Mountain West Connection Preseason Awards and Predictions

It’s Media Days week!!! That is the unofficial start to the football season. It’s a great time to get hyped about your team and start getting nuggets of football news. Here at MWCConnection, we are getting involved in the fun by releasing our own pre-season content. Yesterday was our all conference team, which can be found here.

Today, we are releasing our preseason awards and predictions for division standings and conference champion. Like yesterday’s post, our team members submitted their picks and the players and teams with the most votes won out. Take a look at what we compiled below:

Awards

Offensive Player of the Year:

• QB Brett Rypien (Boise State)

Defensive Player of the Year:

• DE Carl Granderson (Wyoming)

Special Teams Player of the Year:

• CB Avery Williams (Boise State)

Offensive Breakout Player of the Year:

• RB Juwan Washington (San Diego State)

Defensive Breakout Player of the Year:

• LB Kyahva Tezino (San Diego State)

Offensive Freshman of the Year:

• WR Khalil Shakir (Boise State)

Defensive Freshman of the Year:

• S Josiah Bradley (Nevada)

Coach of the Year:

• Jay Norvell (Nevada)

Predictions

Mountain Division Standings:

1. Boise State
2. Wyoming
3. Utah State
4. Colorado State
5. Air Force
6. New Mexico

West Division Standings:

1. San Diego State
2. Fresno State
3. Nevada
4. UNLV
5. Hawaii
6. San Jose State

Conference Champion:

• Boise State

Notes:

• The offensive and defensive players of the year, as well as both freshmen players of the year were pretty much in agreement by our voters. Same with special teams.
• Although, offensive player of the year didn’t really have an obvious pick. Washington hasn’t started, so hard to pick him. Rypien is basically a four year starter, so in many ways he is a “safe” pick. However, he also isn’t a safe pick because he got off to a very slow start the first half of last year. If he his second half play carries over, he should be in the running. On the other hand, it would not be a surprise if the actual end of season award went to someone who wasn’t considered at this time.
• For defensive player of the year, our team went with Granderson, but it wouldn’t be surprising to see his teammate Wingard end up winning the award at the end of the season either.
• The breakout players of the year were the hardest to decide on, with many different players receiving votes.
• The West division had the most contention at the top between the Aztecs and Bulldogs, but the rest of it was voted the same. On the flip side, the Mountain put the Broncos at the top and Lobos at the bottom but everyone disagreed on how the middle of the pack would shake out.

There it is. So let’s hear it. Who did we snub? Who did we put on here that shouldn’t be? Let’s hear you feedback in the comments section.