6 BYU players suspended one transfers

According to the Salt Lake Tribune 6 Freshman have been suspended from practice only after violating team rules. No details were made clear for the suspension, but since it is only practice it probably was for missing study hall or missing a weight session. However Freshman Ryan Kessman was one of the 6 and ask for and granted a release from his scholarship. His reasons were explained

[Kessman] was suspended for drinking a vanilla cappuccino, breaking curfew and missing a weight-lifting workout.

As a note Kessman is not Mormon but is of Jewish faith and he has left the school and is looking into UCLA as a potential school.

Audio Preview

Here are some audio previews for this weekends games

Coach Rocky Long talks about this weeks game against BYU

Ute DB Sean Smith talks about the Utah State game

Ute Assistant Morgan Scalley talks about Utah State

BYU DB Ben Criddle talks about New Mexico

Utah QB Brian Johnson talks about his injury and the Utah Stare game

Week 5 Preview

Here we go another excellent week of football. This week more conference match ups are getting under way and UNLV is on a bye this week.

Navy-Marine Corps Memorial 1 PM ET TV: CSTV & CSTV XXL

This is big game for both teams as they are battling for the Commander in Chief trophy. Air Force is coming off a crushing defeat against BYU while Navy is coming off an amazing come from behind victory against Duke. One thing that I do know what will happen in this game is there will be a lot of running yards gain. Even though Air Force is not doing the triple option they are still running an option oriented offense that still puts up the numbers. I feel this game will be in the favor of Air Force, because Navy has given up a boatload of points in the area of 34 points per game, while Air Force even when giving up 31 to BYU last week is only allowing 15.8 per game. For Navy to be able to get the win at home I noticed when watching their win against Duke that their tackling was not the best and if they let Air Force run and break tackles this could be a long day for the Midshipmen. This is a road game for Air Force and so far they have been hit and miss on the road they beat Utah and then lost to BYU. This game should be close because when Navy is at home they play well. If you want a more in depth look at this game go check out Pitch Right, it is a Navy centric blog that is quite good.

Rice-Eccles Stadium 1 PM MT TV: The Mtn.

In any given year I would say Utah by 25 but this year when they crush UCLA and then get crushed by UNLV I have know idea how to peg these Utes. One thing I have noticed is that in their win the players were excited and pumped up for the UCLA game, so the players played extra hard to win. Then in the Vegas and Air Force games the players figured they could walk in and just out muscle these teams but that did not happen. Utah State did lose to UNLV in week one, so they are on that level of play. One concern for the Utes is that Brian Johnson has stated he will not be 100% come game time, but in the 90% range for his shoulder. Brian Johnson should start this game and keep giving the ball to Darrell Mack who has been the lone bright spot the past few weeks. If the Utes do get a sizable lead they need to pull Johnson and let Grady finish up, just so to give his shoulder some rest for the Louisville game. For the Utes to win they need to take this game seriously and demonstrate what type of team they are.

Sirius Radio

Sirius Satellite is now the official radio provider for the Mountain West.  So, what that means is that if you have Sirus you can listen to MWC football games where ever you are with the Sirus Game of the Week. Each team will be featured during the season.

Week 4 Rankings

Some more jumbling occurs this week in our MWC Rankings, and we have a new number 1, plus New Mexico makes the biggest jump this week.

1.

The Cougars are back on top after destroying Air Force at home.  BYU is a Jekyll and Hyde team so far this year.   When the Cougars play at home they are amazing but so far on the road contests they have lost both of those.  Next weeks match at New Mexico will be a test to see if the Cougars ready to repeat as conference champs.

2.

I have under valued the Lobos all year, and after beating Arizona and being 3-1 earns them this spot.  The QB and RB play of Donvoan Porteire and Rodney Ferguson have been amazing ever since that week one loss to UTEP.  I can not wait for next weeks showdown between New Mexico and BYU.

3.

What happened here?  The Falcons decided to lay an egg against the Cougars.  There was no passing game and no running game to speak of.  The only real positive is that they held  BYU to only 31 points.  It looks like Air Force is not quite there to take the next step to be the conference champ this year.

Slightly off Base

People may or may not know, but I am a weekly contributor to Saturday Sound Offs and go check out the site and my article today.

Also another cool site I found called Fantasy Sports Matrix It is a cool site, I have yet to get a good look so far, but it is not just for fantasy sports. There is a blog section where you can have your own blog, news feeds from the major sports sites, it has blogs from popular blog sites, forums and a bunch of stuff for sports fans to interact with each other.