93
Engineering a run-and-shoot offense isn’t for the faint of heart. While Hawaii has already won two games in 2023 and held mostly steady on per-play offensive production from Timmy Chang’s first season in charge, there’s no doubt that Brayden Schager has been challenged early and often with 93 total defensive pressures on 244 dropbacks, which is 19 more than the next-closest quarterback in FBS or FCS, Colorado’s Shadeur Sanders.
That looks bad on its face, as do the 19 sacks that Hawaii has allowed in five games, but the better news is that Schager’s 22.6% pressure-to-sack ratio is only the sixth-highest rate among Mountain West QBs with at least 20 dropbacks and his 2.7% turnover-worthy rate is actually the third-lowest among the 18 qualifying signal-callers. He’s also improved his year-over-year completion percentage by over eight percent and his yards per attempt average by 0.5 yards, though his interception rate is up a tick from 2022, from 2.5% to 2.9%. In other words, it’s a work in progress but it’s mostly hard to complain about the results thus far.
173
Can you imagine where the Boise State Broncos would be without running back Ashton Jeanty? The sophomore from Texas is already building a convincing case as the Mountain West’s offensive player of the year, but no bullet point is more persuasive than the fact that Jeanty has averaged 173 all-purpose yards through four games.
Dating back to 2009, only Rashaad Penny, Tyler Ervin, and Jeremy McNichols have done better in that regard over the course of a whole season. That probably means maintaining this torrid pace is a very high bar to ask anyone to clear, but those conference legends are good company to keep.
176
Does Chevan Cordeiro miss Elijah Cooks and Justin Lockhart that much? That duo combined for 456 yards after the catch in 2022, and San Jose State’s passing game hasn’t looked as explosive now that the former is in the NFL and the latter is out for 2023. To wit, the Spartans’ five most targeted pass catchers this fall — Nick Nash, Charles Ross, Malikhi Miller, Dominick Mazotti, and Sam Olson — have combined for only 176 YAC on 117 total targets. Collectively, that group is going to need to do a lot more to help SJSU from sinking too far in the standings.
354
UNLV has battled its way to a 3-1 record so far thanks to a number of contributors, new and old, but one group that hasn’t received the attention it may deserve is the Rebels’ running backs. No one player is putting up Lexington Thomas-type numbers so far, but Pro Football Focus notes that UNLV has already racked up 354 breakaway yards on the ground, a number which leads the Mountain West at this juncture.
PFF defines breakaway yardage as “rushing yardage on designed attempts more than 15 yards” but, if you’re looking for a layman’s version of why this is significant, it’s also worth mentioning UNLV already has eight runs of 20 or more yards after totaling 16 in the 2022 season and 11 in 2021. It remains to be seen whether they’ll be able to maintain that pace against less charitable defenses like Colorado State, Fresno State, and Air Force in conference play, but there’s reason to feel good about what Vincent Davis, Jai’Den Thomas, and company have already accomplished.
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