The Homer's Guide to Nevada: Football Messiahs and the Degenerate Gambler

The University of Nevada Wolf Pack have a number of players on their team. I'm sure they're all good at a lot of things. Science, tap dancing, naming all the state capitals. I bet a few of them can even juggle. But they aren't as good at football as Colin Kaepernick.

That gangly, double-gloved, juvenile-gazelle-like specimen is the greatest quarterback in the history of the pistol offense. He is Nevada football's Dennis Dixon, the player that brought their football program to a new, exciting level. He probably slept with Kyle Brotzman's sister the night before the Nevada-fBSU game last year, and waited until late in the fourth quarter to tell him. And he wasn't even attracted to her; he did it for the good of the team. Dedication.

Fortunately for the Ducks, Kaepernick is now the Week 6 starter backup quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers. He is being replaced by senior quarterback Guy Who Isn't Colin Kaepernick. The 21 characters in Isn't Colin Kaepernick's last name will be the most to appear on the back of an FBS school's uniform, breaking the record held by former Bowling Green linebacker Miguel Bradley-Doofenshmirtz.

Nevada's campus is in Reno, "The Biggest Little City in the World". If you've never been to Reno, imagine Las Vegas. Now pretend there hasn't been a new casino built there in twenty years, and every building you walk into feels like it could fall over at any time. Now imagine that 75% of the people walking around are more than forty years old. Johnny Depp and Benicio del Toro staggering around in the midst of an ether binge should not feel at all out of place. Welcome to Reno. It's where old gambling addicts go to die, and dead gambling addicts can still play penny slots until their pulling arm decomposes and falls off.

Other facts about the University of Nevada

Nevada's mascot is the Wolf Pack. Be sure not to confuse it with North Carolina State's mascot, which is the Wolfpack. Nevada: Wolf Pack. NC State: Wolfpack. You will be quizzed on this material. Their "guy-in-a-suit" mascot is named Alphie.

Nevada's Reynolds School of Journalism boasts six Pulitzer Prize winners. The University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication has nine, but who's counting?

Nevada professor and medical researcher Esmail Zanjani led a 2007 genetic study which culminated in the first-ever human-sheep chimera, a sheep with half-human organs. The goal of the study is to eventually use sheep as human organ donors. A separate attempt at Oregon State University to create a human-sheep chimera was unsuccessful.