The MWC Week 2 Review

With another week of football games under our belt we were able to see some interesting things play out in the conference, and I must say that for all the grief I got last week about CSU’s ranking, I feel pretty good about it heading into week 3.  Let’s take a look at what went on.

Air Force 13 (1-1) – Minnesota 20

The Falcons could not fly home with a win on this one.  In a well fought game, close game, AFA came up short in what would have been another good win over a BCS school.  Minnesota is now 2-0 and looks to be having a good program this year.  They have been on the cusp of greatness the last couple years and we will know more about this year when they face Cal this week.  But I would have expected Air Force to come away with a W.  This was a bummer for the MWC.  What makes it so bad for Air Force is that Minnesota scored 17 unanswered points in the 4th quarter to pull off the win.  AFA will have to learn to close out teams if they want to rack up wins in the MWC.

#7 BYU 54 (2-0) – Tulane 3

I did not think that BYU started slow.  Sure we all want TDs on every drive, but the Cougars scored on all but 2 drives while the Green Wave put points on the board in 1 of 12 drives!  That is absolute dominance.  If you were actually watching the game you knew that there was no chance for Tulane even if we only kicked FGs in the first quarter.  My lowlight of the day was seeing Braden Hansen go down and I hope that it is not anything too serious.  If you were watching at home, you saw that the replay did not look pretty.  My highlight would then have to be Freshman, Marco “Moose” Thorson (A fellow SoCal baller from Ramona) stepped in and did a fantastic job.  Oh yeah and Dennis Pitta will catch anything he can get a finger on!

Colorado State 24 (2-0) – Weber State 23

Either Weber is starting to content for a MWC title or CSU and Wyoming are just not that good?!  Which is it?  I am starting to doubt CSU knowing that they just squeaked out a win against the Wildcats.  CSU went into the locker room trailing 20 – 17 and had to score in the 4th quarter to go ahead for the win.  Not too good.  Then I saw the score of the Colorado game…LOSING to TOLEDO?!  The Buffs are obviously a weaker team this year and the Rocky Mountain Showdown, while a good MWC over Big 12 win, really looks like it was just a matchup of two poor football teams.  At 2-0 though the Rams are still going to be walking tall.  Confidence breeds success, they say.

New Mexico 10 (0-2)- Tulsa 44

It would appear that with the loss of Rocky Long, the fire and passion has left the New Mexico Defense.  This is back to back weeks of 40+ points surrendered by the Lobos who usually boast a physical D whose engines never turn off.  That coupled with the fact that UNM kept handing Tulsa the football ended up being a demolishing combination.  Tulsa is a good football team who will probably win Conference USA this year.  You can’t go around handing that high powered offense any extra possessions.

San Diego St 35 (1-1) – Southern Utah University 19
From last week, “They have the athletes, they were playing hard and they looked good. They just need to remember how to WIN games!”  They got a win against a mediocre program, but a win is a win to SDSU right now and it was good for their program.  As I said, Success breeds confidence and that is something this team lacks right now.  I think they will get better and better as the year goes on but that they are at least 1 year away from being a reckon-able force.  Side note to this game, Cade Cooper was the QB for the SUU.  Too bad he didn’t stay at BYU, he’d be #7 in the country right now.

#15 TCU 30 (1-0) – Virginia 14

A good win over the ACC.  I hate those East Coast conferences.  I think that if TCU were 2-0 right now instead of 1-0 they would be more like #10 in the country.  They came out in their first game of the season and played really well and really disciplined.  They jumped out to a lead with 30 unanswered points and got scored on late in the 4th quarter with mostly (if not all) reserves in the game.  They will be a tough game this year and I am glad that we get them at LES.  Their Defense will be the same tough, fast defense that has been ranked in the top 5 nationally the last couple years and when we meet it will be a game between two unbeatens.  Man I love the hype!

UNLV 21 (1-1) – Oregon St 23

So UNLV has a very average defense who could not contain Jaquiz (sp) Rodgers.  Not many defenses can.  The kid was PAC 10 PLAYER OF THE YEAR last year!  As much as we hate the PAC 10, they have good athletes and according to them he was the best.  That being said, UNLV is UNLV and we don’t lose to UNLV.  After getting their butts kicked they found a way to be ahead with 4 minutes to play in the game.  Then the corner makes a bone-head play on 3rd and FOREVER and Oregon State finishes the drive to win the game.  UNLV has two very good recievers, Wolfe and Anthony.  They will get the ball a lot and have to get the ball a lot in order to win.  Clayton went out of the game with a knee injury, but the back up that came in did just as good a job.  Without Frank the Tank, the run game is just not there for UNLV.  At the end of the day they played tough against the 3rd best team in the PAC 10 and a team that I think is pretty darn good.  Especially now that they have Canfield playing QB instead of Moetau (or whatever his name is).

#18 Utah 24 (2-0) – San Jose State 14

Not a very good showing for the Utes, which is why they dropped a spot in the polls.  If you let inferior teams hang around long enough, they start believing they can win and then they start playing like it.  Utah is not as good as they were last year.  I hope they continue to play well so that beating them will fell that much better, but it would appear they have taken a step back since last year.  They played really sloppy in the first half and didn’t make the halftime adjustments (like they normally do really well) to bury the Spartans.

Wyoming 10 (1-1) – #2 Texas 41

Man what a first half!  When Wyoming took the blocked punt into the endzone at the end of the half they all the momentum in the world.  Then Colt McCoy remembered he QBs the #2 team in the country and the horns go 70 yards in 1 minute to take the halftime lead.  That TD right before the half took all the wind out of WYOs sails and it was all down hill from there.  Texas is good, Wyoming is who they normally are, and that is the score I expected to see from this game.

Week 2 Rankings
1. BYU
2. TCU
3. Utah
4. Air Force
5. UNLV
6. SDSU
7. Colorado St
8. Wyoming
9. New Mexico

-Markell Staffieri