Las Vegas Bowl: Riley Stephenson has been horrific and Oregon State's TD drive can be blamed on his awful punts.
BYU just scored again. 23-7 BYU now. They scored a TD and had the XP blocked. Hmmm, where have I seen this before? :lol:
I'm impressed with Wynn, he's looked good after the early INT. We hear all the talk about Barkley.....I really like freshman QBs Wynn, Savage & Forcier, but Andrew Luck is my choice for best Freshman QB of the year. Luck has a NFL high draft pick in his future...a big strong kid with a great arm. Amazing the amount of quality Freshman QBs starting in College Football.
yeah, a shame Luck won't get the prime stage this year after his injury. Utah is going to take the Poinsettia Bowl. Cal jumped to a 14-0 lead early after a pick 6, but Utah has dominated ever since. 18 left in the game, Utah leads 27-14. 27 unanswered points.
Refs screw Nevada at the end of the first half. Nevada's QB got out of bounds with 2 seconds left, but they let the clock run. Should've had one more play from about the SMU 40. 31-0 SMU at the half. Big upset.
Nevada down 38-0 with less than 19 minutes left. They finally get inside the SMU 2, setting up 4th and goal... and Chris Ault sends out the FG unit.
Nevada really felt the losses of their top two RBs tonight. Their offense was completely shut down. This is a team that was consistently putting up totals in the 40s and 50s.
The consensus was that SMU had a weak defense. Nevada was expected to put 40 up on SMU. SMU allowed 38 to Navy, 34 to Marshall, 33 to UAB, 30 to Washington State, etc. They only once allowed less than 21, and that was in a 27-13 win over Tulsa. SMU defensive ranks: Rush Defense: 88 Pass Defense: 82 Scoring Defense: 90 Nevada put up 63 on UNLV, 70 on Idaho, 63 on New Mexico State, 52 on Fresno State, and 62 on San Jose State (would've been more, but as usual, SJ State didn't put up a fight). No, they didn't play a strong schedule, but neither did SMU. That's what happens when you play in the WAC or Conference USA.
June Jones has always been one step ahead of Chris Ault's stupid ass - without Taua and Lippencott that gimmicky offense doesn't work...that's why SMU crushed the Wolfpack. Say that to Boise State. Fresno State has better players, especially on offense, but Pat Hill doesn't get it. He hasn't fired a coordinator EVER...a decade of horrible defense and he still doesn't get it. Fresno's 2010 defense will have eight new starters, three of them will be 4-star recruits. If the defense doesn't improve, Hill will get canned. A lot of people are surprised that Fresno out recruits Boise every year...only to get completely destroyed by them when they face off. If you want to bash a mid-major conference, go after the Sun Belt. The WAC's had a team in the BCS hunt every season since 2004.
What do you mean? Boise State is a top team, but the WAC is still a weak conference. My point was that you're going to face weaker teams/defenses in the WAC, as well as the Conference USA. SMU shutting down Nevada's prolific offense was a shocker, even with Taua and Lippencott out. As for June Jones vs. Ault, I doubt you'd find any argument there.
My point is that the WAC has more talent than you're giving them credit for. No one wants to schedule Boise State and Fresno State...Nevada, Louisiana Tech, and Hawaii are also decent programs. There has to be some sort of conference shake up - the best of the Mountain West and the best of the WAC should become one BCS conference. It's only a matter of time before June Jones takes over a big program.
Supports the argument that Nevada faced better defenses than creampuffs. Be interesting to see the defensive ranks of the teams they hung 50+ on.
When Nevada played against defenses like Notre Dame, Mizzou, and Boise, they were shut down. Fresno State never has a good defense. If they had half of a clue, the Bulldogs would've upset USC back in 2005. They can't score at will when they're on, but they can never stop anyone. I don't know the exact rankings, but San Jose State and New Mexico State are definitely two of the worst defensive teams in the country. Nevada padded their stats against them. People are amazed that they had three 1,000 yard rushers...Kaepernick and Taua had great years. Luke Lippencott got most of his yards while Ault was running up the score on weaker opponents.
