How good does the Nevada Wolf Pack football team feel right now?
"We have our confidence back," smiled quarterback Colin Kaepernick. "After those first three games (all losses), it's a completely different mentality and swagger."
The Wolf Pack, 4-3 overall and in first place in the Western Athletic Conference at 3-0, will take a four-game winning streak into today's (1:05 p.m.) game at Mackay Stadium against the struggling Hawaii Warriors (2-5, 0-4).
"This week we really just have to continue to focus on ourselves," said Kaepernick, who ran for 230 yards and four touchdowns and passed for 178 yards and two more scores in a 70-45 win over Idaho last weekend.
The Wolf Pack's upbeat mentality and swagger couldn't be higher right now. The Pack has averaged 425 yards and nearly five touchdowns with its running game alone during its four-game winning streak. Overall, the entire offense is averaging 51 points and 612 total yards each game during the four-game streak.
"We definitely feel like we're getting in the end zone (on every drive)," Kaepernick said, "and we definitely feel like at some point we're going to break (a big play). We're very confident."
Hawaii, which has lost five in a row for the first time since 1998, has won its last three games against the Wolf Pack. But don't ask Warriors coach Greg McMackin about how to stop the Pack offense.
"We haven't found any answers yet," McMackin said.
The Warriors have their own problems to worry about right now. Their starter at quarterback, Bryant Moniz, suffered a concussion in the first quarter of last week's 54-9 loss to Boise State and was replaced by sophomore Shane Austin. Austin completed 22-of-36 passes for 174 yards and was intercepted three times.
The Hawaii sports information department was saying early this week that Austin would likely make his first college start against the Pack. But the Hawaii media reported late this week that Moniz would be able to start the game.
"We're down to our fourth quarterback," said McMackin, referring to the season-ending injury to starter Greg Alexander in the Warriors' fourth game as well as the injuries to Moniz last week and to backup Brent Rausch before the season. "We're going through some adversity but the coaches and the players are hanging together."
The last thing Wolf Pack coach Chris Ault wants his team to do now is focus on how much Hawaii is struggling.
"That's a dangerous team," Ault said. "They have better athletes than their scores indicate. Their offense can explode at any time."
The Warriors, despite using three different quarterbacks, have passed for 2,442 yards and rushed for just 524. The Pack rushed for more yards in one game this year (559 against UNLV) than Hawaii has all season.
"I've been around long enough to see their backup quarterbacks come in and just rip people apart," said Ault, doing his best to keep his team focused this week. "It doesn't matter who their quarterback is. They are going to throw it 45-50 times. That team can throw the ball on anyone."
The Wolf Pack defense, which allowed Idaho to pass for 404 yards and five touchdowns last week, is currently the second-worst pass defense in the nation, allowing 299.71 yards a game. Hawaii, by the way, is the third best passing team in the country at 348.86 yards a game.
Ault, though, is glad that his secondary now gets the chance to redeem itself against the pass-happy Warriors.
"You bet," Ault said. "The challenge is there. We know what they (Hawaii) are going to do. Now go out and stop it."
The Pack offense can say the same thing to the Hawaii defense. The Wolf Pack, after all, leads the nation in rushing at 320.14 yards a game while Hawaii is 110th in the country in rushing defense, allowing 199.43 yards a game.
McMackin, though, knows the Pack offense is not one dimensional. Ault admitted that the best way to beat the Hawaii defense, a unit that likes to blitz, is with the play-action pass.
"We didn't do a good job of picking up their blitzes last year," said Ault of Hawaii's 38-31 victory (on a touchdown pass in the final seconds) in Honolulu.
"The quarterback (Kaepernick) has really improved," said McMackin, who led Hawaii to a 7-7 record last year in his first season as head coach. "They've really done a good job of working with him, making him into not only a runner but also a good thrower."
Ault is the first to praise the effort of his offense over the last four weeks. "I think we've done a good job of matching our personnel to what we want to do offensively," Ault said.
Now, Ault said, it's all about moving forward.
"You don't sit and gloat over what you did," Ault said. "That's yesterday's news."