RENO - It might not have been the homecoming party the Nevada Wolf Pack football team expected Saturday night at Mackay Stadium.
But the Wolf Pack's 35-13 victory over the struggling San Jose State Spartans got the job done nonetheless.
"We're still winning so obviously we're doing something right," Pack quarterback Colin Kaepernick said. "But we didn't play very well at all."
The Pack, now 6-0 overall and 1-0 in the Western Athletic Conference, was a five-touchdown favorite against San Jose State, a team its shredded 62-7 a year ago in the Bay Area.
The difference this year might rest with the fact that the Pack is ranked No. 21 in the nation and will likely get everybody's best effort this year.
"Definitely," Pack running back Vai Taua said. "Whenever you play a ranked opponent, it's always a big game. We know teams are going to be up to play us."
"We have a target on our back now," Kaepernick said.
Wolf Pack coach Chris Ault was concerned about the eight penalties called on the Pack as well as the 372 yards the Spartans offense piled up.
"The penalties were overwhelming," Ault said. "That's something we have to clean up."
The Pack had three touchdowns wiped out on one second quarter drive by three penalties.
"In my career I've never seen three touchdowns called back on one series," Ault said. "That's a hard pill to swallow."
The Pack never could shake the Spartans - a team that is now 1-5 and lost to UC Davis on its own homecoming a week ago - until Tau's 4-yard touchdown run with 10:23 to play.
"All week we told ourselves not to underestimate this team," said Taua, who rushed for 196 yards and three touchdowns. "We played hard. I just think we hurt ourselves too many times in this game."
Taua has now rushed for 465 yards in three career games against San Jose State.
"As soon as Kap gave me the ball, I saw the hole open up," said Taua of his 73-yard score with 9:36 to play in the third quarter. "I just wanted to hit the hole as fast as I can."
Taua's third and final score capped the most impressive drive of the night, a 14-play, 66-yard effort that ate away 6:21 of the third and fourth-quarter clock.
"He ran very physically," Ault said. "I thought he ran very, very well."
The Wolf Pack took a 21-13 halftime lead as Kaepernick scored touchdowns on runs of 13 and 20 yards.
All of the Pack points in the first half came on the ground - Taua also scored from a yard out - but most of the real damage was accomplished through the air.
Kaepernick completed 13-of-16 passes in the first half for 199 yards. The 199 passing yards in the first half are more than the Pack had in two full games this year against California and BYU.
The willingness to take to the air also was in direct contrast to a year ago when the Pack tied a NCAA record with four 100-yard rushers in a 62-7 victory at San Jose State.
"We wanted to throw the ball tonight," Ault said. "And we were OK. We're not where we want to be."
Kaepernick, who finished the night with 273 yards through the air on 20-of-27 passing, set the tone right away completing 8-of-9 passes in the first quarter for 107 yards.
He connected with Taua on a 4-yard pass, Rishard Matthews for 12 yards and Chris Wellington for 38 on the Pack's first scoring drive.
The drive ended in a 13-yard scoring run by Kaepernick in the left corner of the end zone only after he first rolled to his right looking to pass.
The second drive was more of the same as Kaepernick hooked up with Wimberly, Moe Patterson and Matthews for gains of 14, 12 and 16 yards through the air. The drive, though, ended in a turnover as Wimberly attempted a pass that was picked off in the end zone by San Jose State's Dominique Hunsucker.
Kaepernick did most of the work on the Pack's second scoring drive. He found Matthews for a 16-yard pass to open the drive. Taua then exploded up the middle for 37 yards and Kaepernick did the honors, scoring on a 20-yard run for a 14-7 Pack lead with three minutes to play in the first quarter.
The two touchdowns in the first half moved Kaepernick into third place on the NCAA's all-time list for career rushing touchdowns by a quarterback with 50 behind Nebraska's Eric Crouch (59) and Florida's Tim Tebow (57).
San Jose State, which had not scored more than 14 points in any of its first five games, tied the game at 7 on its first drive. Lamon Muldrow rushed for 30 yards on four carries and Brandon Rutley scored on a 13-yard run up the middle of the Pack defense.
The Spartans also cut the Pack's lead to 14-10 on a 28-yard field goal by Harrison Waid with 11 seconds to play in the first quarter. The field goal was set up by a 40-yard pass from Spartan quarterback Jordan LaSecla to wide receiver Noel Grigby down to the Wolf Pack 25-yard line.
The Wolf Pack, though, stretched its lead to 21-10 early in the second quarter on a 1-yard touchdown run by Taua, capping a 58-yard, six-play drive. The dirty work, though, was done through the air as Kaepernick found tight end Virgil Green for 17 yards and wide receiver Tray Session for 21.
San Jose State, which had lost four of its first five games this year by an average of 28 points, refused to go away in the first half.
The Spartans cut the deficit to just 21-13 at the half on a 42-yard field goal by Waid.
San Jose State, which had the ball for nearly four more minutes than the Pack in the first half, moved the ball on the Pack fairly easily in the first 30 minutes with 118 yards on the ground and 132 through the air.
The Wolf Pack, though, could have had a bigger lead at the half.
Penalties wiped out three separate touchdowns on one drive late in the second quarter. The frustrating drive ended in a missed 25-yard field goal by Anthony Martinez, his first miss this season in seven field goal attempts.
San Jose State nearly wiped out the Pack's lead on its first drive of the second half. This time, though, the Pack defense came to the rescue as safety Duke Williams picked off a LaSecla pass in the end zone.
"I just broke on the ball and made a play," Williams said. "I work on that everyday in practice and that was just like practice."
The Wolf Pack will head back out on the road to play Hawaii on Saturday.
"We're going to have to play much better than we did tonight to win that game," Ault said.