100 Days, 100 Reasons G6 Football Matters

The nation tuned in for coronation. Instead, it saw the culmination of a decade of hard work.

It was the greatest night in the history of Nevada football, a 34-31 upset in overtime that sent shock waves through the BCS rankings and waves of joy through the Sierra Nevada.

But it sure didn’t start that way.

Undefeated Boise State, the juggernaut of the WAC, jumped to a 17-0 lead and appeared on track for consecutive victory No. 25 as the Broncos extended their case for a shot at the national title. The Broncos were the reigning Fiesta Bowl champions — 14-0 the year before, 12-1 the year before that — ranked No. 3 in the country and favored by 14. They had beaten their opponents by an average of 36.4 points per game, scored 40 or more in eight of their 10 games and beaten Nevada 10 straight times.

For six of those years, it had been massacres — 3-56, 7-49, 21-58. Then Colin Kaepernick arrived in 2007 and the blowouts ended overnight. Nevada lost by two points. Then seven. Then 11. Four years of competitive heartbreak, each time culminating in Bronco celebrations.

Now Kaepernick was a senior playing his last home game — the only player in FBS history with three seasons of 2,000 passing yards and 1,000 rushing yards — and Chris Ault, the Hall of Fame coach who had played quarterback at Nevada in the 1960s and installed the Pistol offense on this field in 2004, had his best team.

“We definitely felt like we owed them one,” Kaepernick told the Reno Gazette-Journal.

Mackay Stadium held 30,712 frozen fans on the night after Thanksgiving in 2010. Five-point-four million more watched on ESPN — the third-largest Friday night college football audience in the network’s history. Twenty-seven players on the field that night went on to play in the NFL — 14 from Nevada, 13 from Boise State — the second-biggest sporting event in Reno history behind only the Jack Johnson-Jim Jeffries heavyweight title fight in 1910. Before kickoff, Ault told his seniors to make a memory.

Boise State led 24-7 at halftime.

The Second Half

Nevada’s defense shut them down first.

Boise State’s opening drive of the third quarter went 31 yards and ended in a punt. The next went 12 — Doyle Miller sacked Moore and the Broncos punted again. The next: three plays, negative-two yards, punt. Then another three-and-out. Four consecutive stalled drives from an offense that had scored 24 points before halftime. Kellen Moore, the Heisman candidate who had shredded Nevada for years, couldn’t move the ball past midfield.

Then the Pistol took over.

Nevada’s first second-half drive went 11 plays and 59 yards before a fumble killed it at the Boise State 21. It didn’t matter. The offense had found its gear. Kaepernick and Vai Taua started hammering the Broncos’ front — the same front that had held the Wolf Pack to seven points through two quarters. Nevada outgained Boise State 239-8 on the ground in the second half. Two hundred thirty-nine to eight — against one of the top three defenses in the country.

Kaepernick scored on an 18-yard run in the third quarter. Rishard Matthews ripped a 44-yard touchdown run early in the fourth to make it 24-21. Then Nevada drove 87 yards in 15 plays — starting from its own 7-yard line, almost entirely on the ground. Taua opened with a 26-yard run. Kaepernick broke a 17-yard run. They drove to the 6 and couldn’t punch it in. Martinez’s 23-yard field goal tied it at 24 with five minutes left.

One play later, it was 31-24 Boise State. Doug Martin — a future first-round NFL pick — caught a screen pass and went 79 yards for a touchdown. Everything Nevada had built across three quarters of grinding football, erased in one play.

In 2008, that’s where the story ends. In 2009, same script. Nevada falls behind Boise State, fights back, and Boise answers. The Broncos celebrate. The Wolf Pack goes home.

Not this team.

Kaepernick drove Nevada 79 yards in 14 plays. Taua and Courtney Randall hammered the ball between the tackles. Kaepernick hit Mike Ball for 22 yards, then Matthews for nine. Matthews caught the tying touchdown with 13 seconds remaining.

Wide Right

Thirteen seconds. Kellen Moore, Boise State’s Heisman Trophy candidate, dropped back and threw 54 yards to Titus Young. Two seconds remained. Kyle Brotzman, one of the most accurate kickers in the country, lined up from 26 yards to win the game, preserve the winning streak and keep the Broncos’ national championship alive.

Wide right.

“To be honest, I was on a knee on the sideline praying, hoping we’d get another shot,” Kaepernick said.

“When he missed that field goal, I said ‘we got it now, guys, let’s go,’” Ault told the Reno Gazette-Journal.

Wide Left

In overtime, Brotzman missed again from 29 yards.

Wide left.

Anthony Martinez was from McQueen High School in Reno. He was 5-foot-6. Two years earlier, he had won the Nevada state championship at Mackay Stadium — the same field, the same end zone. Now he stood on that field with the biggest game in program history on his right foot.

Thirty-four yards. Straight down the middle.

“There couldn’t be a more pressure situation to put a freshman in and he nailed it right down the middle,” Kaepernick told the Reno Gazette-Journal.

Nevada 34, Boise State 31. Fans stormed the field.

Blue Friday

Martinez ran wildly around the field with his helmet in the air. “Don’t Stop Believin’” pulsed through Mackay Stadium. Kaepernick walked off for the last time as a college senior, mobbed by fans on his way to the tunnel.

Boise State coach Chris Petersen refused to put it on his kicker.

“One play can never lose a game,” Petersen told the Reno Gazette-Journal. “It can win a game but it can’t lose a game.”

Ault grinned into the cameras.

“You got wide-angled lenses,” he told reporters, “because I’m about to smile.”

Then: “There’s no such thing as Black Friday. It’s Blue Friday.”

“It is the greatest victory this university has ever had, I can tell you that,” he told the Reno Gazette-Journal. “The way it happened is just an unbelievable feeling.”

“We’re a team of destiny.”

The Reno Gazette-Journal bannered “BELIEVE IT” across its front page the next morning. The sports section led with “Mackay miracle.” In Boise, the Idaho Statesman ran “KICKED OUT.” Chris Murray, the Gazette-Journal beat reporter who covered the game from press row, had to change the lede to his story six or seven times. The game kept topping itself.

Why It Matters

“There’ll be no Bowl Championship Series National Championship Game for the Broncos,” wrote Chadd Cripe of the Idaho Statesman. “No Rose Bowl. Almost certainly no BCS game at all.”

If Brotzman makes that first kick, Boise State plays in the Rose Bowl at worst and for the national championship at best. Instead, the Broncos went from a $13 million BCS payout to roughly $750,000. The WAC lost its BCS bid and the conference paycheck that came with it.

For Nevada, none of that mattered. The Wolf Pack earned a share of the WAC championship — the program’s first title since 2005 and its last. They beat Boston College in the Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl, finished 13-1 and ended the season just outside the top 10. It was the highlight of the greatest season in Nevada football history and the crowning achievement of Ault’s 234-victory, Hall of Fame career.

Kaepernick was drafted by the San Francisco 49ers, where the Pistol offense that Ault invented in Reno followed him to the NFL. Ault retired after the 2012 season. He served on the College Football Playoff Selection Committee.

ESPN later ranked the game the seventh-best of the decade. The man who reported on that ranking was Chris Murray — the same beat reporter who kept rewriting his lede at Mackay Stadium on the Friday night after Thanksgiving.

In Reno, they don’t call it Black Friday.

They told you it didn’t matter. Here are 100 reasons it does.