On Saturday at 8 p.m. on the Pac-12 Networks, 2-0 Arizona football plays host to Nevada, another 2-0 squad and a familiar foe.
The Wolf Pack will attack with the pistol offense.
“The key is accounting for the quarterback and the running back,” redshirt senior safety Jared Tevis said. “It takes a lot of discipline, and if one person messes up their job, it could be a breakout play for them. We have to be disciplined on every play.”
In their last meeting, Arizona scored two touchdowns in the final minute to beat Nevada 49-48 in the 2012 New Mexico Bowl.
Then-sophomore Nevada quarterback Cody Fajardo threw for three touchdowns and 256 yards and ran for 140 yards and a score. This season, Fajardo is second in the Mountain West in total offense per game (290.5).
The Nevada defense features senior defensive end Brock Hekking and his blond mullet. He is on the watch list for the Lombardi Award, the award for the nation’s top lineman or linebacker.
While Arizona is fifth in the nation in total offense, last week, the Wolf Pack faced the second-ranked passing offense, Washington State, and beat the Cougars 24-13.
Nevada’s public enemy No. 1
Arizona head coach Rich Rodriguez is 3-0 against teams from the Silver State after beating UNLV 58-13 twice, in addition to Nevada.
The New Mexico Bowl comeback spoiled former Nevada head coach Chris Ault’s last game at UN. Ault coached at Nevada for 28 years, going 233-109-1, and invented the pistol.
Rodriguez is 10-0 against non-Pac-12 Conference teams as UA head coach.
Nevada is looking for the first road win of the Brian Polian era. Ault’s successor is 0-6 away from home.
A toast to the Wolf Pack
Nevada got its mascot name from a newspaper writer, just like Arizona.
In 1921-22, a local writer said a Nevada team played like a “pack of wolves,” and the moniker stuck.
On Peavine Peak, Nevada has an “N” Mountain.
Nevada battles archrival UNLV for the Fremont Cannon, a replica of a weapon used by Captain John C. Fremont on his trek through Oregon, Nevada and California in 1843 and 1844. UNLV won the cannon 27-22 last year in Reno, Nev.
Nevada’s famous alumni include current San Francisco quarterback Colin Kaepernick; former boxing referee and judge Mills Lane; and actress, model and former MMA fighter Gina Carano.
—Follow James Kelley @jameskelley520
