49-13

1-0

The first game of the year saw the Nevada Wolf Pack defeat the first "Tigers" opponent of the season. Let's hope it's not the last win over a Tiger in 2008.

The story of the game on offense was the running game, where Nevada racked up 426 yards on the ground (good for 4th in the NCAA this weekend and just 7 yards behind number two team).

The story of the game on defense was the run stopping, where Nevada allowed just FIVE yards on the ground (good for 3rd in the NCAA this weekend...Ohio State allowed -11!).

The overall story of the game was TEAM. FOUR QB's saw action. ELEVEN Wolf Pack players carried the rock. ELEVEN! Six different players caught a pass. And on the defense FIVE players recorded sacks. ELEVEN players had a tackle for loss. And TWENTY FIVE players got in on some sort of action whether it be a tackle, pass break up, etc. In fact, FIFTY EIGHT different players saw action on the field on Saturday.

Some individual highlights:
Colin Kaepernick had 3 rushing TD's.
Vai Taua had 103 yards rushing and a TD.
Luke Lippincott had his first TD of the year despite missing much of the game with a large cut that required 20+ stitches (and he came back in to play after that).
Dontay Moch had 2 sacks, 3 TFL, forced a fumble, and led the team with 8 tackles.
Josh Mauga had 1.5 sacks, 2.5 TFL, forced a fumble, and had 5 tackles.
Uche Anyanwu had 6 tackles from the safety position.
Jerome Johnson had 2.5 TFL, and 6 tackles.
Brandon Marshall had an INT, 2.5 TFL, and 5 tackles in his first start.

Next week: Texas Tech at Mackay Stadium. Raider's going to get Wrecked!

12:30 EST for Mizzou

ESPN.com has updated the Wolf Pack's schedule with a couple of changes.

When Nevada takes on the Tigers in week 3, it appears students will have to set an alarm and deal with the hang over if they are going to watch the Pack live as a 12:30 EST kick off means that those of us on PST (that's Pacific Standard Time which is what most of us are used too) will have to be up at 9:30 AM on a Saturday morning. Ouch!

Also on a happy note, the Louisiana Tech game is showing as a game that will be available on ESPN Gameplan.

Doak Walker and Dick Butkus

Nevada's Luke Lippincott and Josh Mauga are two of the senior leaders on the team this season. They are also half of the teams elected captains (along with Dominic Green and Mundrae Clifton).

And now they are being watched. Watched by a couple of awards committees that is.

Luke was announced today as being listed as one of three WAC running backs who is on the preseason Doak Walker award watch list (BSU's Ian Johnson and UI's Deonte Jackson are the other WAC rushers).

A couple of weeks ago, Nevada's Josh Mauga joined three other WAC linebackers (UH's Adam Leonard, USU's Jake Hutton, USU's Paul Igboeli) as a preseason Dick Butkus award possibility for the 2008 season.

We have to say that the folks selecting these two noble and honorable awards (along with Rimington) have a lot more sense than many other awards committees (such as the dolts at Walter Camp, John Mackey, Jim Thorpe, Davey O'Brien, etc). Good job of recognizing talent when you see it!

Oh yeah, and we are like 42 hours away from kick off. That's less than two days!

OMFG!!!!!

69 HOURS TO KICKOFF!

This picture pretty much sums up the fall camp. And now we are heading into the first game and there are a lot of things going on. And PWtW has done a piss poor job of updating you on all the latest. So let's recap:

*Three scrimmages down (one was private) and the defense appeared to have the upper hand all camp.
*In today's paper, coach Ault commented he was concerned with the defense, especially the secondary. Huh? Not from what I saw this fall. Coach speak!
*ESPN broke the news that coach Ault selected a starting QB (Kaepernick).
*They also broke the news that BSU selected a starting QB (Moore). And lost a QB (Lomax).
*And that Grambling State selected a starting QB (what ever his name is).
*Speaking of ESPN, they've been doing Nevada a solid by listing Wolf Pack players amongst the top non bcs players at their positions. This included Kaepernick at the number 6 QB, Lippincott at the number 2 RB, and in an amazing selection of genius, Marko Mitchell is listed as the number 1 (yep, numero uno) WR amongst non bcs WR's in the country.
*The two deep shows mostly what we thought all along. Dom Green may be given some more time to get rid of little nagging injuries and Kevin Basped may split snaps with Ryan Coulson for similar reasons. Generally speaking the team is very healthy otherwise.



