Tag: Mountain West

5 Hawaii Rainbow Warriors the Ducks need to know for Saturday’s game

These 5 Hawaii players will have to be accounted for in order for the Ducks to go 3-0 on the young season.

By any measure, Hawaii has had a tough beginning to the 2023 season with losses to Vanderbilt and Stanford, but it’s not because they refuse to throw the ball.

Quite the opposite.

Hawaii likes to throw the ball and then throw it some more. Head coach Timmy Chang was a prolific passer when he played for Hawaii and his offense reflects it. The Rainbow Warriors are going to test the Oregon secondary and it should provide good experience for some of the later Pac-12 games the Ducks are going to have to play in.

Hawaii’s defense isn’t quite up to par as they should have a difficult time stopping Bo Nix and the rest of the Oregon offense. But they do have a pair of linebackers the Ducks are going to have to account for.

Here are the five Hawaii players to look out for during Saturday’s game at Autzen.

UNLV vs. Michigan: Preview, How To Watch, Odds, Prediction

Preview of UNLV vs. Michigan.

UNLV vs. Michigan: Preview, How To Watch, Odds, Prediction

Biggest Test of the Season for the Rebels

Contact/Follow @michaelbraydaly & @MWCwire

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Preview of Saturday’s massive game

Week 2: UNLV at Michigan

Where: Michigan Stadium, Ann Arbor, MI

When: 1:30 P.M. MT

TV: CBS

Streaming: Get a free trial with FuboTV

Radio: ESPN 1110 AM & 100.9 FM

Websites: UNLV | Michigan

Odds: Michigan (-36.5)

UNLV will face a Michigan roster that will be without head coach Jim Harbaugh for the second consecutive week. Harbaugh is currently serving a three-game suspension. In his place, special teams coordinator Jay Harbaugh and running backs coach Mike Hart will split interim head coaching duties against UNLV.

Michigan enters this game coming off a 30-3 win over East Carolina in Week 1. Michigan quarterback J.J. McCarthy passed for three touchdowns and 280 yards against the Pirates.

For Week 2, UNLV’s defense will be tasked with slowing down Michigan’s potent offense. Michigan totaled 402 yards of offense last Saturday. In UNLV’s season-opening win over Bryant, the Rebels surrendered 409 yards to the Bulldogs’ offense. Bryant scored 14 points against UNLV in a 44-14 game.

UNLV quarterback Doug Brumfield passed for 86 yards and one interception. Brumfield scored on a rushing touchdown and ran for 71 yards against Bryant. For this week’s game, UNLV will need to figure out how to produce yards in the air against a Big Ten defense.

Players To Watch: 

J.J. McCarthy 

As Michigan’s offense leader, J.J. McCarthy sets the tone for the Wolverines. McCarthy is a dual-threat quarterback and will force UNLV’s defense to to account for his arm and legs.

Blake Corum 

Michigan’s offense is bolstered by Blake Corum’s return in 2023. Corum, who is one of the best running backs in the country, ran for 73 yards and one touchdown against East Carolina.

Keys To The Game 

Take Advantage Of Harbaugh’s Absence 

UNLV head coach Barry Odom will have the coaching experience edge over Harbaugh and Hart. Odom will need to figure out how to slow down Michigan’s offense. If UNLV’s new offense can score points, the game could be closer than some expect it to be.

Prediction: 

UNLV will cover the 36.5-point spread. Michigan will win by double digits but the game will have competitive segments until UNLV’s talent disparity is exposed in the second half.

Final Score: Michigan 45, UNLV 23

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Pac-12 (Pac-4) merger with the Mountain West seems like the only option

Would Stanford and Cal-Berkeley accept a new existence with Boise State, Wyoming, and Colorado State? We’ll see what happens.

The Pac-12 has been whittled to the Pac-4 after Friday’s mass exodus. Five Pac-12 schools got out of Dodge. Oregon and Washington went to the Big Ten, while Arizona, Arizona State and Utah moved to the Big 12. This leaves only Stanford, Cal, Oregon State and Washington State in a very small “four-Pac.” The questions are simple but important.

