We’re about half way through the Mountain West football season and the top and bottom of the conference is starting to become more than apparent. All of the Mountain West teams are still bowl eligible, however, one more loss from San Jose State and they will not be making it. Utah State is sitting at the top of the Mountain Division, while Hawaii is at the top of the Pacific. Just like we all thought in the preseason.
Boise State and Nevada played a late night Mountain West after dark game this week in Reno. The Pack was thinking upset while Boise State was hanging on for dear life after taking a loss to San Diego State the previous week. The teams traded scores throughout the first half, Boise State scoring on two big plays. The first on a John Hightower 88 yard run to put the Broncos up 7-3. The other being a Tyler Horton 99 yard interception return for a touchdown to put the Broncos up 14-10. The Pack would jump on the lead right before the end of the half with a Ty Gangi touchdown pass to Elijah Cooks. However, they left too much time on the clock, because Boise State kicked a 31 yard field goal :42 later. Brett Rypien tossed two more touchdowns in the third quarter, one to CT Thomas and another to AJ Richardson to give the Broncos all they needed to win. The Pack got within four but couldn’t recover a last minute onside kick to get a chance to win.
Utah State delivered a pretty thorough beating to UNLV on Saturday in front of their home crowd. UNLV got on the board first with a Lexington Thomas one yard rush. By the time UNLV got to sniff the endzone again Utah State had put the ballgame away with 42 unanswered until Darren Woods caught a 25 yard pass from Max Gilliam. Utah State took 1:49 to respond to that touchdown by Jordan Love hitting Ron’quavion Tarver for a 29 yard touchdown pass. UNLV put up a couple of garbage time touchdowns in the fourth quarter, and Utah State put up ten more points just to keep kicking them when they’re down. In all, Jordan Love accounted for five touchdowns.
Onto the rest of the stuff..
Scores
Air Force 17
San Diego State 21
Army 52
San Jose State 3
New Mexico 18
Colorado State 20
UNLV 28
Utah State 59
Wyoming 3
Fresno State 27
Hawaii 23
BYU 49
Boise State 31
Nevada 27
Mountain West Player of the Week
This week’s Mountain West player of the week is Utah State’s Jordan Love. Love was 17/23 for 322 yards and five touchdowns, with 39 yards rushing, as Utah State defeated UNLV on Saturday.
Mountain West MVP Candidates
Brett Rypien, QB, Boise State – 28/38 for 299 yards and 2 TD 3 INT
Cole McDonald, QB, Hawaii – 22/38 for 248 yards and 2 TD 1 INT
Jordan Love, QB, Utah State – 17/23 for 322 yards and 5 TD
Marcus McMaryion, QB, Fresno State – 22/32 for 287 yards and 2 TD, 53 rush yards and 2 TD
Juwan Washington, RB, San Diego State – Did not play
Mountain West Power Rankings
Utah State
Fresno State
Boise State
San Diego State
Hawaii
Nevada
Air Force
Colorado State
New Mexico
UNLV
Wyoming
San Jose State
The Quad Shot
I’m going to keep putting San Jose State here until they’re not the worst team in FBS anymore. This week they were blown out by the Black Knights of Army 52-3 on their home court. The Knights are generally not a high scoring offense, but when the Spartans take the field.. well, tanks over shields, bro.
Wyoming is very close to finding themselves in the top spot if they don’t get it together. They’ve gone an absurd amount of quarters without an offensive touchdown. The Cowboy offense right now is like the meme you see with someone poking the Cowboys with a stick asking if they’re going to do something. I’m guessing that nothing is going to change anytime soon for the Cowboys. There are some fundamental problems in Laramie. Is Matt Troxel at Idaho State interested in becoming Wyoming’s new offensive coordinator? Asking for a friend.
Hawaii has come back to earth about like I thought they would a few weeks ago. The Hawaii win/loss record was somewhat of a myth because their SOS was so bad. As a few of you know, I’m a big believer in the Sagarin rankings. Not so much for anything official, but because it’s an interesting way to measure every team against one another.. it’s a very unique poll/simulation that I find interesting. Anyways, I was looking at this a couple weeks ago and saw that Hawaii, despite its record, was ranked far lower than Wyoming. Was waiting to see what would happen when the ‘Bows played a team that was actually kind of good. BYU was a good enough barometer and we see the result of that. Hawaii’s still a good team, but I wouldn’t buy a ton of stocks in them.
Utah State has been a pleasant surprise this season. Jordan Love is having an outstanding year for the Aggies. This week in the latest AP and Coaches polls the Aggies are getting votes in the poll. The Aggies are one of the top scoring offenses in FBS this season, as they’re just pouring it on teams. Not sure how long that’ll last once they start getting into the meat of their schedule, but they could very well be the best team in the Mountain West, and most of us are certainly not talking about them.