Mountain West Football Week 10 Recap: New Mexico Wins!

Time for one jam packed recap of the weekends gams. For a recap of TCU's dismantling of Utah that can be found here.

The Falcons shook off a slow start for a strong second quarter showing which ultimately earned them their first Commander-in-Chief award since 2002. Air Force finally found a way to run the ball since Jared Tew has been out since early in the San Diego State game, or it could just be that they beat an outmatched, yet improved, Army team.

Nathan Walker who was Jared Tew's replacement finally stepped up his game with 109 yards and averaged 7.3 per carry. Air Force finally got an opponent where they were outmatched and were able to push them around quite a bit. The Falcon defense forced two turnovers and the interception by Anthony Wright Jr. that set up the third touchdown of the quarter. After that, the Falcons never looked back.

According to Cowboy Altitude, hell froze over when possibly the worst team in college football stunned the Pokes. It did not help that Wyoming coughed up the ball four times, and regardless of who a team plays if you give up the ball four times it is tough to win that game. Maybe, Wyoming was channeling their inner Air Force who almost beat Utah while giving the ball up five times.

New Mexico was starting a quarterback Stump Godfrey who had a very good game and was 17-21 for 216 yards passing and two touchdowns. He also added 55 yards rushing and a score on the ground. The game was close at the half, but New Mexico was able to score 17 of their 20 second half points in the fourth quarter to pull out the win. 

The Wyoming defense which has been decent allowed New Mexico to move the ball quite easily. The Cowboys allowed 219 yards on the ground and then two Lobo receivers, Lucas Reed and Ty Kirk combined for 171 yards and averaged 17.1 yards per reception.

The Wyoming rushing game was the bright spot of their day as three players ran for 100 yards: Alvester Alexander 151 yards, Robert Herron 122 yards and Austyn Carta-Samuels 119 yards. This season has been tough on Wyoming with their tough schedule.

The Rams, alongside BYU, have improved dramatically from week one of the season. This was a game where the Ram defense was able force five turnovers and ended up with a plus four in the turnover margin, but they were unable to stop Aztec running back Ronnie Hillman. 

Ram quarterback Pete Thomas had one of his better games by throwing for 266 yards and had a touchdown, but the running game of Colorado State continues to be either really good or really bad. This week fell into the latter category as Raymond Carter lead the Rams with 34 yards.

Aztec quarterback Ryan Lindley had his worst game since Lindley was a freshman when he had only 152 yards against BYU in 2008. This game was won on the legs of Ronnie Hillman who had a touchdown and 151 yards on the night.

BYU may have just turned a corner, where UNLV is already looking ahead to 2011 as they played Caleb Herring at the quarterback spot. The highly rated 2010 BYU class is starting to show their potential. Quarterback Jake Heaps was six yards shy of 300 and included a touchdown, plus fellow freshman Josh Quezada had 65 yards and three touchdowns. The overall running game for BYU was solid against UNLV as the backs combined for 216 yards.

UNLV pulled quarterback Omar Clayton for the future in Caleb Herring, but the success was limited. Herring completed only eight of 21 passes, a pick, a score and all for only 109 yards. The running game was not there either and it seems that BYU's defense has continued to show their fire since the firing of Jaime Hill and now under the direction of head coach Bronco Mendenhall. Back to UNLV, Caleb Herring is the guy who will be running the new UNLV offense that will be shifting even more to a pro-style offense next year.