Is it worth going independent?

Is it necessary to latch onto a conference?

How can all the sports programs at a school be best served?

Could we see a school remain independent in football but join a conference for the other sports?

How is all of this going to play out for the Pac-4? We asked around and wondered if a Pac-12 (now Pac-4) merger with the Mountain West is an idea worth pursuing:

Predicting where all remaining Pac-12 teams could end up

The future looks bleak for the Pac-12. Here is where we predict all remaining teams would go if the conference crumbles.

Let me start by saying I am not declaring that the Pac-12 Conference is dead. I am not pushing for a world where one of the most storied and historic conferences in the nation crumbles to the ground and disbands after the strongest teams in the league defect for greener grass.

All I’m doing is acknowledging a world in which that outcome is possible — a world that seems more and more likely with each passing day.

A year ago, the USC Trojans and UCLA Bruins knocked the conference off-balance by announcing their departure to the Big Ten. A week ago, the Colorado Buffaloes knocked the Pac-12 to the mat by announcing their departure to the Big 12. On Wednesday, the Big Ten took aim with the knock-out punch — an announcement that it was considering further expansion. All eyes were on both the Oregon Ducks and Washington Huskies, plus the Stanford Cardinal and California Golden Bears, should they be feeling greedy.

I’m not here pushing for teams to leave the Pac-12 conference and play their football elsewhere; it’s a reality that has become impossible to ignore over the last 13 months.

At this rate, you could reasonably convince me that in a week’s time, there will be only a handful of teams remaining in the Pac-12, with some of the top remaining teams taking off for greener grass. So should these defections continue to happen, and it ultimately end in the death of the Pac-12, where would everyone go?

Here are my predictions:

Ryan Lindley Enters First Season As San Diego State’s Offensive Coordinator

Looking at Lindley’s first season calling plays for SDSU’s offense.

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Ryan Lindley Enters First Season As San Diego State’s Offensive Coordinator

He Was Elevated After The 2022 Season

Contact/Follow @Michaelbraydaly & @MWCwire

Can Lindley Fix SDSU’s Offense?

San Diego State offensive coordinator Ryan Lindley will oversee the offense for the first time in 2023.

Lindley’s promotion to San Diego State’s top offensive coaching position happened suddenly. San Diego State’s offense lagged behind for the first month of last season, which resulted in changes on the field and within the coaching staff. San Diego State’s beloved son, Lindley, who is in his second stint as an assistant coach at San Diego State, returned home last October to be the next quarterbacks coach. As the quarterbacks coach, Lindley helped reintegrate quarterback Jalen Mayden into the offense halfway through the season. Mayden made a difference as the starting quarterback and the Aztecs were able to salvage the season with a 7-6 record.

Following the 2022 season, Lindley was promoted to offensive coordinator. For the 2023 season, Lindley is stepping into a high-pressure position.

As San Diego State’s all-time passing leader, Lindley will be expected to show immediate improvements in the offense at the beginning of the regular season. Lindley was San Diego State’s starting quarterback from 2008 to 2011. During his college career with the Aztecs, he passed for 12,690 yards, 90 touchdowns, and 47 interceptions.

Since Lindley had a first-hand experience playing quarterback at San Diego State, he will connect with Mayden and the rest of the quarterbacks on a deeper level. Coincidentally, Lindley’s head coach in 2009 and 2010 was Brady Hoke. Lindley has a long-standing relationship with Hoke as a player and assistant coach. His relationship with the program, Hoke, and the players can have a positive impact on his play-calling duties.

Because of Lindley’s history with San Diego State, there will be pressure to deliver immediate results in 2023. With a rough offensive start to the season, Lindley’s job security could face uncertainty. If San Diego State’s offense is successful, Lindley can build a career as an offensive coordinator in college football.

After his playing career ended, Lindley spent years coaching in college and the NFL. This season, Lindley is getting an opportunity to run his own offense for his alma mater, San Diego State.

His debut as offensive coordinator will be against Ohio on August 26.

