Offensive Player of the Year — Taylen Green, Boise State
This could be a divisive pick (it certainly was when Jeremy Mauss and I discussed Green at length during our Boise State team preview podcast earlier this summer), but it’s very hard to ignore how the Broncos offense grew by leaps and bounds once he took the reigns. They’ve never committed fully to a quarterback with his kind of skills, but he reminds me a lot of Montell Cozart and Jaylen Henderson and, if you’ll recall, both were very good in their own right even if they weren’t QB1 during their time.
Green is mobile without being overly reliant on tucking and running to make a play. He has the arm to make all the throws you need and it helps that he’s surrounded by a typically strong collection of talent on the blue. If he can learn from the mistakes which tripped the Broncos up near the finish line last season, watch out.
Defensive Player of the Year — Mohamed Kamara, Colorado State
Lockridge’s omission looms large here because he would have been my selection, but that’s certainly no slight to Kamara. Heading into 2023, he has few peers as a pass rusher within the Mountain West and is suddenly at the head of a young and hungry Rams defensive line which could be a lot better than people suspect this fall under second-year coordinator Freddie Banks. If Kamara looks like the second coming of Cory James, I won’t be shocked.
Special Teams Player of the Year — Jonah Dalmas, Boise State
There are a few reasons why I gave Dalmas a slight edge over his specialist peers, but the most important is that the Broncos aren’t shy about leaning on his right leg when the chips are down because he’s the closest thing in the Mountain West to automatic, even when there are higher degrees of difficulty. It’s not just the 88.9% career success rate on field goal tries but the fact that he was 8-of-9 from 40 yards and beyond in 2022 and 6-of-7 from that range the season before.
Order of Finish
1. Fresno State
2. Boise State
3. Wyoming
4. San Diego State
5. UNLV
6. San Jose State
7. Air Force
8. Colorado State
9. New Mexico
10. Utah State
11. Hawaii
12. Nevada
Without giving too much away (we still have a whole host of team preview podcasts left to do this summer, after all), here are a few key thoughts which guided some of the decision-making many could find surprising:
- Navigating the tiebreaker scenarios got messy very quickly, so for a bit of context bear in mind that I’m projecting every team listed from #2 to #8 to finish somewhere between 4-4 and 6-2 in conference play. No one is running away from anybody in Mountain West football action during the 2023 season.
- I think some prognosticators are overestimating how much regression the Fresno State offense will have without the likes of Jake Haener, Jordan Mims, and Jalen Moreno-Cropper.
- I’m bullish on UNLV, especially if their key offensive pieces can stay healthy, and New Mexico, whose positive offensive regression in 2023 is the closest thing to a promise in the Mountain West this year. Conversely, the one team about which I’m bearish is the Wolf Pack, most of which comes down to serious concerns on offense.