Mountain West Football Week 2 Review

Everyone knows about the controversial unsportsmanlike conduct play.  The final word is that it should not have been called, and no matter what BYU fans say, the degree of difficulty goes up in that pressure situation and the distance added for the flag.  To read more about the penalty, check out my post from yesterday about this. 

The fact is, this game should not have been that close. BYU running back Harvey Unga fumbled at the 1-yard line and missed an opportunity to put BYU up two scores late in the game. 

The Cougar offense is very good, and it showed with Max Hall throwing for 338 yards and three touchdowns. His favorite target is tight end Dennis Pitta who had 10 catches, 148 yards, and a touchdown.

Besides the one fumble by Unga, he had a stellar game with 136 yards on the ground.  The offense pretty much moved at will over a poor Washington defense.

The Cougar defense should be to blame by allowing Washington quarterback Jake Locker plenty of time to pick apart the slow defensive backs for BYU.  Locker did not have a lot of yards, but he completed 17 passes to seven different receivers for 206 yards. 

The last drive for Washington showed how the BYU defense is, and if Jake Locker had any type of accuracy then Washington could have had a few big play passes downfield. He overthrew his receivers multiple times when they were wide open. 

The play that really made the game was the fourth-and-10 with Washington on their own 36-yard line. After a broken play, Locker ran for 13 yards for the first down.  BYU was able to pull out their first non-conference road win in six years, but BYU must improve their defense if they want to win the league, let alone make a trip to the BCS.

The Rams pulled out a close win over I-AA Sacramento State after trailing at the end of the half, and again at the end of the third before Ben DeLine hit his third field goal of the quarter to secure the win as time elapsed. 

The Rams were not moving the ball because Billy Farris passed for over 300 yards and a touchdown, but the Rams who three field goals in the fourth quarter instead of touchdowns. 

The first two drives that led to field goals were both within the 20-yard line and that is what made the game seem close. If Colorado State had made both touchdowns they would have won comfortably. 

Both teams were fairly even in time of possessions and turnovers. The only major advantage was that the Rams outgained Sacramento State by 100 yards.  The running game for the Rams was decent with Gattrell Johnson III leading the way with 73 yards. On the passing side, Farris looks to have found his new favorite target: Rashaun Greer, who had 9 catches for 152 yards. 

Also in the passing game, the Rams gained just under 10 yards per attempt and 15.2 per reception.  The Rams just could not put this team away when it counted, but they managed to gut out their first win of the season.

This was not an entertaining game at all, and both teams looked very bad at times.  The game picked up near the end of the first half when both teams were able to get a touchdown on the board.

San Diego State did have its chances to win, by forcing four turnovers against the Irish, and the Aztecs did score their two touchdowns off of those miscues.

The bright spot for both teams were the two quarterbacks. Notre Dame’s Jimmy Clausen had 237 yards, three touchdowns and two picks, while San Diego State’s Ryan Lindley had 274 yards, a score and a pick.

Both teams were unable to complete more than a third of their third downs, and both teams were virtually identical in total yards and time of possession.  The difference in this game for Notre Dame was that their defense forced San Diego State to have two three-and-outs and a fumble where Notre Dame scored. 

Maybe Air Force can just reload and be a bowl team again in 2008.  The Falcons traveled to hostile War Memorial Stadium to beat up Wyoming by 20 points.

If you thought the San Diego State game was bad, then you were wrong, as this game saw very little offense.  Neither team had over 300 yards of total offense, and this game saw a combined six turnovers, as Wyoming had five.

Turnovers were the difference in this game. They gave the Falcons a short field to work with, and in the second half Wyoming’s longest drive was seven plays and the farthest they progressed on the field was to the Falcons' 48 yard line. 

The Cowboy offense could get nothing done in the second half, and quarterback Dax Crum who started the game, was replaced by last year's starter Karsteen Sweed, but that did not matter.

The Falcons controlled the game by running the ball 63 times and only throwing four times, and they controlled the clock by being on offense 15 more minutes than Wyoming.  The Falcon running attack came from so any different players that Wyoming, which has a good rush defense, could not focus on one player. 

Both teams came off of bad losses last week, and it was Texas A&M who came away with the win.  The Texas A&M Aggies had to replace starting quarterback Stephen McGee with Jerrod Johnson, who led the Aggies with three touchdown passes. 

New Mexico had trouble for the second week in a row. An interception by Donovan Porterie was returned 48 yards for a touchdown.  Turnovers were the reason the Lobos lost. They who had four, which stalled any momentum the Lobos had. 

The lone bright spot for the Lobos was running back Rodney Ferguson, who ran for 135 yards and two touchdowns.  The Lobos made a comeback by scoring two touchdowns in the fourth quarter, but it was too little, too late for New Mexico.  The Lobos need to get stronger starts so they do not fall behind.

TCU looks to be a challenger for Utah and BYU. Yeah they only defeated a I-AA team, but scoring 67 points for an offense that struggled to score points last year is quite a feat. 

This was just a dominant game that saw TCU outgain the Lumberjacks 525 yards to 143. The time of possession was in favor of TCU by 16 minutes. TCU did not even have star running back Aaron Brown play a snap in this game. 

TCU’s defense also forced four turnovers, and TCU looks like a team on a mission that wants to show last year was a fluke.  This was just a good old butt-kicking, 60-point win.

The Utes were looking for revenge in this game after being shut out 27-0 last year.  The first half of this game was tied 14-14 with UNLV running back Frank Summers running over the Ute defense for 83 first-half yards and two touchdowns.   The first drive of the game had UNLV do as they wanted against Utah to get the early lead of the game.

That opening drive was the most impressive thing the Rebels did all day, because after that the offense was hit and miss the rest of the game.  When Utah went up 14-7 that started a 35 unanswered streak for the Utes.

Quarterback Brian Johnson finally had a game where he was a true dual threat as a quarterback.  Johnson had a 56 yard rushing touchdown and ended up with 80 yards on the ground and 183 in the air.

The second half the Utah defense was stopping the Rebels on nearly every drive. The Rebels went away from the running game a little too early in the second half when the Utes were up by only 14 points.

The play of the game came from running back Matt Asiata, who has moonlighted at quarterback where he would typically just take the direct snap and runs. This time in the fourth quarter, Asiata took the ball, stutter-stepped toward the right side of the line and then threw the ball downfield.  This pass was on target to Jereme Brooks, who caught the 32-yard touchdown pass in stride.