Mountain West football media days recap

There is a lot of info that flies around for media days, so we have, hopefully, a roundup of the best stuff from Mountain West media days.

Hey, if we missed anything, just toss them in the comments.

San Diego State leads the way with the preseason awards and being the favorite to win the West Division; Boise State was predicted to win the Mountain Division.

Air Force

Troy Calhoun is playing opossum:

“Everybody has a quarterback back with 10 or more starts,” he said this week in Las Vegas. “We’re the only one who doesn’t.”

Technically, this is true. Nate Romine has only eight starts in his career.

But Romine’s starts included five as a freshman in 2013, one in 2014, then two before a knee injury in 2015 after going through spring and fall practices as the clear No. 1 on the depth chart.

Wyoming

Utah State

Matt Wells wishes Utah State and Utah continued to play.

"There's no contract on the books with Utah," USU coach Matt Wells said at the Mountain West Conference preseason media days. "They are not on the schedule."

Although the Utes won 14 of the past 15 games against Utah State, the Aggies had been competitive recently. In 2012, they won, 27-20. In 2013, they lost, 30-26. Last season, Utah prevailed, 24-14.

UNLV

Cornerback Tim Hough credits ballet for nimble footwork

“I grew up with two (older) sisters, so gymnastics and ballet was our thing,” Hough said Friday at the Las Vegas Bowl Youth Football Clinic at Rebel Park. “I used to go to their practices because my mom was at work so I started doing it with them.”

Hough, who set the school freshman record for interceptions last season with four, said he took ballet classes for six years (ages 3 to 9) and last year took one at UNLV with Rebels wide receiver Devonte Boyd.

“He’s actually really good at it,” Hough said. “I started showing him, and he liked it.”

New Mexico

The picture that was taken on the blue turf was brought up again.

"I'm the first one to realize that ‘OK, we have to play Boise again next year' and I took all that into account," Davie said at Mountain West Media Days. "But anytime you can go win a game like that in Boise, I think that it was something neat for our kids to have and hold onto.

"I think it was done out of respect for winning there. I'm sure they will use it and put it on their bulletin board and all that, but more power to them."

Colorado State

Boise State

Idaho Statesman:

Wide receiver Thomas Sperbeck on being the Mountain favorite: “I think that it definitely sets the standard for us ... it kind of puts a huge target on our back for other teams. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, we’ve got to bring it every week just like they do. It’s in the back of your mind, you can’t go into the past and dwell on it, you’ve always got to look ahead to the future. It’s in the back of your head. I’ve only played in one (Mountain West championship), so it’s not really our standard, and we’re hoping to fix that.”

Boise State linebacker Ben Weaver on preparing for the option: “We definitely have, and we definitely should be. Air Force has had our number two years in a row, New Mexico one and a very, very close game two years ago. We’ve definitely been putting a huge emphasis on that. ... No one can replicate Air Force’s speed or New Mexico’s speed on the outside. A lot of that comes with your film room study ... going against it in practice does not replicate that whatsoever.”

San Diego State

The Aztecs have extremely high expectations this year.

The program that has historically been rotten but has lately flirted with something greater than respectable is actually set up to take a giant step toward relevance and sustenance.

A berth in a New Year’s Day bowl is not out of the question. That would almost certainly take an undefeated season coupled with a stumble by Houston, which was last year’s upstart.

Nevada

Book club equals toughness? Brian Polian thinks so

“I thought it was a very easy read and I thought there was some brilliant simplicity in there,” Polian said at the Mountain West media days this week. “It talked about real toughness. In this day and age, standing over a guy and thumping your jersey and doing things that draw attention to yourself, that’s not true toughness. Toughness is practicing really hard in November when your body is beat up. It was all relative to college basketball but I loved the book and thought there were 30 things in that book that applied to our team.”

San Jose State

Hawaii

Just go look at Nick Rolovich’s twitter account, and thank me later.

Fresno State

Has the Bulldogs defense moved onto the next level?