So what are we predicting for this weekend?

1. Drae Dog and Nate Dog destroy the Grambling center and guards and the Tigers rush for less than 100 yards.

2. Kevin and Dante's Inferno destroy Gramblings tackles and quarterback and get 3 sacks between the two of them. Coulson will get in on the action too with a couple tackles for loss.

3. Mauga gets bored and breaks up a couple of passes.

4. The secondary gets a pick.

5. Luke "The Duke of Mackay" goes over 130 on the ground and collects at least one TD. He begins his quest to defend his rushing title and has 200 all purpose yards.

6. A back other than Luke will collect a TD in this game.

7. Kaepernick throws his first TD pass of the year. And has his first TD run of the year.

8. Mitchell has a TD catch but does not lead the team in yardage. Mike McCoy has a big game!

9. Virgil Green will catch a pass. He always does on NCAA 09!

10. Nevada will go over 40 points and Grambling will stay under 15. (A-B = Wolf Pack victory dummies!)

11. And the bold prediction of the week.....Brad Langley will pin the Tigers inside the 10 on a rare Nevada punt.

Hey CFN...You Suck!

If there is any site out there that does not give Nevada a lick of respect, it's CFN (College Football Nohomeworkonnonbcsteams dot com).

Let's talk about their recent "unit rankings". After ESPN's Graham Watson called Nevada's QB duo of Colin Kaepernick and Nick Graziano "the best quarterbacking tandem in the country", CFN decided to rank the QB units on teams across the country. Where did Nevada's duo fall? Top 5? Nah, Graham got carried away with that comment. Ok. Top 10? Top 25? Top 50?

Try 52.

New Mexico State 14? #1: if you think Chase Holbrook is that much better than either of our guys, think again dummies. #2: if Chase goes down, then what?

Notre Dame 34? And Jimmy Clausen is a candidate for the Maxwell award....oh wait a minute, I guess he is.

And don't even get us started on Running Backs. You MF'ers! SOB's! You've got us hopping mad now.

The leading rushing attack in the WAC. The returning WAC rushing champion.

#46?

Fresno State 21? I bet they can't even name a Fresno St running back without cliff notes.

Boise State 8? Really! Number 8 in the whole nation! Didn't rush for more yards than Nevada did last year. But we understand. Ian Johnson proposed to his girlfriend on national television. Luke Lippincott might not even have a girlfriend for all we know.


We think ESPN is a much more reputable source of information than CFN, so we're sticking with their assessment.

By the end of this post, we've calmed down a bit. CFN, we'll forgive you. But mark our words, when this season is over we will be reminding you of your errant ways.

Tiger's Camp Sounding Familiar

Scrimmage #1 for the Grambling St. Tigers produced no scores by the offense.

Scrimmage #2 for the Grambling St. Tigers produced two scores by the offense.

That doesn't sound a whole lot different than the Nevada Wolf Pack's one score in scrimmage number one and two scores in number two.

The biggest difference that we see though, is that unlike the Wolf Pack quarterbacks, the Tiger quarterbacks have been bit by the interception bug. Quarterback Greg Dillon threw 3 picks while sophomore J.P. Tillman threw another in their second outing. That should bode well for ball hawks like Mike Evans, Antoine Thompson, Isaiah Frey, and Jonathon Amaya.

With just about nine days to go before kicking off the 2008 season, the Tigers are planning to begin shifting focus to preparing for the Wolf Pack. I hope they know what they're getting themselves into!

