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		Morris Phillips on the Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl Q&A By Morris Phillips January 10, 2011

	Sportstalk: Nevada’s (13-1) quarterback Colin Kaepernick propelled his Wolf Pack past Boston College (7-6) despite being off his normal, record-breaking game. Nevada needed early efforts to take the lead with touchdowns by Rishard Matthews on a 27-yard catch and then a 72-yard punt return by Matthews. Talk about those two plays to get the Wolf Pack up and running early? Matthews is the game changer for Nevada, and just like the Wolf Pack did in their upset of Boise State, they planned to get the ball to the 6’3” receiver early and often. Matthews finished with seven catches for 86 yards and the touchdown on his catch and run, and was named the Bowl’s MVP. Afterwards, Coach Chris Ault said that he and his coaching staff felt they could take advantage of the Eagles in the kick return game and in order to make that a reality, a great deal of practice time was devoted to punt and kickoff returns. The hard work paid off in Matthew’s return in which he covered the entire distance without being touched. Sportstalk: Boston College was noted for their defensive prowess and they proved it after the first quarter by holding the Wolf Pack to just two field goals. BC only allowed Nevada one field goal in the second half, but still came up on the short end of the 20-13 score. How was Nevada able to hold on? Boston College’s defensive effort was gutty. That was typified by their strip of Vai Taua after a 13-yard gain that prevented Nevada from putting the game out of reach early in the fourth quarter. But it mattered little because the BC offense was stuck in mud. Freshman quarterback Chase Rettig showed little chemistry with his receivers and their comeback effort stalled in a bushel of dropped and misfired passes. Sportstalk: These two teams played true to form in that you got tight defense from Boston, some scoring from Nevada and the Eagles just falling short by a touchdown. If they had played another quarter do you thing BC would have made this one interesting in the end? BC was competitive enough to make this one interesting without the benefit of an extra quarter. The Wolf Pack averaged better than 40 points a game and was held to 20. Consensus All-American linebacker Luke Kuechly was as good as advertised, especially on his athletic, third quarter interception of Kaepernick. But for BC’s offense, standout running back Montel Harris couldn’t go, and with no production in the pass game, Nevada’s defense consistently put an additional run stopper in the box with great success.