Mountain West Football Week 11 What We Learned: Utah Falling Fast

Air Force

The Falcon defense did give up 28 points to a bad New Mexico team, but 13 of those were in garbage time late in the fourth quarter. The Air Force offense seemed to be as productive when starting quarterback Tim Jefferson went out after being sandwiched by two New Mexico defenders late in the first half. It seemed to be an apparent head or face injury as he had a towel over his face and some tissue or gauze in his nose to stop the bleeding. The backup was Connor Dietz who lead the Falcons on five touchdown drives.

BYU

It is one of two things, either has turned the corner and are now an above average team, or they just happen to be playing two of the worst teams in the league. Whatever the case may be, BYU is a much improved team then what we saw prior to their UNLV win two weeks ago. Perhaps the bye coupled with quarterback Jake Heaps getting all of the practice reps has finally paid off. All four of Heaps touchdown passes came in the first half and they all went to his favorite target Luke Ashworth.

Colorado State

The Rams secondary is not good, they were light up by a BYU offense that has been just terrible for most of the season. The running game reverted back to a subpar performance with Leonard Mason leading with way with 59 yards. Quarterback Pete Thomas almost had his first 300 yard game with 294 yards. The Rams just need a more consistent running game and any kind of defense to move up the ladder next season.

New Mexico

Scoring 28 points is a real accomplishment for New Mexico, and include that it came against an Air Force team that is good on defense can only mean that the Lobos are actually improving. Well maybe not, 13 of the Lobos 18 points came in the fourth quarter, starting quarterback Stump Godfrey had 99 yards passing and only the rushing attack was able to say they did a good job with 159 yards combined by three players.

San Diego State

The Aztecs are a good team and could/should be now 9-1 thanks to a few admitted blown calls had not gone their way. San Diego State has positioned themselves as the second best team in the league and can cement that if they can defeat the falling Utes next week. Offense is expected for the Aztecs, but in the game against TCU their defense showed up and made big plays early on, with one big play where TCU quarterback Andy Dalton was sacked and the Aztecs recovered the ball in the end zone for a touchdown. The defense was just not able to keep up with the Horned Frog offense for the full 60 minutes.

TCU

The Horned Frogs showed a small chink in their armor as they were a little shell shocked when the Aztecs went up 14-0 and then held off an Aztec comeback to win the game. All teams that are title contenders have a hiccup along the way, so TCU fans should not be concerned about this, well unless it effects their 3rd spot in the BCS later today.

UNLV

The Rebels pulled off a win over Wyoming and they should all line up and thank running back Tim Cornett who had three rushing touhdowns, one receiving and had 82 total yards from scrimmage. The Rebels fell behind early but then something clicked and whatever the Rebels wanted to do on offense they did. Rebel quarterback Omar Clayton was able to pass for 180 yards and throw three touchdowns in the route.

Utah

Saying Utah was overrated with their fifth ranking was accurate, but losing to Notre Dame who has loses to Tulsa and an average Navy team is dumbfounding. The team looked slow and uninspired with a handful of plays that were visions of Utah past from earlier this season. Block U questions if Kyle Whittingham has lost the team? He may well have in this game. I honestly do not think this team is that bad, because it is very hard to explain Utah rolling up 40 plus points against Colorado State, Iowa State, UNLV and other teams, but when they have Notre Dame they do absolutely nothing. Notre Dame is not going to score 70 points on any of those teams, it has to be something else to why Utah struggled this bad.

Wyoming

The Pokes look to have fallen to the New Mexico Bowl curse. Ever since the inception of that bowl game the winner has gone onto have a losing season the following year. Wyoming started off fast against UNLV with a quick 13 points, but the defense then seemed to roll over to a UNLV offense that has not been good at all this year. They allowed UNLV running back Tim Cornett to have the game of his life with four touchdowns.