Luke Goes Live on ESPN and Some QB Thoughts Too

Today on ESPN Live Chat, Luke stopped in to answer some fans questions. He did a real nice job of keeping things PC for the most part and answered the questions in full. We like that he didn't dodge questions like "who would you want to beat most this season from the WAC?" (answer was BSU) and "can you win one of the big 12 games" (answer was a short and sweet YES).

Perhaps Luke should consider majoring in communications, although psychology probably isn't a bad choice considering his father, Brian, is said to be a pretty good psychologist himself.

10 Days to Kick Off and No Official Announcement on Quarterback

Perhaps coach Ault is playing the silent game vs. BSU's coach Peterson here. Let's see who will be the first to make an official announcement? Everyone seems to be writing about the Pack's quarterbacks (ESPN had a lengthy article today on the matter: http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/preview08/news/story?id=3540706). It's a good problem to have and it's interesting to see every one's perspective on the matter. Each writer seems to have their own opinion and thoughts.

Well anyway lets take a look at some important numbers and occurrences over the past seasons and camps:

Spring of 2007:

Scrimmage 1, Graz 5-14 for 71. Kaep 4-8 for 85

Scrimmage 2, Graz 5-15 for 96. Kaep 3-9 for 47

Scrimmage 3, Graz 10-13 for 150. Kaep 5-9 for 67

Spring 2007 totals, Graz 20-42 (48%) for 317. Kaep 12-26 (46%) for 199.

Fall of 2007:

Scrimmage 1, Graz 13-25 for 162. Kaep 4-8 for 41

Scrimmage 2, Graz 16-20 for 216. Kaep 8-13 for 133

Fall 2007 totals, Graz 29-45 (64%) for 378. Kaep 12-21 (57%) for 174

Just 4 days before the first game in Lincoln, coach Ault announced Nick Graziano as the starter for the 2007 season. He also said that Kaepernick would be playing in "situational" spots to utilize his abilities. What stands out to us is a few things. Graziano had almost double the pass attempts as Kaepernick during camps. Percentage wise, stats were similar. Neither player was allowed to show their running abilities too much as protecting the two players takes priority over showing off in a scrimmage. We also know that Ault has stated in the past that he does not prefer a two quarterback system. And before Graziano was injured, Kaepernick had only seen a very limited amount of time at the ends of the Nebraska and Nichols St games. Two blowout games. That tends to disagree with the comments before the season about one playing situationaly. Another reason to believe coach when he says he does not prefer a two qb system.

Now here we are just 10 days away and in a similar situation.

Fall of 2008:

Scrimmage 1, Kaep 8-12 for 73. Graz 3-12 for 39.

Scrimmage 2, Kaep 10-23 for 88. Graz 6-15 for 143.

Scrimmage totals: Kaep 18-35 (51%) for 161. Graz 9-27 (33%) for 181.

What can we make of this based on previous history? It will be interesting to hear about this last scrimmage that's coming up. Right now, Kaepernick is running with the "ones" as Nick was at this time last year. You can see that Kaep has had more attempts, but not to the extent that Graz did last season. Kaepernick's completion percentage is much better, but Graziano has made his connections count for greater yardage, leaving many fans forgetting the actual numbers and remembering the big hitters. And again, neither player has been allowed to show off their running abilities for injury reasons. However this season is probably different from last as we've now seen what Kaepernick is capable of in game situations.

The one thing that we here at PWtW do feel fairly confident in is that when coach does make the announcement one of these players is going to be disappointed. And if trends remain the same, we will not be seeing a split role at the position. One player will take the reigns. We just hope that the other player will remain with the Pack and be ready to play just in case something happens like last season did.

Defense 2 - Offense 0

Round 2 goes to the defense. Again.

Ok. Sure. Some will try and say it was even.

6.5 tackles for loss. 3.5 sacks. And that was only Dontay Moch by himself!

The defense wracked up 15 total tackles for loss and 9 sacks in the 101 plays that the Wolf Pack ran on Saturday.

The defensive front looked impressive as they were constantly causing problems for the Wolf Pack offensive front. Dontay Moch made big play after big play including a massive hit on quarterback Colin Kaepernick from the blind side in leading the defense with 8 total tackles. Nate Agiaiva was next in line with a pair of sacks as well.

