, he brought the issue back up during his interview time.

“Never give these to us again,” Ault said. “We wore them one time only. I really don’t think that’s the way you do things. We wouldn’t do that to them up there, right? Respect. It’s called respect.”

Case Keefer can be reached at 948-2790 or [email protected]. Follow Case on Twitter at twitter.com/casekeefer.