{"id":6898,"date":"2016-10-23T23:02:20","date_gmt":"2016-10-24T05:02:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wyonation.com\/?p=6898"},"modified":"2016-10-26T10:17:42","modified_gmt":"2016-10-26T16:17:42","slug":"mountain-west-round-week-8","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wyonation.com\/blog\/2016\/10\/mountain-west-round-week-8\/","title":{"rendered":"Mountain West Round-Up: Week 8"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-6396\" src=\"http:\/\/www.wyonation.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/mountain-west.jpg\" alt=\"mountain west\" width=\"574\" height=\"259\" srcset=\"https:\/\/wyonation.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/mountain-west.jpg 574w, https:\/\/wyonation.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/mountain-west-300x135.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 574px) 100vw, 574px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The Mountain West went into the wee hours of the morning on Sunday but at the end of the day there are three teams left undefeated in Mountain West play and one team searching for a new head coach. Wyoming earned a road win at Nevada to remain unbeaten in Mountain West play. Boise State had to gut out a one point victory over BYU on Thursday night. San Diego State, on the other hand, blew out San Jose State to keep their unbeaten streak alive. Next week will be a big show down in Laramie featuring Boise State and Wyoming for the battle at the top of the Mountain division. Boise State opened up as a 12 point favorite.<\/p>\n<p>In the big news of the Mountain West this week the first axe has dropped on a Mountain West coach. On Sunday Fresno State announced that head coach Tim DeRuyter would be relieved of his coaching duties and that offensive coordinator Eric Kiesau will coach the team for the remainder of the season. This move was not a surprise if you had watched the Bulldogs this season, however, a move during the season was a small surprise. The Bulldogs were clearly going to make a change at some point, and they felt this was the time to do so. The hot name being mentioned already as the next head coach of the Bulldogs is Jeff Tedford, however, does he want that job and can Fresno State afford Tedford?<\/p>\n<p>Now that the first Mountain West head coach has been fired is Ron Caragher at San Jose State next?<\/p>\n<p>In other news Hawaii pulled off what might be the most shocking win of the week as they defeated Air Force in Colorado Springs. The Rainbow Warriors have seen somewhat of a resurgence under first year head coach Nick Rolovich. The Warriors were simply awful last year, but going on the road and getting a win at the Academy is a good feat. You have to think that Wyoming coach Craig Bohl and Warrior head coach Rolovich are the top candidates right now for the Mountain West coach of the year. Both coaches have pulled off impressive feats with their respective teams this year.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Scores<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>BYU 27<br \/>\nBoise State 28<\/p>\n<p>San Jose State 3<br \/>\nSan Diego State 42<\/p>\n<p>Hawaii 34<br \/>\nAir Force 27<\/p>\n<p>Colorado State 42<br \/>\nUNLV 23<\/p>\n<p>Louisiana-Monroe 17<br \/>\nNew Mexico 59<\/p>\n<p>Wyoming 42<br \/>\nNevada 34<\/p>\n<p>Fresno State 20<br \/>\nUtah State 38<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mountain West Player of the Week<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Brian Hill, RB, Wyoming. Hill had 289 yards rushing and three touchdowns in the Cowboys\u2019 win over Nevada. Hill reached career highs in rushing yards and touchdowns in a game.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mountain West MVP Candidates<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Brett Rypien, QB, Boise State. 25\/39, 442 yards, 3 touchdowns.<br \/>\nThomas Sperbeck, WR, Boise State. 9 receptions, 109 yards, 1 touchdown.<br \/>\nBrian Hill, RB, Wyoming. 29 carries, 289 yards, 3 touchdowns.<br \/>\nDonnel Pumphrey, RB, San Diego State. 24 carries, 135 yards, 2 touchdowns.<br \/>\nNate Romine, QB, Air Force. 1\/10, 20 yards, 1 INT. 13 rushes, 74 yards, 1 touchdown.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mountain West Power Rankings<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>1. Boise State<br \/>\n2. San Diego State<br \/>\n3. Wyoming<br \/>\n4. Hawaii<br \/>\n5. New Mexico<br \/>\n6. Colorado State<br \/>\n7. UNLV<br \/>\n8. Air Force<br \/>\n9. Nevada<br \/>\n10. Utah State<br \/>\n11. San Jose State<br \/>\n12. Fresno State<\/p>\n<p><strong>Looking Ahead to Week 9<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Two Friday night games on the docket this week, San Diego State will head to Utah to take on the Aggies of Utah State. Air Force will go the opposite way to take on Fresno State. Boise State will head to Laramie to take on Wyoming for the top of the Mountain division. UNLV will cross the mountains to take on San Jose State. To cap the weekend New Mexico will go across the pond to take on Hawaii.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Final Thoughts and Hot Takes<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&#8211; DeRuyter\u2019s firing at Fresno came as no surprise to me, I thought this would happen. The part that surprised me was the mid-season firing. I didn\u2019t think Fresno had the budget required to do that.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; That said, if they think they have the budget for Jeff Tedford, as one Fresno media person suggested today is a \u201cdone deal\u201d, I would be shocked. His price tag is not going to be small and Fresno\u2019s budget isn\u2019t big. Plus, Tedford left Cal in shambles with APR issues, how does he explain that to a new athletic director?<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; San Jose State\u2019s Ron Caragher can\u2019t be far behind. The Spartans might be just as bad as Fresno State is this year.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; Air Force is on a three game losing streak since Wyoming defeated them three weeks ago. The Falcons are in BIG trouble and their season is quickly disappearing in front of them after starting the season 4-0.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; Hawaii winning on the road is impressive. That team was just simply awful last season and I didn\u2019t think Rolo had it in him to turn them around that quickly. I\u2019ve mentioned this before, but Rolo\u2019s twitter account is quite amusing if you\u2019re not following it already.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; Boise State, while they are undefeated at 7-0 certainly don\u2019t look like a team that\u2019s dominating. They looked very human against BYU on Thursday night. I\u2019m not convinced that BYU is a good team, their quarterback situation isn\u2019t great. I was surprised to see that game end up a one point game, especially in Boise. I don\u2019t think Boise finishes the season undefeated.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; However, I did see a projection today of San Diego State in the Cotton Bowl on New Years Day. Wouldn\u2019t that be something. The Aztecs have A LOT of work to do if they want a New Years Six bowl game, which includes winning out in the Mountain West, winning the Mountain West championship, then leap frogging Boise State, Western Michigan, Navy, and Houston to get to one of those bowls. I\u2019m not saying there isn\u2019t a chance, but \u2026.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; On a final note, the Mountain West is home to the only two 1000 yard rushers in FBS. Brian Hill and Donnel Pumphrey are now your FBS rushing leaders through week 8.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Mountain West went into the wee hours of the morning on Sunday but at the end of the day there are three teams left undefeated in Mountain West play and one team searching for a new head coach. Wyoming earned a road win at Nevada to remain unbeaten in Mountain West play. Boise State [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":5884,"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":[34,32,54,581,603,334,50,48,574,52,575,31,155],"class_list":["post-6898","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-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\/6898","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=6898"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wyonation.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6898\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wyonation.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5884"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wyonation.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wyonation.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wyonation.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}