When the front group wasn't causing havoc, the defensive backfield was causing problems for the Pack quarterbacks and wide outs. Antoine Thompson led the group with 3 pass break ups as he had Marko Mitchell blanketed much of the day. Freshman Marlon Johnson mixed it up a bit as well as he had an interception and fumble recovery on the day as well as a couple of pass break ups. Again, Thompson and Evans looked solid with younger guys like Isaiah Frey continuing to push for reps on the field this season.

The defense held the offense to 88 yards rushing (4 yards per rush) and 313 yards passing on 24 of 57 (a paltry 42%).

Speaking of offense, Vai Taua led the RB's with 9 carries while Courtney Randall led in yards with 27. The two are making their cases for carries during the season behind Lippincott and Fragger. Michael Ball was on crutches (stress fracture) and we missed seeing Lampford Mark as well.

On the quarterback battle, no ground appeared to be lost or gained. Graziano led the group in yards with 143 yards, the majority of that coming on a couple of pretty plays with Marko Mitchell going for a 54 yard score, Shane Anderson catching another 50 yard post, and a nice screen play to Vai. Unfortunately as seen with last weekend, Graz's completion percentage failed to impress as he was 6-15 for 40% and was lucky to not have a couple of balls intercepted. Colin Kaepernick had an average day as he was terrorized in the backfield much of the day. Quick whistles prevented any running razzle dazzle and Kaepernick's completion percentage, unlike last weekend, wasn't much better than Graziano's as he was 10-23 for 43% with just 88 yards. The bulk of that came on a 31 yard touch down pass to Brian Fludd on a nice pump fake that left Fludd all alone as the defender bit hard. The 3rd spot looks to be as much or more of a battle as the 1st spot as Tyler Lantrip had a decent day with 7-14 for 75 yards vs. Luke Collis at 1-5 for 7 yards.

The wide receivers were slightly better with hanging on to the ball this time (still a few drops but nothing as bad as last weekend). Mitchell led the way with 2 catches for 63 yards and score and besides the other above mentioned plays and players, red shirt freshman Tray Sessions looked alright with a pair of grabs for 26 yards.

The offensive line appeared to have a rough time with the defensive speed and stunting all day. It appears they are still figuring out which players will be where as John Bender was moved back to tackle for much of the day after playing the guard spot earlier in camp. Snaps to the quarterbacks were overall much better as just a few came out low but most were right on.

Next weekend is a closed to the public scrimmage that wraps up the fall camp portion and begins the preparation for kick off with Nevada's opening opponent, the Grambling Tigers.

We would like to see the offense put a few more scores on the board and get things going before that time. The nice thing this year though is that if the offense isn't 100% gelled, they don't have to figure it out in front of 85,000 in Lincoln Nebraska.

And let's hope the defense doesn't let up and only gets better over the years to come.

P.S. Just 12 days to go now. Almost in single digits!

Bloggers Gettin Crazy! 15 Mas Dias

Although PWtW is not a site that posts multiple reports on a daily basis ala OBNUG (hey we get it, nothing better to do in Idaho) that doesn't mean that PWtW doesn't read those blogs.

And it doesn't mean that at times, we don't get side-swiped by data.

This morning on the RGJ's blog (yep, the Reno paper has a blog too) it was reported that Luke Collis appears to be solidifying the number 3 spot behind Kaepernick and Graziano. But the more important data that was reported (and why it's not in an article but just a blog is beyond us) was that Graziano didn't participate in practice. WTF! Coach Ault said it was just to get Collis more reps. And the RGJ appears to be speculating that it's because he doesn't need any more work and Kaepernick does. Uhhhhhhhhhhhhh the guy was out 2/3rds of last season, all of spring, and part of the summer and you're trying to tell us that the #3 guy needs more reps? Or that he's already rebounded and doesn't need the work? Boy we sure hope everything is cool and that's all it really is. Nevada has the top QB group in the WAC but if either Graziano or Kaepernick can't go, that position gets real thin real fast.

