The Power Five slayers of the Mountain West have struck again! UNLV joined the fight against the Power Five by knocking off another of the \u201cnation\u2019s elite\u201d by defeating Vanderbilt on the road this week. As basketball pundit Jon Rothstein would say, \u201cthe epitome of brutality.\u201d That means Vandy paid UNLV to go on the road and beat them in their own stadium. The Rebels jumped out to a big second quarter lead and never looked back as they took down the Commodores in Nashville 34-10. Brutal indeed.<\/p>\n
In other Mountain West action Boise State and Hawaii faced off on the Blue. Bronco quarterback Hank Bachmeier left the game with an injury, but that didn\u2019t slow the Broncos down. Chase Cord came in to the game in relief and threw for three scores as Boise State rolled over Hawaii 59-37. The Broncos stayed at #14 this week in the national polls and currently lead the Group of Five for that New Years day game.<\/p>\n
Colorado State went on the road this week to New Mexico and earned a win against the hapless Lobos. Quarterback Patrick O\u2019Brien threw for 420 yards and three scores to lead the Rams. Marvin Kinsey added two more scores, including a rush in the third quarter to give the Rams their biggest lead of the game. Wyoming went on the road to take on San Diego State in the hallowed grounds of Qualcomm Stadium. Wyoming is still not throwing the football, pretty much at all. The Cowboys had 157 yards rushing against the nation\u2019s leading rush defense. However, it wasn\u2019t enough to take down the Aztecs. Ryan Agnew iced the game for San Diego State with 2:09 left when he hit Daniel Bellinger from 12 yards out.<\/p>\n
Air Force hosted Fresno State in Colorado Springs this weekend. The Falcons got down early but thanks to a big second half the Falcons were able to get a big win over the Bulldogs. Donald Hammond rushed for two touchdowns and Kyle Johnson grabbed a Jorge Reyna pass and took it back the other direction to seal the game for the Falcons. In a somewhat shocking game, Nevada beat San Jose State, and did so with a last second field goal. The Pack at one point had a 21 point lead. Brandon Talton nailed a 40 yard field goal with zeroes on the clock to give the Wolf Pack the win.<\/p>\n
Coming up this week UNLV and Fresno State hook up on Friday night on CBS SN in the Mountain West pillow fight of the week. Wyoming will host New Mexico. San Diego State will go up I-5 to take on San Jose State. Boise State will cross the border to take on BYU on Saturday night prime time. Nevada goes to Utah State. The night cap is Air Force going to the islands to take on Hawaii.<\/p>\n
Scores<\/strong><\/p>\n Colorado State 35 UNLV 34 San Jose State 38 Fresno State 24 Hawaii 37 Wyoming 22 Mountain West Player of the Week<\/strong><\/p>\n This week\u2019s Mountain West player of the week is Colorado State receiver Warren Jackson. Jackson caught nine passes for 214 yards and two touchdowns as the Rams beat New Mexico this past weekend.<\/p>\n Mountain West MVP Candidates<\/strong><\/p>\n Hank Bachmeier, QB, Boise State Mountain West Power Rankings<\/strong><\/p>\n Boise State The Quad Shot<\/strong><\/p>\n UNLV pulled off a huge win this week in Nashville. Beating Vanderbilt isn\u2019t anything to write home about, they\u2019re a bad football team in a tough conference. Their fanbase has been described as apathetically patient, and apparently it\u2019s tough to recruit athletes to. That being said, if you\u2019re UNLV who is also a bad football team and with half as much athletic budget as Vanderbilt, and you\u2019re on the road at an SEC venue, you\u2019ll take a win. And by win I mean beat the eff down. As good of a result as the Rebels could have hoped for. Probably not going to save Tony Sanchez, but good for the Mountain West and UNLV.<\/p>\n Boise State laid the wood to Hawaii for four straight quarters. I\u2019m always suspect of Hawaii coming east across the time zones to play football like this. They play great on the island and are really tough to beat there, but coming into Boise they took a beating. I thought Hawaii might be a better team than this, but clearly they\u2019re not on the same echelon as Boise. And with Hawaii formerly being the class of the West division, this says quite a bit where that side of the conference is at right now.<\/p>\n Kind of a weird season in the Mountain West. We\u2019re seven weeks into the season and there\u2019s no clear cut favorite to be the MVP. Bachmeier from Boise State is having a nice season but he\u2019s not the top quarterback in the Mountain West. That goes to Cole McDonald. McDonald leads in completion percentage, yards, touchdown passes, rating, attempts per game, and yards per game. However, after Hawaii\u2019s beatdown this past weekend, and Hawaii maybe not being good when they leave the island, can he be considered? Bachmeier gets the benefit of being a part of the 14th ranked team in the country. The rushing leader is Kinsey from Colorado State. He\u2019s a good player, but will never be considered because of the Rams being so bad. Strange indeed.<\/p>\n
\nNew Mexico 21<\/p>\n
\nVanderbilt 10<\/p>\n
\nNevada 41<\/p>\n
\nAir Force 43<\/p>\n
\nBoise State 59<\/p>\n
\nSan Diego State 26<\/p>\n
\nCole McDonald, QB, Hawaii
\nJordan Love, QB, Utah State
\nCedric Byrd, WR, Hawaii
\nMarvin Kinsey, RB, Colorado State<\/p>\n
\nUtah State
\nHawaii
\nAir Force
\nSan Diego State
\nWyoming
\nFresno State
\nColorado State
\nUNLV
\nNevada
\nSan Jose State
\nNew Mexico<\/p>\n