2020 Mountain West Football Top 50 Players: #33, Hawaii OT Ilm Manning

The Hawaii Warriors left tackle is the third and final member of the offensive line to land on our list of Mountain West football’s best.

[jwplayer 0xdYJe2u-sNi3MVSU]

2020 Mountain West Football Top 50 Players: #33, Hawaii OT Ilm Manning

The Warriors left tackle is the third and final member of the Hawaii offensive line to land on our list of Mountain West football’s best.

Contact/Follow @MattK_FS & @MWCwire

A headache for edge rushers.

If you needed more proof that the Hawaii Warriors boasted one of the country’s best offensive lines last year, look no further than the fact that a trio of players from that unit have been named to our countdown of Mountain West football’s top athletes for 2020.

The highest-ranked of that trio, left tackle Ilm Manning, is the next player on our list. He cracked the starting lineup as a true freshman in 2018 and started all 14 games, then outdid himself by starting 15 more during Hawaii’s run to the conference championship game. His ability to protect Cole McDonald and Chevan Cordeiro and open running lanes for breakout running back Miles Reed helped the offense average 33.9 points per game and 6.69 yards per play, both of which were the best figures in the program’s short history within the Mountain West, while cutting the team’s sack rate allowed by more than half (from 8.2% in 2018 to 3.9% in 2019).

He was also the only member of Hawaii’s offensive line to make the Mountain West media’s all-conference squad, earning a spot on the second team, though that doesn’t seem likely to happen again. Even with a new offense to learn, Manning is on the shortlist to be considered the best at his position in the conference.

[lawrence-auto-related count=3 category=326624660]

[protected-iframe id=”f7652191f99ba13728097498e8a79cd8-137729785-123448869″ info=”https://open.spotify.com/embed-podcast/show/48681pqFq0kB9dhrtPPoNd” width=”100%” height=”232″ frameborder=”0″]