Mountain West Football Review: Week Six

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This game was a lot closer then the score indicated because Colorado State scored 14 points in the final six minutes to defeat UNLV.  This loss was UNLV’s 17th consecutive conference road loss.  The Rebels have not defeated the Rams since 2002.

The running game for the Rams finally did what most—well, at least me—thought they could do when Gatrell Johnson III went off for 191 yards rushing for three scores.  Quarterback Billy Farris also had a career game with 294 yards passing, with 211 going to Rashaun Greer in this game.

The Rams seemed to have the game in hand by scoring 24 straight points to end the third quarter with a 13-point lead over the Rebels, but then the fourth quarter came along, and the Rebels woke up.

The fourth quarter is where all the action happened.  During the third quarter the Rebels had only three possessions: The first resulted in a missed field goal, the second was a pick, and the last drive set up a fourth quarter touchdown.

Omar Clayton was on fire, hitting all of his receivers for both scores in the quarter. UNLV regained the lead by one with six minutes left and looked in good shape.

Then Colorado State marched down with ease to score and made a two-point conversion, which made it a seven-point lead with nine seconds left and sealed the win.  Then on the kickoff, UNLV fumbled the ball.  The Rams should have just taken a knee to seal the win, but the team decided to be fancy and risky with four laterals, which resulted in another score.

Both teams were evenly matched, but the difference was the Rams' playmakers in this game.

 

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Special teams doomed the Air Force Academy, who suffered their sixth straight loss to the Navy Midshipmen.  Navy returned two blocked punts for touchdowns, which ultimately was the difference in this game.  This game was the first of the round robin format for the Commander-in-Chief's Trophy, and this winner usually has had the upper hand recently.

Turnovers also hurt the Falcons.  They had two of them, which netted 10 more points for Navy.  Air Force did outgain the Mids 411-244 and actually passed the ball effectively with 184 passing yards by two quarterbacks, but considering the opponent scored 24 of their 33 points off mistakes, it is amazing that Air Force was able to keep this game as close as it was.

The Navy offense just had to be effective because of the short fields they were given a few times, and with backup quarterback Jarod Bryant, who rushed for 101 yards and a score.  Air Force actually did do a good job defensively by forcing Navy into four field goals and only one score.

The mistakes were just too much, and it looks like Navy is on to their sixth straight CIC trophy.

 

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TCU came back with a vengeance after getting whacked by Oklahoma last week.  Backup quarterback Marcus Jackson started for the injured Andy Dalton and led the Horned Frogs to this dominant victory.  Jackson only threw for 115 yards, but he led the team in rushing with 131 of the 383 yards TCU racked up on the ground.

TCU’s offense had the ball control in their favor by a whopping 44-minute to 16-minute margin, so it makes sense that San Diego State scored seven points and had just 85 total yards of offense.  This TCU defense is for real, and last week's game just shows how good Oklahoma really is.

TCU held the Aztec rushing game to negative yards and was able to limit a pretty good passing game to 98 total yards.  To top it off, they held the Aztecs to one for 11 on third downs.

This is just as dominant a performance a team could have, and if Andy Dalton is out for any significant time, senior Marcus Jackson is more than capable of leading this team and defeating the top of the Mountain West.

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The Lobos really are the mystery team they have shown in years past, and once again Wyoming is that bad—Joe Glenn better dust off his resume.

The Lobos were not overly impressive offensively as they only passed for 33 yards with backup Brad Gruner, but their rushing game made up for that miscue by gaining 317 yards in the game, all without star back Rodney Ferguson.

The Lobo defense stole the show with three turnovers forced and held the passing game to under 89 yards.  Wyoming has a serious problem at the quarterback position.  This week it was Karsten Sween and no Dax Crum, but it did not matter who was in.  Again, the only bright spot was running back Devin Moore, who managed 74 yards on the ground.

The Wyoming defense did OK given the circumstance of having to defend short fields against a dominant running game and an offense that could not hold the field long enough to give them a breather.