MWC Mtn Division

[ragtimejoe1]

What is your take on the Mtn Division this coming year?

Obviously BSU is king and will likely remain that way.
I think USU is second, but building a consistently good team is no small task. We'll see if they are on that road or one hit wonders.
I'm going against the grain and calling UNM third. I don't have any idea why, but I think they take step forward.
WYO comes in 4th with some improvement
CSU takes big step back and has disappointing season. I'm not sure if this is likely; I just really really want it to happen.
AF had surprising year last year and has another one this year---just the wrong direction.

What are the "experts" picking? I haven't paid attention. I'm guessing BSU, USU, CSU, AF, UNM, WYO?

 

[McPeachy]

I think I remember seeing:

Boise State 11 - 1
Utah State 8 - 4
CSewe 7 - 5
New Mexico 7 - 5
Wyoming 5 - 7
Air Force 5 - 7

 

[ItSucksToBeACSURam]

I think I remember seeing:

Boise State 11 - 1
Utah State 8 - 4
CSewe 7 - 5
New Mexico 7 - 5
Wyoming 5 - 7
Air Force 5 - 7

I would be shocked if UNM won 7 games....

 

[ragtimejoe1]

It seems the MWC always has a surprise team. This year I think it could be either us or UNM. If UNM finds a pulse on D and QB play isn't terrible, they could be pretty decent. Like us, they have a pretty weak schedule.

I just hope like hell the lammies get it handed to them this year by us and everyone else.

 

[ragtimejoe1]

I think I remember seeing:

Boise State 11 - 1
Utah State 8 - 4
CSewe 7 - 5
New Mexico 7 - 5
Wyoming 5 - 7
Air Force 5 - 7

Is it me or is AF typically the most underrated program in the MWC? At least we earn our low preseason rankings. They are coming off of a bowl win in a season in which they were expected to have a pretty down year.

 

[McPeachy]

I think I remember seeing:

Boise State 11 - 1
Utah State 8 - 4
CSewe 7 - 5
New Mexico 7 - 5
Wyoming 5 - 7
Air Force 5 - 7

Is it me or is AF typically the most underrated program in the MWC? At least we earn our low preseason rankings. They are coming off of a bowl win in a season in which they were expected to have a pretty down year.

Agree, and I think the standings will look like this:

Boise State 11 - 1 (I think their only loss is 9/25 at Vaginia)
Utah State 8 - 4 (Losses @ Utah, @ Washington, Boise, bWHYu)
CSewe 8 - 4 (weak tit schedule)
Air Force 8 - 4 (with the exception of Michigan State - another weak tit schedule)
New Mexico 8 - 4 (open up 2 and 0, just to go to 2 and 2, but not an impressive schedule either)
Wyoming 7 - 5 (we limp into a bowl...very comparable weak tit schedule to above 3)

 

[fromolwyoming]

USU is a big question mark to me. For one, a lot of their d-line is recovering from a horrific car accident. Another is that their big play maker on offense was kicked off the team. Finally, Chuckie Keeton. Before his first injury, he showed he was a dynamic QB. After his injury, it looked as if he lost his spark and was going through the motions more than anything. So if he still hasn't gotten his spark back (along with the proven back up transferring) and with everything else, USU may struggle quite a bit this year.

 

[J-Rod]

USU is a big question mark to me. For one, a lot of their d-line is recovering from a horrific car accident. Another is that their big play maker on offense was kicked off the team. Finally, Chuckie Keeton. Before his first injury, he showed he was a dynamic QB. After his injury, it looked as if he lost his spark and was going through the motions more than anything. So if he still hasn't gotten his spark back (along with the proven back up transferring) and with everything else, USU may struggle quite a bit this year.

Yeah, I'm not ready to pencil in the Aggies for 8 wins either. I think with the MW schedule slip, they could suffer an extra loss or two. They now have the toughest MW slate Boise used to have.

Boise State - Somewhere from 10-2 to 12-0
Utah State - Somewhere from 6-6 to 8-4
Colorado State - Somewhere from 5-7 to 7-5
Air Force - Somewhere from 3-9 to 7-5
Wyoming - Somewhere from 4-8 to 6-6
New Mexico - Somewhere from 3-9 to 6-6

Troy Calhoun has a weird trend going of good year, bad year, good year, bad year. Well, if that continues...

