FRESNO, Calif. — Colin Kaepernick was a pitcher who had major league scouts salivating before he abandoned baseball to run Nevada's unorthodox offense.

The quarterback barely even needed to use his outstanding arm at Fresno State — not while Kaepernick and his teammates were running right over every Bulldog in sight.

Vai Taua ran for a career-best 263 yards and a late touchdown, and Kaepernick added 118 yards and two scores in Nevada's 472-yard ground attack in a 41-28 victory last night, the Wolf Pack's first win in Fresno since 1998.

Courtney Randall had 66 yards rushing and another touchdown for the Wolf Pack (5-4, 3-2 WAC), who rarely stopped moving forward in another prodigious performance by Kaepernick and their distinctive "pistol" offense, which even gave Texas Tech some trouble earlier this year.

After holding on to the ball for 13:46 in the fourth quarter, Nevada finished with 600 total yards — its third 600-yard game this season, even with Kaepernick going 7 for 17 for just 128 yards through the air.

"We knew towards the end of the second quarter that they were getting tired," said Kaepernick, a sophomore whose 20th rushing touchdown tied Hall of Famer Marion Motley's career total. "We just kept executing our game plan and running it in on those guys. It's fun to run this offense."

Seyi Ajirotutu caught two touchdown passes from Tom Brandstater for the Bulldogs (5-4, 2-3), who lost their second straight and dropped to 1-3 at Bulldog Stadium this season with just their second loss to Nevada in the schools' last 10 meetings. Brandstater went 23 of 43 for 260 yards, but threw two interceptions.

A.J. Jefferson returned a kickoff 93 yards for a score in the fourth quarter to keep Fresno State close, but Kevin Grimes intercepted Brandstater's fourth-down pass in the final minutes, and Ajirotutu fumbled at the Nevada 10 with 1:57 to play.