On the lighter side of things, the RGJ also reported a funny story (maybe not so funny to BSU fans who might read this) about Kaepernick taunting red shirt freshman and recently named starter Brandon Marshall:
(From RGJ Blog): "Back to Kaepernick's jaunt. The team was in scrimmage mode when Kaepernick rolled right from about his own 35 and saw a lot of daylight. He sprinted down the right sideline with red shirt freshman linebacker Brandon Marshall giving chase from across the field. Marshall began to close in when Kaepernick bellowed, "You gotta take a deeper angle than that." Kaepernick pulled away for the touchdown, leaving an astonished Marshall to just say, "Damn, he's fast!"" (http://blogs.rgj.com/pack/2008/08/graz-is-idle-as-kap-puts-it-into-high.html)

Also, speaking of OBNUG, they give their thoughts on Nevada and I have to say for them it's not too bad. They give some respect as hard as that probably is for them to do. I can only imagine what this QB battle must be doing to them. Go with the frosh or the senior? We are just sort of hoping that when it comes time to play Boise, their QB's name is Bush. The possibilities are endless...... (http://www.obnug.com/2008/08/nevada-preview-hurry-before-window.html)

Nineteen

It's the atomic number for Potassium.

It's also the number of days to kicking off the 2008 season against the Grambling Tigers.

That's less than 3 weeks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Grambling wears black and gold and we are just trying to figure out: Will we pound Grambling as bad as we will pound that team that wears black and gold in the WAC?

First Scrimmage Over...Wolf Pack Gets Defensive

The Nevada Wolf Pack held there first scrimmage and some questions were answered.

#1. This defense will be hold opponents to less scores and yardage than last years team. Yes, that's right. After one scrimmage we can say that.

#2. Mike Evans and Antoine Thompson were the starting corners today. Evans was a JC transfer from El Camino who was recruited by coach Ward. Evans held an offer from Memphis and had interest from a number of Big 12 schools as well as Boise. Thompson was a 3 star prospect out of Reedley CC who was recruited by coach Wilson. Thompson had an offer from Akron and had interest from Nebraska and Hawaii.

#3. The depth of the defense isn't looking too bad either. The linebackers looked very good with Johnson, Mauga, and Marshall starting but with young players like Jared Silva-Purcell and Joe Easter getting in on lots of action over the day, the position looks to be one of strength for years to come.

#4. The offense had a couple of key players sitting out today with Dominic Green and Brandon Fragger and it showed with Green missing as early problems with the snap to the quarterback led to a defensive TD by Kevin Basped. Neither player appeared to have a serious injury though and we expect to see them back before the season opener.

#5. Speaking of offense, the stats weren't all that great today. Although Colin Kaepernick threw for a 66% (8-12) completion rate today (an area that improvement was being looked for this fall) he only threw for 73 yards and 1 TD vs 1 INT (made by defensive back Isiah Frey). Nick Graziano didn't fare as well as he was 25% on the day (3-12) for 39 yards and an interception returned for a score by red-shirt frosh Jonathan Ott. Rushing the ball, the Pack managed 145 yards on the ground. That number was spread out fairly even by Lippincott, Graziano, Randall, Mark, and Wellington. There were a number of quick whistles to protect the QB's though and no doubt the rushing stats could have been more had that not been the case.

#6. The wide outs needed their own paragraph separate from the rest of the offense. A number of dropped passes plagued the unit. Both Kaepernick's and Graziano's INT's could have been catches had players used stick'em instead of butter on their gloves this morning. Tyler Lantrip looked good and could move to the number three spot on the chart, but the stats won't reflect it as he was plagued by drops. This appears to be a common theme for early scrimmages as the past couple of seasons the same issues were occurring. Mitchell led all players with 50 yards. Dwayne Sanders looked good on the day with 30 yards and the lone offensive TD on a fourth down pass from Kaepernick.

