Bilo's College Football PASS/FAIL Report Week 7: Mountain West

Mountain West

PASS: San Diego State, Boise State, New Mexico, San Jose State, UNLV

San Diego State hardly played their best football this week, but it hardly mattered in a 17-3 win over Fresno State on the road. SDSU is now 2-0 in MWC play to maintain a lead in the West. Donnel Pumphrey, who deserves Heisman consideration, rushed 38 times for 220 yards and both Aztec TDs on the day. SDSU has now won 13 straight in conference play.

Boise State built a 21 point lead at one point, and then halted a late Colorado State rally to remain unbeaten in MWC play at 3-0. The Broncos are also 6-0 overall, and are in contention for that NY6 bowl still.

New Mexico is starting to catch a tail wind now, and evened up their record at 3-3, and even more importantly moved to 2-1 in Mountain Division play with a 45-40 win over Air Force in a strange neutral site game at the Cotton Bowl. The locale made zero sense, and attendance was deplorable. I really hope never to see that again.

Ron Caragher needed a win like no other for San Jose State yesterday, and they slugged one out over Nevada, who is falling off the radar. Even with the win, the Spartans are just 2-5, and are 1-2 in league play. They need to go on a run, and they need to do it immediately.

UNLV got a huge win for the Tony Sanchez era by beating Hawaii, an unofficial rival, at home 41-38. The game was actually televised locally in Vegas because of the huge population of Hawaiians in the area. The Rebels won it dramatically, getting a FG with 48 seconds remaining to get the win.

FAIL: Fresno State, Colorado State, Air Force, Nevada, Hawaii

Fresno State is in dead last place in the MWC West, and is just 1-6 overall after falling to San Diego State. How Tim DeRuyter keeps his job after this season is beyond me.

Colorado State made a mad attempt at coming from behind to beat Boise State, but what is bad is that the Rams had their shots to stake their claim to the game early on as Boise State struggled offensively. The Rams failed to assert, and therefore came up short.

Air Force forgot how to tackle on every level yesterday in a 45-40 loss to New Mexico that wasn’t that close. The Falcons picked up some big plays late to make this game reasonable, but Air Force should never have been a dog in this game, and now falls to 4-2 overall, and just 1-2 in conference play. No wonder Troy Calhoun has put out feelers for the Purdue job.

Brian Polian has got to be on the hot seat, as 2016 has completely gotten away from him, his offense has imploded (the Pistol is DEAD!), and he has looked completely lost on the sideline for weeks. Losing to San Jose State is bad enough, but it is worse when you score just 10 points doing it.

Hawaii is getting better under Nick Rolovich. The Rainbows could not put UNLV away with a 10 point 4^th quarter lead, and lost on the road, but make no mistake, Rolovich is toughening this bunch up. I see good things coming for this program under him.