All the teams around the conference began fall camp over the past few days, and every team has high hopes for the conference, including me.
The Utes started fall camp over the weekend all the praise is going to JUCO transfer Matt Asiata who so far has done an excellent job and that is good news for the Utes since their running game was poor last year.
Junior receiver Marquis Wilson, who is facing offseason charges of misdemeanor drunken driving and possession of alcohol by a minor, is in camp. He's listed at No. 2 on the depth chart behind Brent Casteel despite missing all of spring football because of a team suspension following the incident.
"He was reinstated at the beginning of summer to work out with the team and practice with the team," Whittingham said. "But his game suspension will be directly tied to the outcome of the legal process. We're hoping we can wrap it up by next week. We have no control of that, obviously."
Coach Whittingham announced that quarterback Brian Johnson, offensive lineman Kyle Gunther, safety Steve Tate and Joe Jiannoni were elected captains by their teammates
Johnson's goal: Avoid mid season slump That is the goal of the Utes who have had a midseason let down the past two season. Johsno and others hope a good fall camp and starting the season well should eliminate that.
New Mexico
Check the link to read and hear or read the quotes from the fall training camp media luncheon. Here is some tidbits from the release these are from head coach Rocky Long
"I think we have a tandem that is as good as anybody in our league in Travis Brown and Marcus Smith. Both are seniors, both are proven players and both have the ability to change a game."
"He just seems relaxed, in command and he never gets frazzled. He can rally the troops. That's probably his natural personality because you can't fake that kind of stuff. The rest of the players on our offense respond to him and that's what you want from a quarterback."
BYU
BYU players kick off fall camp here is an article of BYU opening camp from the Deseret Morning News
TCU
TCU is looking in fall camp for a top reciever to step up this season. during fall camp. This has been the case the past few years with Gary Patterson but coach does not care if one guy gets all the catches or if it gets spread among 5 or more players, he just wants the production.
Colorado State
Here is a bunch of news coming out of Fort Collins curtsy of The Coloradion. High school standout QB and incoming freshman MattYemm will move to WR this fall to try to make a name for himself. Yemm did start out at wide out in high school, but the move is because the top four wide receiver's are seniors and this will give Yemm a chance to shine, especially since there are 7 scholarship players on the roster.
The Rams top priority this fall is to settle things out for their offensive line, this will be critical especially with top running back Kyle Bell back after having ACL surgery from last year. The line need to be stabilized and ready to go week one for the Rams.
The biggest news coming from Rams camp is that star running back Kyle Bell is feeling great with his surgically repaired right knee. Bell tore his ACL last year and has said to be feeling great and he does not even wearing a brace for that knee. This is huge if the Rams are going to step up in the conference this year and try to get into one of the top 3 spots.
The biggest battle during fall camp will come at the strong linebacker position between redshirt freshman Ricky Brewer, sophomore Sedric Patterson, and junior transfer Curtis Cornelson are the three battling to start, and so far there has been no standouts.
One last note for Colorado State is that Coach Sunny Lubbock will not have his depth chart finalized until the day of the trip to Denver when they play the Colorado Buffaloes. This says one of two things. First, there is such great competition between the first and second team and that it is hard to distinguish the difference, or the second opinion which I believe is more of the case in that every position is open and he wants to have everyone believe any job is open and get more motivation out of the players in fall camp.
Air Force
The Falcons had a pleasant surprise with Freshman defensive back Reggie Rembert who impressed the coaches on day one of practice. Coach Calhoun said Rembert should be on the two deep roster. He was able to keep up with the top receivers and he might also return kicks.
Calhoun wants his Falcons to be durable Calhoun wants players even if they are unable to practice to be able to get a good workout, so players who are unable to go full strength at practice are going to be working with the strength coach so they still get a workout in. Plus this might deter players from nursing injuries, because in the past players just watched. I think this is a good thing because players would rather be doing football activities then working out with the strength coach, so this is a similar thing Urban Meyer did will at Utah with injured players.
Triple-option lives in Air Force offense This is no shock to me just because all of the players who have been recruited over the past few years came to The Academy to play the triple option. I expect to see the option to be used as a safety valve, because that is what the players know, but I would look for the offense to open up more especially by mid season.
Risk-taking Air Force hopes for defensive lift The Falcons defense was the worst last year in the league, and the team hopes that more of the risk taking with blitzing and scheming will throw off some of these teams, and help the Falcon defense be more successful then last year.
Calhoun doesn’t like O-line depth Pretty self explained, the number 2's on the o-line are not producing yet.
Wyoming
This news about Wyoming does not really pertain to fall camp, but Syracuse is backing out of its contract with the Cowboys. Wyoming played at the Carrier Dome last fall and lost in double overtime and the Orange were to return to Laramie in 2009 as in the agreement. However the Orange do not like to honor that contract and will pay Wyoming Athletics $200,000 to back out. This is just terrible because it is hard to get good opponents to travel that far especially from a pretty good conference, even though the team is not that great. Now the Cowboys are stuck with only one home non conference game in 2009 and that is against I-AA Weber State. The only thing that might be able to be done is to raise the buyout fee, but that could cause the opposing team not to sign. This is a joke because Syracuse never travels just look at their basketball non conference schedule. Now the Cowboys have to scramble to try to get a quality home non conference game that year.
UNLV
Day one camp notes This was the first practice and it included the 22 players who are scholarship freshman, transfers, and a few walk ons, these players were not one's that were enrolled in the spring.
Day two camp notes This was the first practice with the entire squad and it was broken into two sessions to increase reps for players.