RENO, NEV. >> Reportedly, 4.5 million tourists visit the Reno-Sparks area every year. But the Hawaii football team’s 109-member travel party is excluded from that sight-seeing count because of the business-like nature of this trip.

Ahead of today’s game against Nevada, head coach Nick Rolovich closed Friday’s walk-through session to outsiders and barred coaches and players from entering the casino in the hotel where the Warriors are staying.

The Rainbow Warriors are seeking to end a three-game losing streak that has dropped their records to 2-3 overall and 0-2 in the Mountain West. They are hopeful of opening strongly against Nevada. The Warriors are averaging 5.8 plays and 14.2 yards on their opening series of each game. The Warriors have not scored a first-quarter point since Sept. 2, the last time they won.

“It’s something we need to emphasize,” Rolovich said of the slow starts. “It’s becoming a pattern. I don’t want to say it’s a habit. But it’s been consistent, so we want to address it.”

Nevada also has stumbled early, being outscored a combined 51-10 in the first quarter. They have netted 1 yard on the first play of their five games. Their average opening drive is 8.3 yards.

“We need to start faster,” Nevada slotback McLane Mannix said during this week’s news conference. “We need to come out of the jump playing fast, doing our job, doing it the right way, playing with technique.”

Nevada is 0-5, its worst start since 1964.

“Some people might already have started to believe the season’s done,” right guard Ziad Damabhoury said. “As a team, we can’t. We have to stay together and continue to strive to do better. … It’s difficult because you don’t want to start off 0-5. Nobody does. But we can easily rattle a couple off right now. A streak starts with one. All we need is one.”

Hawaii quarterback Dru Brown said, “Every game is a must win. We’ve got to approach it like that. There are no games when you can really slack off. This one carries a little more weight so we can get back on track.”

This will be somewhat of a homecoming for several Warriors. Rolovich was the Wolf Pack’s offensive coordinator for four years. Director of football operations Jason Cvercko, strength/conditioning coach Bubba Reynolds and graduate assistants Makana Garrigan and Mikahael Waters used to be on the Wolf Pack’s staff.

Defensive coordinator Legi Suiaunoa is a Nevada graduate. Quarterbacks Dru Brown and Cole Brownholtz attended Nevada football camps but did not receive scholarship offers from the Wolf Pack.

“I think it will be kind of cool to see it come full circle,” Brown said.

Rolovich said working under Nevada head coach Chris Ault and his successor, Brian Polian, expanded his offensive knowledge. Ault hired Rolovich to add run-and-shoot concepts to the Wolf Pack’s zone-read offense. In turn, Rolovich learned the run-game schemes of the pistol offense that are now part of the Warriors’ offensive menu.

“It was a good experience there,” Rolovich said. “I met a lot of good people.”