Mountain West accepts San Diego State as a member school

Yahoo! was first. ESPN confirmed it. It appears the #Aztecs will be in the Mountain West for the 2024-2025 college sports cycle.

As soon as San Diego State did not leave the Mountain West by the June 30 deadline, this outcome seemed likely. Now it appears to be coming true, though another plot twist might still await: The Mountain West has accepted San Diego State as a member school. Ross Dellenger of Yahoo! Sports was first. ESPN’s Pete Thamel and others confirmed the report.

This decision by the Mountain West would seem to lock San Diego State into the Mountain West for the 2024-2025 college sports cycle. Notably, the Mountain West did not demand a $16.5 million exit fee for leaving the conference before June 30. There had been some confusion earlier this summer about whether San Diego State’s mid-June letter to the Mountain West represented an actual departure from the conference or merely a statement of intent. The MWC’s decision to not demand the large exit fee seemingly puts San Diego State in a position where staying in the conference for one more cycle is the Aztecs’ most reasonable and least costly move under the circumstances.

The Pac-12 has not extended an invitation to San Diego State. This fact is accompanied by breaking news from Tuesday in which the Pac-12 said it would not have a media rights deal done this week. Whether this means San Diego State could re-enter the picture for the Pac-12 once the media rights deal is finalized remains to be seen. That is the lingering point of uncertainty in all of this.

The odds are good that San Diego State will be in the Mountain West for the 2024-2025 college sports cycle, but whether the Aztecs will be a long-term member of the Mountain West is an entirely different question.

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The Mountain West had a meeting on Monday, but nothing was announced

The conference said nothing about its Monday board meeting. Mountain West media days are Wednesday and Thursday.

The wait continues. We are all waiting for a final, definitive announcement from someone about the fate of the San Diego State Aztecs. Where will they be in the 2024-2025 college sports cycle? Will the Pac-12 expand to 12 teams after the departures of USC and UCLA to the Big Ten? Will there be an announcement of a Pac-12 media rights deal?

These questions linger in the summer before the start of the new college sports cycle and the 2023 college football season. Everyone in the industry, and all the fans at various schools, would like this business to be concluded before college football begins. No one wants games to be interrupted by realignment news.

Beyond that, however, it would seem to be in the best interest of all parties to have clarity and closure before football begins. Realignment is volatile enough as it is; adding to the uncertainty of this process by dragging out conference membership dramas and media rights negotiations doesn’t seem to help anyone.

Yet, the lack of news — and the lack of announcements from anyone in the San Diego State-Pac-12-Mountain West triumvirate — remains conspicuous as we head into Mountain West media days on Wednesday and Thursday, followed by Pac-12 media day on Friday.

The Mountain West held a board meeting on Monday in which San Diego State was presumably a top agenda item.

The conference did not make any announcement about SDSU coming out of the board meeting, leaving us all to continue to speculate about what might happen later this week.

Stay here for continuing coverage of this San Diego State story, accompanied by coverage of Pac-12 media day this Friday.

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The Mountain West Joins The Threads App

The brand-new social media platform from Meta debuted yesterday and the Mountain West Conference made its presence known on day one.

The Mountain West Joins The Threads App

The brand-new social media platform from Meta debuted yesterday and the Mountain West made its presence known on day one.

Contact/Follow @MattK_FS and @MWCwire

A new frontier for everyone.

There’s little doubt that Twitter is the number-one social media website for all things sports, but a number of recent highly-publicized missteps by Elon Musk have given competitors like Mastodon and Bluesky an opportunity to challenge for the throne and our attention spans.

The newest platform, Threads, was unveiled to the world yesterday by Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and nearly every team in the Mountain West wasted little time making their presence known in unique ways.

