RENO, Nev. — The Hawai'i football team had 21 yesterday, but still went bust in this casino town.

In falling 31-21 to Nevada, the Warriors could not hold a 14-0 lead, could not contain a Colin Kaepernick-led running attack, and could not purge a losing streak that now is at six games.

Dating to last season, the Warriors have lost eight of nine games against Division I-A opponents. They are 2-6 overall and 0-5 in the Western Athletic Conference.

Fifteen minutes after the final whistle, quarterback Bryant Moniz was inconsolable, his brown eyes moistened with emotion, his voice reduced to a quiver. Moniz was slumped over a laundry bin, awaiting his turn to explain yet another error-filled setback for the Warriors.

"I'm just bummed," said Moniz, whose two interceptions — including one in the end zone — trumped a performance in which he threw for 374 yards and three touchdowns. "I take this loss on myself. Those two picks turned into two (Nevada) touchdowns. I could throw 40 good passes. But if two aren't there, that could make a difference. The only numbers that matter are on the scoreboard."

Running back Alex Green approached Moniz, offering a pat on the back.

"It's not on Mo," Green said. "We're all in it together."

Indeed. Mistakes? The Warriors made more than a few.

They dropped three passes.

Two of Alex Dunnachie's punts traveled 7 and 10 yards.

After recovering punt returner Vai Taua's fumble at the Wolf Pack 42, the Warriors unveiled a pass play they were keeping secret until a special occasion. On a delayed route, slotback Greg Salas caught a pass in the open field and scored an apparent touchdown. But a holding penalty on left tackle Aaron Kia nullified the score.

Leading 14-7 in the second quarter, the Warriors opted to punt on fourth-and-2 from their 45. In the third quarter, down 28-14, they chose to attempt a field goal on fourth-and-8 from the Wolf Pack 25. Scott Enos could not convert from 42 yards.

"I just pushed it right," Enos said.

And, yet, the Warriors were in contention after Moniz fired a 4-yard scoring strike to right wideout Jovonte Taylor, cutting the deficit to 28-21 with 6:18 to play.

But what ensued was a sequence symbolic of the Warriors' afternoon. Taking advantage of the thin air — Reno is 4,400 feet above sea level — Enos drove his kickoff into the end zone for an apparent touchback.

But UH's Chris Black was called for being offsides.

"I think it was a bad call, but I should have been more alert," Black said. "I have to see it on film, but I don't think I was (offsides)."

A do-over was assessed, this time with Enos kicking from UH's 25.

Enos was asked to squib a kick to the left side. But the ball skipped out of bounds, and Nevada was awarded possession at its 45.

"It's tough, especially when you're coming off the field with a touchback, and you have to re-kick it, and you're 5 yards back," Enos said.

A personal foul moved the ball back to the Nevada 30, but by then, the momentum had shifted.

"We knew we had to hold the ball as long as possible and get points out of the drive," said Taua, who doubles as a running back.

At the end of every practice, the Wolf Pack work on so-called "last-play drives." It's a mini-scrimmage, with the offense allowed four downs. The do-or-die drill prepared the Wolf Pack for yesterday's final drive.

With Taua and Luke Lippincott alternating at the lone back position, the Wolf Pack ran stretch plays off zone blocks. Eight plays and 5 minutes later, Ricky Drake drilled a 22-yard field goal to seal the outcome.

"We said we were going to go down there and try to run the clock out," Kaepernick said. "Our defense shouldn't have to go on the field again. We didn't quite do what we wanted to do. We wanted to end it with a touchdown, and walk off the field like that."

Then again, Kaepernick noted, "We played well enough to pull out the win."

In the early going, the Warriors were in control. They raced to a 14-0 lead on two Moniz scoring passes — 18 yards to left wideout Kealoha Pilares and 71 yards to Taylor.

Taylor ran a quick out pattern, eluded cornerback Khalid Wooten and raced the rest of the way alongside the right sideline.

"Good execution is what it came down to," Taylor said.

But the UH lead was written in chalk.

The Wolf Pack's Pistol offense — in which Kaepernick sets up 4 yards from the line of scrimmage and 3 yards in front of the running back — taxes defenses with its multiple threats. The formation is spread wide to thin the tackle box, opening the way for inside runs or turning receivers into downfield blockers when Kaepernick scoots to the perimeter.

Taua and Lippincott are tough runners who can hide behind the 6-foot-6 Kaepernick. Taua rushed for 127 yards, and caught a 30-yard scoring pass. Lippincott added 84 rushing yards.

The Warriors once recruited Taua. "For a little bit," he said. "They said I was too small."

But, to be sure, Taua and Lippincott benefit from the presence of Kaepernick.

Kaepernick is smart (he calls the audibles in the Pack's no-huddle offense), fearless (he scored on a 38-yard draw up the middle), and fast, especially when he gets to the perimeter.

The Warriors assigned two defenders to track Kaepernick, although the main "spy" — Richard Torres — did not play again after suffering a pulled hamstring in the second quarter.

"We tried to key on (Kaepernick), but he's an extreme athlete," UH linebacker Blaze Soares said. "He's one of the best I've ever faced. We've never seen anybody like him. He takes two strides to go 5 yards."

UH outside linebacker Corey Paredes added: "It's tough to stop him. It's the two-to-one ratio: one step for him is like two of our steps."

When the Warriors tried to jam the tackle box, placing Soares and Paredes on the line of scrimmage, the Wolf Pack receivers faced one-on-one coverages. On a 40-yard touchdown play to Tray Sessions, Kaepernick tried to sell cornerback Tank Hopkins on the out route. When Hopkins stepped up, Sessions darted downfield. Sessions made the leaping catch at the 2, with his back to the end zone, before scoring.

When the Warriors went with the Okie scheme, which features five defensive backs but only three down linemen, Kaepernick would keep the ball on a rollout or draw.

Meanwhile, the Wolf Pack defense retreated into a two- or three-deep zone. They tried to pressure Moniz with a three- or four-man rush.

Moniz, in fact, was not hurried when he tried to throw to Pilares in the end zone, with the Warriors trailing 21-14 in the third quarter. Doyle Miller made the interception.

"That was huge," Nevada linebacker Mike Bethea said. "Doyle probably picked that pass off about five times in practice. It was nice to see something go from practice to the field."

That was not the only time the Wolf Pack managed to interrupt the Warriors' flow.

For yesterday's game, the Warriors decided to snap the ball on Moniz's first cadence. But Moniz often had to wait until after the Wolf Pack defense stopped shifting. Several times, a Pack player would yell out a sound, triggering the UH linemen to move out of their set position. The tactic resulted in three false-start penalties.

"They were doing that the whole game," Kia said. "We were all jumping. We can't blame anybody but ourselves."

Visit Tsai's blog at http://warriorbeat.honadvblogs.com.