Wolf Pack celebrates Ault’s 200th win

By: Juan López

Friday, October 9, 2009 - 10:57 PM

Nevada football head coach Chris Ault is carried by his players in celebration after the Wolf Pack's 37-14 win over Louisiana Tech. The win was Ault's 200th career victory. Photo by Casey Durkin.

After Nevada’s game against Louisiana Tech, Wolf Pack players rushed the field and their head coach Chris Ault led the team in singing, “When the Pack goes marching in.” After singing and cheering with the team, a few players picked up the 62-year-old Ault and put him on their shoulders. The celebration for Ault’s 200th career win was on.

With the Wolf Pack’s 37-14 win over its Western Athletic Conference foe Friday at Mackay Stadium, Nevada (2-3, 1-0 WAC) head coach Chris Ault reached the two-century mark in career victories.

“The special thing to me they’ve all been at one university and it represents every single player that’s ever put the silver and blue (uniform) on for me,” he said after the game. “That’s pretty special.”

With the win, Ault became just the 54th head coach in NCAA history to amass 200 wins in his career and just the sixth active coach to reach this feat. The other five are Penn State’s Joe Paterno, Florida State’s Bobby Bowden, Virginia Tech’s Frank Beamer, Ohio State’s Jim Tressel and Texas’ Mack Brown. He is just the 35th coach in history to win all 200 games at one school.

As for how he got to the two-century mark in wins, Ault relied heavily on junior quarterback Colin Kaepernick.

Kaepernick was 15-for-21 passing for 166 yards and three touchdowns. He also ran for 89 yards and two touchdowns on 12 carries.

The highlight of Kaepernick’s day came in the third quarter. On an option-read play (where Kaepernick decides whether to hand it off up the middle or run it himself outside), he kept the ball, ran left and received a solid block from tight end Virgil Green. After breaking through the line, he sprinted toward the left sideline away from the lone Bulldogs defender who had a shot at catching him. Louisiana Tech (2-3, 1-1 WAC) defensive back Chad Boyd seemingly had a good angle to catch Kaepernick, but the 6-foot-6 quarterback legged out a 67-yard score — the longest run of his career.

“A lot of people always say, ‘You’re not very quick, but you’re fast,’” Kaepernick said about his touchdown run. “‘You’re very deceptive once you hit your stride.’ I saw him out of the corner of my eye and I just tried to make a play for my team.”

Aside from Kaepernick’s stellar play, Ault noted the much-improved play of the entire team that led to a lopsided conference-opening win. He specifically mentioned Nevada’s defensive backfield which allowed just 129 passing yards.

“They played with some confidence out there,” Ault said of the secondary. “That’s what we needed. When you start playing with confidence, you’re in a comfort zone and you play better. I think the key for our secondary was obviously that four-man pressure. There was some heat. That (defensive front) brought some heat.”

The Wolf Pack also continued its dominating play on the offensive front. Multiple times, Nevada’s offensive line drove back the Louisiana Tech defensive line three, four and five yards backwards. In the last two games, the Wolf Pack has run the ball for 904 yards.

“That’s big-time stuff,” Ault said about the play of the offensive line. “That offensive front and (offensive line coach Chris Klenakis), he’s just done a special job with those guys. I’ll tell you, Alonzo Durham had some back spasms (during the game), but we put (backup) Jose (Acuna) in there in crucial situations and he did an excellent job.”

Ault told the media all of this in the post-game press conference during which he sported a large overcoat — he needed it to help keep him warm after some of his players and coaches doused him with a Gatorade bucket after the game.

The Wolf Pack will try to improve its conference record to 2-0 next Saturday at Utah State.

Juan López can be reached at jlopez@nevadasagebrush.com.

Nevada-Louisiana Tech highlights from The Nevada Sagebrush on Vimeo.

KEY STATS:

NEVADA

QB Colin Kaepernick: 15-for-21, 166 yards, three touchdowns. 12 carries, 89 yards, two touchdowns.

RB Vai Taua: 17 carries, 107 yards.

WR Brandon Wimberly: Five catches, 73 yards, one touchdown.

LOUISIANA TECH

QB Ross Jenkins: 8-of-17, 129 yards, one interception.

RB Daniel Porter: 11 carries, 99 yards, two touchdowns.

WR Dustin Mitchell: Two catches, 21 yards.

Nevada held Louisiana Tech to just 129 passing yards.

Wolf Pack ran for 345 yards.

This was Nevada’s first turnover-free game of the season.

The Wolf Pack has run for 904 yards in the past two weeks.