#7. Look for the defense to continue to play well (this is a much faster unit than has been on the field for some time) but also for the offense to gel over the next weeks and put the ball in the end zone. I expect a much more even battle with 3-5 offensive touchdowns, one defensive score, and some tackles for loss this Saturday.

A Heisman Candidate in Reno?

This week on College Football Live, a Hawaii Rainbows fan wrote in to ask if Hawaii could win the WAC this year.

Analyst and former Minnesota Vikings RB Robert Smith weighed in with his thoughts.

In his answer, he basically said no. He went on to say that Fresno State had too much this year and that Boise was going to be good again. He then went on to mention our beloved Nevada Wolf Pack as also being a team that would be hard to beat and further said that our own quarterback Colin Kaepernick was, in his opinion, a dark horse Heisman candidate who should put up huge numbers this season.

Well we are with you on that one RS. We hope you're right and that those numbers translate into a great season for the team and a WAC title in 2008.

The Pieces are Coming Into Place....

(From Nevada Wolf Pack)

This isn't an official list, but appears that some of the spots that were questionable as to who would start are beginning to shape up.

Recent articles and coaches comments are pointing to red-shirt frosh Brandon Marshall as being the starting line backer out of the WOLF position. Josh Mauga anchors the middle position and Jerome Johnson, a starter at the WOLF position last year, shifts over to the strong side.

The front line looks to be Basped and Dontay Moch on the ends. So far, these two look to be blazing speed fast and should be causing quarterbacks nightmares when they review film to prep for the Pack. Mundrae Clifton and Nate Agaiava will be the big guys stuffing the middle.

The safeties will no doubt be returning starters Uche Anyanwu and Jonathon Amaya.

The corner position is the remaining question mark. However, there has already been some good play going on in camp and the team speed looks to be much improved over last year.

On the offensive side of the ball, Colin Kaepernick has been running with the ones, and doing a great job of it as he reportedly didn't miss a pass in Fridays 7 on 7 drills. The rumor is that Kaepernick has only thrown one pick during the first week of practice, a great start to fall camp.

At the RB spot Luke Lippincott is back and Brandon Fragger is 100% healthy after a couple of seasons of flashy play hampered by injuries.

One of the few spots that was lost last season is at the TE position with Adam Bishop moving on to the big show. Junior Puloka returns, minus the cast, but there may be even more excitement with rSo Virgil Green looking good in practice and also with rFr Zach Sudfeld who reportedly had the best time in the "Nevada Run" at his position and who won the scout team player of the year award last year as a freshman.

Dominic Green, Alonzo Durham, Greg Hall, John Bender, and Mike Gallet all return to the line with starting experience. Durham and Hall started every game for the Pack last year. Bender started five games but was hampered with injuries. Green started seven games and also battled injuries and Gallet started seven games as well. The union looks to be the key stone of the pistol offense this season.

At the WR position, Marko Mitchell and Mike McCoy return. The remaining position, left vacant by Kyle Sammons graduating, is likely to go to Chris Wellington. Don't be surprised though if Art King Jr. and/or Dwayne Sanders is on the field to start a game this season.

Of course there is still lots of camp to go and positions are still up for grabs. We just like to predict things before they are set in stone.

Also, four "players of the day" have been named so far as the players who stood out most at Wolf Pack practice. They are:

Day 1: Lampford Mark, RB

Day 2: Dayton Guillory, DB

Day 3: Brandon Marshall, LB

Day 4: Kevin Basped, DE

And a reminder, the first scrimmage is set for tomorrow (Sunday at 10:15) at Mackay stadium.

Start Your Engines

Today is officially the start of the 2008 season with the team meeting for their first fall camp practice and media day.

There are three scrimmages open to the public coming over the next few weeks (Sun August 10th, Saturday August 16th, and Saturday August 23rd) as well as a fan appreciation day (after the scrimmage on the 16th).

The Wolf Pack was picked to finish 3rd in the WAC by both media and coaches. Many outlets are predicting the team to be a dark horse candidate for the WAC conference title and believe that the team will have the best offense in the conference.