The key moments, trends, plays and players from the Nevada Wolf Pack football team’s 28-13 victory over the San Jose State Spartans on Saturday at Mackay Stadium:

KEY PLAY

The Wolf Pack never seemed in jeopardy of losing Saturday. But the Pack also didn’t truly feel comfortable until it reached into its bag of tricks on offense. The Wolf Pack, up 14-3 midway through the fourth quarter, faced a first down at the San Jose 32-yard line. Quarterback Luke Duncan then tossed a backward pass to wide receiver Marshaun Brown out wide to the left. Running back Herschel Turner, meanwhile, weaved his way through the confused San Jose State defense and was wide open down the left side just inside the 10-yard line. Brown hit him perfectly in stride for the touchdown that gave the Pack a 21-3 lead with 8:38 to play.

KEY HIDDEN PLAY

Marshaun Brown’s surprise touchdown pass certainly gave the Pack some much-needed breathing room. But the play that finally put the game away was a 90-yard kickoff return by Ky Woods with seven minutes to play after San Jose State cut the lead to 21-10. Dominic Kelley then scored a touchdown on the Pack’s first play after Wood’s return for a game-over 28-10 lead with 6:58 to go. Woods, one of the top kick returners in the Mountain West (he’s averaging 32.3 yards on his nine returns this year), returned a kickoff 99 yards for a touchdown just a year earlier on the very same field against the very same opponent in a 55-10 Pack win.

KEY DRIVE

The Wolf Pack set the tone of the game and answered a lot of questions on its first drive of the game. Luke Duncan, making a surprise start at quarterback in place of Carter Jones and A.J. Bianco, drove the Pack 72 yards on 16 well-orchestrated plays to give the Pack a 7-0 lead six minutes into the game. Duncan was 4-of-6 through the air for 51 yards, finding the end zone on a 4-yard pass down the middle to Marshaun Brown. Herschel Turner also had consecutive runs of 13 and 8 yards midway through the drive. The Wolf Pack never gave up the lead.

KEY FACTOR

The Wolf Pack defense simply suffocated the San Jose State offense. The Spartans had just nine first downs, 204 total yards and 13 points and most of that (five first downs, 126 yards, 10 points) took place on its final two drives in garbage time in the last eight-plus minutes of the game. The Pack defense, which had four sacks and seven tackles for a loss and broke up 10 of 26 passes, forced 11 San Jose State punts on 14 drives. San Jose State’s offense had just three plays on 10 of its 14 drives. Pack linebacker Jeremy Naborne-Owens had seven tackles and a sack and defensive end Dylan LaBarbera had six tackles and two sacks. Aiden Walker broke up three passes and Bryson Snelling knocked away two. San Jose’s offense had just 56 plays with more than a fourth of them (15) coming on its final two drives with the final score never in doubt.

KEY QUARTERBACK DECISIONS

Both the Wolf Pack and Spartans faced important quarterback decisions heading into Saturday’s game. The Wolf Pack, it turns out, made the right choice by going with Duncan while the Spartans’ QB decisions heading into the game and during it clearly blew up in their face. The Spartans started true freshman Daniel Rolovich and then compounded their error by sending in Robert McDaniel after just two drives. Rolovich misfired on all three of his passes and was sacked once while not picking up a single first down. McDaniel, a redshirt freshman who was a teammate of Duncan’s at UCLA briefly in the spring of 2025, then took over until early in the fourth quarter and didn’t fare any better. McDaniel was 6-of-13 for 48 yards and was sacked three times. Luke Weaver, who was benched two weeks ago despite being one of the more productive quarterbacks in the Mountain West, relieved the futile freshmen Rolovich and McDaniel and was a respectable 6-of-10 for 91 yards, putting up 10 points over the last 12 minutes of the game.

KEY PACK PLAYER

Bishop Manogue graduate Marshaun Brown was one of the key difference-makers in the game. The 6-foot-4, 198-pound wide receiver caught a 4-yard touchdown pass from Luke Duncan to open the scoring and then put the game away with a 32-yard touchdown pass to running back Herschel Turner with 8:38 to play for a 21-3 lead. Brown, who caught Duncan’s first two completions for 15 and 24 yards and two key first downs, led the Wolf Pack with five catches for 52 yards, doing most of his damage down the middle.

KEY HIDDEN PACK PLAYER

It’s difficult, of course, to be all that hidden while playing quarterback, but Duncan did a solid job of simply doing what was asked of him. The junior UCLA transfer (the Pack plays at UCLA this Saturday) wasn’t spectacular, completing 18-of-29 passes for 178 yards and two touchdowns. But the Pack, because its defense was outstanding, didn’t need a spectacular performance by its quarterback to beat the sputtering Spartans. All it needed was a quarterback to be patient, play errorless football, make the right decisions and take what was given to him. And Duncan did exactly that. His best drive was his first of the game (72 yards, 16 plays, a 4-yard TD to Marshaun Brown) and he also showed off his talented arm on a 25-yard bullet touchdown pass down the middle to tight end Trace Estes for a 14-3 halftime lead.

KEY CHOATE QUOTE

“We (the Pack defense) would get frustrated when they (San Jose State) would get two yards,” Wolf Pack coach Jeff Choate told Nevada Sports Net. “The guys (on defense) played lights out. We allowed our guys to play free and fast. It was pretty suffocating.”

UP NEXT

The Wolf Pack (3-4 overall, 2-2 in the Mountain West) will head to the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif., to play the UCLA Bruins on Saturday. UCLA, ranked No. 9 in last week’s Associated Press Top 25 poll, improved to 7-0 overall (5-0 in the Pac-12) with a 28-10 win over Michigan State on Saturday.