Week 5 Mountain West Football Review

A lot of blowouts this week for and against the MWC.

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Wyoming is as bad as they looked last week against BYU. The Cowboys played four different quarterbacks and they combined for four interceptions and 124 total yards. The only bright spot was running back Devin Moore who rushed for 114 yards and a touchdown, and also Wynel Seldon who had 46 and a score.

Bowling Green had no trouble passing the ball in the short field they were given and scored two receiving touchdowns that way. Wyoming was just out played in nearly every aspect of the game, especially in the turnover aspect as they gave up 5 in this game. The once feared Wyoming defense was not helped with the short field Bowling Green was using, but they were unable to hold Bowling Green to field goals to try to keep the game close.

Coach Glenn needs to find a way to get the passing game going, or he will be out at the end of this year.

427

Colorado State not very good, and Cal is as most thought a good offensive team. The Rams were shut out for more then 55 minutes before getting on the board with a late touchdown. The special teams was what help Cal win this game and defense. Cal had two touchdowns on special teams, one was on a blocked punt, then a punt return and also an interception returned in this game. Cal did win but they lost starting running back Jahvid Best who dislocated shoulder and could miss some time in the upcoming weeks.

The Rams lead in the key category of time of possession 36 to 24 minutes, but that could be attributed to the 21 points scored by Cal without their offense touching the field.

The Rams tried out a new quarterback in Freshman Klay Kubiack who played well in his first action of the year, and outperformed Billy Farris in his time. Kubiack could see more time in the upcoming weeks, it depends how he does in practice this week.

Looking at the game in offense versus defense Colorado State held up their own, at least on defense as Cal only managed 159 yards passing and then a respectable 189 on the ground. The Rams are just not very good offensively and could not take advantage of two turnovers their defense forced.

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TCU did not pose the threat to Oklahoma that a lot of people had thought.  Coming into the game TCU had the number one ranked defense in the nation.  Sam Bradford, quarterback, from Oklahoma showed up and had 411 yards passing with four touchdowns.  His favorite target was Manuel Johnson who had 206 yards and three scores on only five catches. Offensively those two were the ones that lead the show for Oklahoma, TCU actually held the Sooner running game in check by allowing only 25 yards.

The return of Aaron Brown did nothing on their offense as he was uneventful in his return back.  Oklahoma’s defense is quite good and forced four turnovers which lead to short fields and easy scores.  Also, Oklahoma held TCU to half of their normal rushing yards and forced TCU to 4-15 on third downs.

Oklahoma dominated both sides of the ball and had 3 touchdowns over fifty yards in the game.  This was not even close and Oklahoma could have put up more points if not for Bob Stoops to slow down in the fourth quarter.

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This was the most exciting game of the day in the Mountain West.  This rival game is always goes to the final minutes.    This was not a well played game  on either side.  First off both teams combined for 187 penalty yards with New Mexico who had 103 of those, and that New Mexico who had replacement quarterback Brad Gruner who had only 55 yards passing.

What made the difference for New Mexico was the running game, with little help from running back Rodney Ferguson.  The back who made the difference was Paul Baker who had 145 yards on the ground and a score, but the entire running game was efficient because the Lobos held the ball for 38 minutes to 22 which kept the pass happy Aggie offense on the sideline.

Chase Holbrook the New Mexico State quarterback did pretty good in keeping the Aggies close by having 382 yards and three scores, but it ultimately was the fourth quarter defense that failed the Aggies.  The second half they gave up 25 points, and allowed the last 19. 

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San Diego State reveived its first win of the year, by defeating lowly Idaho at home.  The Aztecs put on a show and had their most dominating win over a division I-A win since defeating San Jose State 52-21 in 2005.  603 of total offense with 433 by quarterback Ryan Lindley, and running back Atiyyah Henderson who had one hunderds, and then two recievers had over 100 yards as well. 

Idaho is probably the worst team in FBS, they even lost by over 25 to Utah State.  The Aztecs needed a dominate home win to give its team and fans something fun to see. 

The Aztec defense was able to force four turnovers and hold the Vandals to 351 total yards, but most impressively held them to 169 passing yards.

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This game was not as close at it seems, but there was some controversy in this game.  The Utes were up 37-7 with 10 minutes left in the fourth, which is about the time that  the Utes put in the seconds and thirds in the game.  Typically when a team that is up big, and especially when its a FBS against a FCS team, but in this situation Weber State coach Ron McBride who kept his starters in against the Utes backups and kept trying to score and put up 14 points to make the game look close.

Utah’s coach Kyle Whittingham did not want to run up the score because coach McBride game Whittingham his first job in division I-A, so he did not want to run up the score.   Out of respect he pulled the starters early unlike the Utah State blowout that had quarterback Brian Johnson in the game in the fourth quarter with a 38 point lead.  This game was not even close, and the voters did not mind as Utah moved up to 15 in the polls.

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UNLV almost got of to its best start in 5 years, but the  Nevada rushing attack was too much for the Rebels defense to over come.  The pistol offense lead Reno to rush for 444 yards rushing and over 200 by one player.  This offense helped Nevada hold the edge in time of possession by 13 minutes, also what hurt UNLV was their ineffectiveness to run the ball.  The Rebels ran for under 100 yards and their leading rusher was quarterback Omar Clayton who had 47.

This game was close heading into the fourth quarter until the Rebel deffense laid down and allowed Reno to score 14 straight points in the quarter. The quarterback play of Omar Clayton was impressive with 327 yards and three scores, but this spread offense needs to be able to run the ball to to be successful.  If UNLV were to stop the Wolfpack at all in the running game this could have been a different outcome.