I think New Mexico's offense will be tough for anyone in the MW to stop, but their defense couldn't stop some high school teams.

Colorado Stats steps back after losing Grayson.

 

[Spartanmike15]

First off I'm a Spartan fan born and raised but will be starting as a student at Wyoming this fall. I know a lot more about the West Division but still follow the MWC pretty close. Looking forward to chatting with you guys around here.

Boise St - 10-2/11-1
Utah St - 8-4
Colorado St - 6-6
Air Force - 5-7/6-6
Wyoming - 5-7/6-6
New Mexico - 5-7/6-6

Boise St will continue their dominance. Looking forward to the game in San Jose though as Boise always lets it come down to the end.

Utah St. has Chuckie returning, for how long nobody knows. Garretson was good but they went through about 4 different QB's last year so plenty of them have experience.

Colorado St did lose Grayson but he wasn't very good the first 3 years in Fort Collins so I'm not sure what happened last year. When you have to worry about a running back like Dee Hart, that will open things up for the QB a little bit.

Air Force always has good athletes and the schedule isn't too bad this year. They get the Spartans in Colorado Springs and no matter how much I will be yelling at that game, it still wont help our defense stop the option any better. They also get Hawaii, Army and Morgan ST.

New Mexico has the same match-up with the Spartans as well as an easy match-up against Hawaii off the Rock. Schedule is favorable throwing in Nevada in conference as well as Tulsa and D-2 Mississippi Valley St.

Wyoming to me is the wild card. I enjoyed some of the things I saw at the game last year. That was my first experience at War Memorial and I had a great time, not just because of the Win either. I saw North Dakota in San Jose last year and they will hold for about a half before wearing down. They are HUGE on the lines, but not very athletic. Eastern Mich shouldn't be too bad either. Predicting wins over UNLV and App ST in there too. I think the Nevada game can be a win as well but depends on what kind of team they put together this year. If Stewart can get their offense rolling, its gonna be a rough year for the conference. My toss up would be Washington St. Their record last year is bad more because of how strong the Pac-12 was, especially the North. Mike Leech is a good coach and when he finally gets his players in there they could be good, just too early to know if that will happen this year. Hopefully Bohl starts getting his system rolling his 2nd year in charge and the Cowboys can make it into a bowl game. Its gonna be tight for both the Cowboys and my Spartans when it comes to making a bowl game but I'm glad they don't have to play these next 2 years.

 

[J-Rod]

Colorado St did lose Grayson but he wasn't very good the first 3 years in Fort Collins so I'm not sure what happened last year. When you have to worry about a running back like Dee Hart, that will open things up for the QB a little bit.

Welcome to the board!

Hart graduated...and CSU lost a few RBs this off-season. They'll be forced to start a transfer from Purdue at RB.

Grayson jacked up 3700 passing yards as a Jr. He was solid pretty good most of his career, and great last season. He will be a tremendous loss for CSU.

 

[Spartanmike15]

Colorado St did lose Grayson but he wasn't very good the first 3 years in Fort Collins so I'm not sure what happened last year. When you have to worry about a running back like Dee Hart, that will open things up for the QB a little bit.

Welcome to the board!

Hart graduated...and CSU lost a few RBs this off-season. They'll be forced to start a transfer from Purdue at RB.

Grayson jacked up 3700 passing yards as a Jr. He was solid pretty good most of his career, and great last season. He will be a tremendous loss for CSU.

I know about Hart but more referencing him for Grayson's performance. I guess it didn't seem like he did anything special to me cause they were so bad the three years before last year. Each time I saw them play which was usually against San Jose he looked average at best until last year.

 

[J-Rod]

I know about Hart but more referencing him for Grayson's performance. I guess it didn't seem like he did anything special to me cause they were so bad the three years before last year. Each time I saw them play which was usually against San Jose he looked average at best until last year.

Yeah, I've mentioned several times that I'm not high on CSU. Outside of Grayson, Higgins, Sambralio, and another player or two, that team is stacked with JAGs (Just Another Guy). Without Grayson tossing the ball around, that team will be exposed. McElwain was wise to strike the iron while it was hot.

