![\"mountain](\"http:\/\/www.wyonation.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/mountain-west.jpg\")
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The door for Boise State\u2019s chance at a New Year\u2019s Day bowl game just got kicked wide open this weekend. With Houston\u2019s loss to Navy on Saturday the Broncos are now in the drivers seat to land a big bowl game. However, there are many thing in the Broncos way still, including a matchup with San Diego State (more than likely), a game with Wyoming. There are other things out of their control as well, such as a surging Western Michigan. I can\u2019t imagine Houston will drop too far in the polls, so they could still be in line for one of the six New Years games, so Boise State will still need to take care of business.<\/p>\n
Who are these Wyoming Cowboys and what have you done with them? Wyoming in back to back weeks has beaten both Colorado State and Air Force. Air Force came into the Wyoming game undefeated and left with a loss. The Cowboys seem to be putting some things together and winning football games. The rushing attack led by Brian Hill has been steady. Josh Allen and his receivers are doing good things and minimizing turnovers. The defense is much improved from last season as the kids are growing up. Wyoming sits with a 4-2 record right now and very well could be a bowl team this season. Craig Bohl is doing good things in Laramie, and the patience and wins are now coming.<\/p>\n
As I wrote earlier this season, the Mountain West has shifted into a conference that is effective at running the football. At the halfway point in the Mountain West football season there are three running backs from the conference in the top 10 in rushing. Donnel Pumphrey leads all rushers with 891 yards, 25 yards ahead of Jamaal Williams from BYU. James Butler from Nevada checks in at number five at 728 yards rushing, and Brian Hill is one spot behind him with 721 yards. If you\u2019ve been paying attention to Heisman pundits you\u2019ll notice that Donnel Pumphrey is not getting a lot of recognition for his efforts. Certainly there are some talented players in FBS this season, such as Louisville\u2019s Lamar Jackson, but Pumphrey should be getting talked about more.<\/p>\n
Scores<\/strong><\/p>\n Air Force 26 Fresno State 22 Hawaii 34 Utah State 24 UNLV 7 Boise State 49 Mountain West Player of the Week<\/strong><\/p>\n This week\u2019s Mountain West player of the week is Boise State quarterback Brett Rypien. He threw for 391 yards and five touchdowns. He was 21\/28 passing in the Broncos\u2019 win over New Mexico.<\/p>\n Mountain West MVP Candidates<\/strong><\/p>\n Brett Rypien, QB, Boise State. 21\/28 for 391 yards and five touchdowns. Mountain West Power Rankings<\/strong><\/p>\n 1. Boise State Looking Ahead to Week 7<\/strong><\/p>\n Next week San Diego State will start us off by traveling to central California to take on Fresno State. New Mexico will head to Air Force to take on the Falcons. Colorado State will make the trip north to Boise to take on the Broncos. Nevada will hop across the state line to take on San Jose State. To finish us off at 9:59pm, UNLV will kick off at Hawaii. I don\u2019t know why the start time is listed at 9:59 (or whatever time zone you\u2019re in), but it is.<\/p>\n Final Thoughts and Hot Takes<\/strong><\/p>\n – For three quarters Wyoming\u2019s defense did some baaaaad things to Air Force. Things are changing in Laramie.<\/p>\n – Boise State just keeps on rolling. They have some tough games coming up, but there\u2019s a lot of dangerous weapons on that team that looked primed to win the Mountain West.<\/p>\n – Houston losing this weekend may not matter too much. There seems to be a lot of love for that team in the college football world, which means that even if Boise goes undefeated that Houston could probably still grab the Group of Five bowl spot.<\/p>\n – Hard to get a read on Hawaii right now. Can\u2019t tell if Nick Rolovich is turning them around or if they\u2019re just beating bad teams. Probably a combination of both, but I\u2019ll say this much, Rolo\u2019s Twitter might be one of the best Mountain West follows out there.<\/p>\n – As one UNLV reporter said Saturday night, \u201cI objectively really, *really* want UNLV to win this game without completing a pass. Openly rooting now.\u201d\u00a0 That\u2019s how things were going for UNLV this weekend.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The door for Boise State\u2019s chance at a New Year\u2019s Day bowl game just got kicked wide open this weekend. With Houston\u2019s loss to Navy on Saturday the Broncos are now in the drivers seat to land a big bowl game. However, there are many thing in the Broncos way still, including a matchup with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":6396,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[34,32,54,807,581,603,334,50,48,574,52,575,31,155],"class_list":["post-6776","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wyoblog","tag-air-force-falcons","tag-boise-state-broncos","tag-colorado-state-rams","tag-feature","tag-fresno-state-bulldogs","tag-hawaii-rainbow-warriors","tag-mountain-west-football","tag-new-mexico-lobos","tag-san-diego-state","tag-san-jose-state-spartans","tag-unlv-rebels","tag-utah-state-aggies","tag-wyoming-cowboys","tag-wyoming-football"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wyonation.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6776","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wyonation.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wyonation.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wyonation.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wyonation.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6776"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wyonation.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6776\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wyonation.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wyonation.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wyonation.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wyonation.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nWyoming 35<\/p>\n
\nNevada 27<\/p>\n
\nSan Jose State 17<\/p>\n
\nColorado State 31<\/p>\n
\nSan Diego State 26<\/p>\n
\nNew Mexico 21<\/p>\n
\nThomas Sperbeck, WR, Boise State. Nine receptions, 198 yards and two touchdowns.
\nBrian Hill, RB, Wyoming. 29 carries, 92 yards, one touchdown.
\nDonnel Pumphrey, RB, San Diego State
\nNate Romine, QB, Air Force. 6\/19 for 188 yards and two touchdowns. 12 carries, 9 yards, one touchdown.<\/p>\n
\n2. San Diego State
\n3. Wyoming
\n4. Air Force
\n5. Colorado State
\n6. Utah State
\n7. Hawaii
\n8. Nevada
\n9. New Mexico
\n10. UNLV
\n11. Fresno State
\n12. San Jose State<\/p>\n