Air Force, for instance, took the opportunity to remind everyone which military academic actually runs college football:

 

Post by @af_falcons
View on Threads

Colorado State, New Mexico, and San Jose State decided to keep their introductions simple:

 

Post by @csuathletics
View on Threads

 

Post by @unmloboathletics
View on Threads

 

 

Post by @sjsuspartans
View on Threads

 

Hawaii leaned on tried and true tradition to announce its arrival:

 

Post by @rainbowwarriorsfootball
View on Threads

 

Nevada and UNLV, on the other hand, already found a way to bring their Silver State rivalry to a new stage. The Rebels have already set the bar for other teams in the Mountain West to match:

 

Post by @runninrebels
View on Threads

 

Utah State has embraced the audiovisual aspect of the new platform:

 

Post by @usufootball
View on Threads

 

Last but not least, the Mountain West Conference itself found its way onto Threads, as well:

 

Post by @mountainwestconference
View on Threads

 

Not every Mountain West program is represented on Threads yet — Fresno State and Boise State are only nominally present at the moment while San Diego State and Wyoming are absent — but it appears that a lot of people across the Mountain West are interested in finding out whether this new venture has staying power.

Threads is available now through the Google Play Store and Apple Apps.

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Trojans Wire joins Salt Lake City radio show to discuss San Diego State, Pac-12

What the heck is going on with the #Aztecs and the #Pac12? We talked to @KSLUnrivaled at the @KSLSportsZone in SLC.

You know by now that San Diego State did not leave the Mountain West Conference by the June 30 deadline. The Aztecs are going to play the next two seasons (through 2024-2025) in the Mountain West, barring a significant plot twist or reversal in the coming weeks. One should not expect that to happen, but then again, most of us who cover the Pac-12 expected San Diego State to make its move by June 30, and that didn’t happen.

What’s going on here? What is happening? Why did the Aztecs not make a move? What is the Pac-12’s perspective on all this? What makes sense here (very little) and what doesn’t add up (a lot!)?

We explored a lot of the different ins and outs of this wild and meandering story at KSL Unrivaled, the drive-time radio show in Salt Lake City. KSL Unrivaled is part of the KSL Sports Zone and KSL Sports, at 97.5 FM.

Our segment of roughly 20 minutes begins at 2:10 in the audio clip below. Thanks to the KSL Sports Zone and KSL Unrivaled for having us on the show.

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San Diego State needs to endure a little inconvenience instead of paying over $17.5 million

We talked to @MarkRogersTV at the @VoiceOfCFB about the SDSU-Mountain West divorce and the endgame involving a possible move to the #Pac12.

Let’s do some simple math: San Diego State would owe the Mountain West Conference a $16.5 million exit fee if it leaves by June 30. If the Aztecs don’t meet that deadline and leave after June 30, they would owe close to $34 million total, over $17 million more than what they would owe if they make the June 30 deadline.

To no one’s surprise, the Mountain West rejected San Diego State’s plea for an extension of that June 30 deadline. This was reported on Monday by ESPN’s Pete Thamel.

San Diego State obviously wants to avoid a public relations (optics) hit. SDSU would like to leave the Mountain West and announce a move to the Pac-12 within a few hours of that official divorce, if not concurrently. San Diego State doesn’t want to leave the Mountain West and then wait weeks to finally latch onto a new conference. That desire is understandable.

However: If the school is worried about a multiple-week or multiple-month delay, the alternative is that if it waits into the month of July to formally leave the Mountain West, it will owe that extra $17.5 million.

So, which is the bigger concern for SDSU: a few weeks, maybe one month, of temporary inconvenience and discomfort, or — on the other hand — paying $34 million instead of $16.5 million?

The answer seems pretty clear from this or any other vantage point.

The only way San Diego State’s interests are best served by waiting past June 30 is if it has solid information indicating that the Pac-12 media rights deal is nowhere near an agreeable price point, and the Big 12 is actually not that interested in grabbing the Aztecs.

We can debate the first item — whether the Pac-12 media deal will reach a satisfactory price point — but on the second point, it’s pretty clear the Big 12 would love to scoop up the Aztecs if the Pac-12 fumbles the bag.

San Diego State administrators should be on the phone with the Pac-12 right now, insisting that this deal get finalized. Then the divorce with the Mountain West can proceed, followed by the marriage with the Pac-12.

We discussed all this with Mark Rogers at The Voice of College Football. Our talk with Mark begins at the 47-minute mark of the video:

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