RENO, Nev. – For the second straight week, Nevada senior quarterback Colin Kaepernick has been named the Rivals.com WAC Player of the Week.
Kaepernick (Pitman HS; Turlock, Calif.) guided Nevada to a 52-31 thumping of No. 24 Cal on Friday night in front of a sellout crowd at Mackay Stadium. He accounted for 329 yards of total offense and five touchdowns as the Wolf Pack never trailed in the game and improved to a 3-0 for the first time since 1991.
Kaepernick completed 10-of-15 for 181 yards and two scores – a 15-yarder to Tray Session to open the game and a 30-yard strike to Rishard Matthews in the third quarter. He rushed 17 times for 148 yards and three touchdowns (1, 8 and 27 yards). In doing so, Kaepernick is now 12th all-time in NCAA history in rushing yards for a quarterback at 3,275 and seventh all-time in rushing touchdowns by a quarterback at 46.
In three games this season, Kaepernick has accounted for 1,097 yards of total offense and 13 touchdowns. He earned the same honor from Rivals.com the previous weeks for his efforts in a win against Colorado State.
Kaepernick also earned honorable mention from the weekly College Football Performance Awards. This is the second straight week he has earned that honor. He was joined on the weekly CFPA honors by safety Marlon Johnson, whose 65-yard interception return for a touchdown thwarted a Cal comeback attempt in the third quarter. It was Johnson’s first career interception and this is his first honor from the CFPA.
The purpose of the College Football Performance Awards is to provide the most scientifically rigorous conferments in college football. Recipients are selected exclusively based upon objective scientific rankings of the extent to which individual players increase the overall effectiveness of their teams. As prominent scholars from a wide variety of disciplines note, CFPA eliminates the politics and biases that vitiate balloting-based awards. Furthermore, CFPA is the only awards organization to receive praise from both Republican and Democratic White House officials for promoting objectivity and fairness in college football.
Nevada, which is on the cusp of cracking the Top 25 in both national polls, returns to action on Saturday when it travels to face BYU in Provo, Utah on Saturday. The game is scheduled for a 4:06 p.m. kickoff and will be televised nationally on The Mtn. Network.