 

[Spartanmike15]

I know about Hart but more referencing him for Grayson's performance. I guess it didn't seem like he did anything special to me cause they were so bad the three years before last year. Each time I saw them play which was usually against San Jose he looked average at best until last year.

Yeah, I've mentioned several times that I'm not high on CSU. Outside of Grayson, Higgins, Sambralio, and another player or two, that team is stacked with JAGs (Just Another Guy). Without Grayson tossing the ball around, that team will be exposed. McElwain was wise to strike the iron while it was hot.

Mike MacInliar did the same from San Jose to Colorado a couple years ago. He was stupid to not wait one more year though. He still had David Fales coming back and a great team around him. Would have easily finished in the top 25 for a second year in a row and gotten a much better job than he has now.

 

[J-Rod]

Mike MacInliar did the same from San Jose to Colorado a couple years ago. He was stupid to not wait one more year though. He still had David Fales coming back and a great team around him. Would have easily finished in the top 25 for a second year in a row and gotten a much better job than he has now.

Yeah, SJSU has recruited well since, but the results aren't showing. That loss to the Spartans in Laramie stun around these parts.

Caragher can recruit, but he's gotta start winning games. That shutout loss at home to Hawaii is the pinnacle of suckage. He's proven he can sell anyone beach front property in Iowa, but he needs to start competing.

 

[stymeman]

we get to the promised 6-6 land

 

[Spartanmike15]

Mike MacInliar did the same from San Jose to Colorado a couple years ago. He was stupid to not wait one more year though. He still had David Fales coming back and a great team around him. Would have easily finished in the top 25 for a second year in a row and gotten a much better job than he has now.

Yeah, SJSU has recruited well since, but the results aren't showing. That loss to the Spartans in Laramie stun around these parts.

Caragher can recruit, but he's gotta start winning games. That shutout loss at home to Hawaii is the pinnacle of suckage. He's proven he can sell anyone beach front property in Iowa, but he needs to start competing.

Honestly, overall talent wise, the game never should have come down to a missed field goal at the end of regulation. The Spartans had a really strong team last year, but just weren't used correctly. Most were counting Wyoming and Colorado St as wins coming into the season based of recent history. nobody could have expected the Rams to be as good as they were though. Gray is a good QB and showed that by tying Carr and Fales for the conference record of 5 consecutive 300 yd passing games but they just couldn't score in the red zone. That's where the Hawaii games comes into play. 0 punts the entire game but couldn't score. Caragher has been screwing with our kicker the last 2 years and took him from a Freshman all American to fighting for his job. Caragher is a really nice guy as our family has gotten to know him from all the events but he has yet to prove to us he can coach.

 

[Bryoming]

we get to the promised 6-6 land

Shows how low our program has fallen when we're striving for mediocrity...

 

[J-Rod]

we get to the promised 6-6 land

Shows how low our program has fallen when we're striving for mediocrity...

6-6 is not a long term standard for Wyoming football, but it would be a solid result for 2015. FWIW, I saw an average of all the major magazine publications, and when averaged out they have Wyoming dead last in the Mountain Division. That's probably in the 2-10 / 4-8 range. 6-6 isn't fantastic, but it makes for a much better holiday season than 3-9.

 

[WYCowboy]

we get to the promised 6-6 land

Shows how low our program has fallen when we're striving for mediocrity...

6-6 is not a long term standard for Wyoming football, but it would be a solid result for 2015. FWIW, I saw an average of all the major magazine publications, and when averaged out they have Wyoming dead last in the Mountain Division. That's probably in the 2-10 / 4-8 range. 6-6 isn't fantastic, but it makes for a much better holiday season than 3-9.

Not for me it wouldn't. I'm looking for a 7 - 5 record - anything above that would be great, anything below that would be a disappointment.

 

[J-Rod]

Not for me it wouldn't. I'm looking for a 7 - 5 record - anything above that would be great, anything below that would be a disappointment.

Fair enough, but that's a tough standard. Wyo fans seem to be the only ones with high hopes for this 2015 team. Everyone else sees a team with a very young defense that might get blown to bits. 7-5 would be great, but I wouldn't scoff at this team if they went 6-6. 4-8 is more likely than any of the above.

The o/u in Vegas for wins in 2015 is exactly 5.