Five of the six teams in the Mountain West’s Mountain Division finished with a winning record and played in bowl games last season.
Expect much of the same in 2017. All six teams return starting quarterbacks, and the Mountain Division has a 48-28 record against the West Division since the MW went to a divisional format in 2013.
Boise State was the preseason pick to win the division by the media. The Broncos have been picked to win the division five consecutive years and also were picked to win the league in 2011 and 2012 when there were no divisions. Boise State joined the MW in 2011.
The last time the preseason Mountain Division favorite won it outright was Boise State in 2014.
Even though the Mountain Division is tough from top to bottom, the team with the biggest target on its back is San Diego State in the West Division. The Aztecs have won back-to-back MW championships, and were the unanimous pick to win the West Division by the media despite losing several key seniors.
San Diego State quarterback Christian Chapman (10) runs with the ball during the first half of an NCAA college football game in Laramie, Wyo., Saturday, Nov. 19, 2016. (AP Photo/Shannon Broderick)
Junior quarterback Christian Chapman returns for San Diego State, and although the NCAA’s all-time leading rusher — Donnel Pumphrey — is gone, senior Rashad Penny is expected to make a seamless transition into the starting lineup. Penny also was voted as the preseason MW Special Teams Player of the year as a return specialist.
The MW was rich in running backs last year with the likes of Pumphrey, Wyoming’s Brian Hill, Nevada’s James Butler, Boise State’s Jeremy McNichols and New Mexico’s Teriyon Gipson — all of whom don’t return this season.
The focus this season should be on the quarterbacks since 11 of the 12 MW teams (San Jose State is the exception) return quarterbacks who started games last season.
Wyoming junior Josh Allen was voted the preseason MW Offensive Player of the Year by the media, but his leading rusher (Hill) and his top three receivers from 2016 are gone.
Still, Allen is being touted as a potential top 10 pick in next year’s NFL draft by many national draft experts.
“Allen’s good, but they surrounded him last year with really good receivers, and [Hill] was good,” New Mexico coach Bob Davie said. “I think what [Allen] does the best is create plays off scrambles and throws the ball on the run with real velocity.”
Boise State quarterback Brett Rypien (4) keeps the ball and runs against the Colorado State defense during the first half of an NCAA college football game Saturday Oct. 15, 2016, in Boise, Idaho. (Darin Oswald/Idaho Statesman via AP)
Boise State junior Brett Rypien, last season’s First Team All-MW quarterback, also must find new playmakers. Colorado State senior Nick Stevens has some proven playmakers around him, led by senior wide receiver Michael Gallup, a preseason All-MW pick.
Even though Nevada and UNLV return experienced quarterbacks, they will have new starters. Nevada is going with 6-foot-5, 230-pound junior David Cornwell, an Alabama transfer who hasn’t thrown a pass in college and hasn’t played a full season since he was a senior in high school in 2012. UNLV is going with dual-threat redshirt freshman Armani Rogers (6-5, 225) out of Los Angeles.
The MW has three new coaches in Nevada’s Jay Norvell, San Jose State’s Brent Brennan and Fresno State’s Jeff Tedford. Norvell and Brennan are first-time head coaches. Tedford, a Fresno State alum, was the coach at California from 2002-12 and had a record of 82-57.
What will raise the MW’s national profile is if it can send a team to the Fiesta Bowl, which has a spot this season for the highest ranked team among the non-power five conferences. The last MW team to do that was Boise State in 2014.
Robert Gagliardi covers Wyoming for the Cheyenne Eagle and Laramie Boomerang
Mountain West Predictions<br>Mountain Division<br>1. Boise State • Always the popular pick but also hard to pick against.<br>2. Colorado State • Rams will ride the momentum of a new on-campus stadium and a talented roster with a run at a MW title.<br>3. Wyoming • Cowboys will go as far as quarterback Josh Allen takes them, but also must be better defensively (34.1 points per game allowed last season).<br>4. Air Force • The duo of junior quarterback Arion Wortham and senior running back Tim McVey will be fun to watch, but the Falcons must replace 10 starters on defense.<br>5. New Mexico • The Lobos were picked to finish fifth and tied for the division title last season. An inexperienced defense has them picked here this season.<br>6. Utah State • The Aggies lost five of their seven MW games by 11 points or less in 2016, but Coach Matt Wells’ seat will get real hot if the Aggies can’t get over the hump this year.<br>West Division<br>1. San Diego State • Senior running back/return specialist Rashad Penny will prove to be even better than Donnel Pumphrey, who left as the NCAA’s career rushing leader.<br>2. Hawaii • Second-year coach Nick Rolovich is getting Hawaii football back on the map. The Rainbow Warriors have one of the more underrated QBs in the league in junior Dru Brown.<br>3. UNLV • The Rebels have made slow but steady progress in coach Tony Sanchez’s first two seasons and could be poised for a bigger jump this season.<br>4. Nevada • The Wolf Pack are going with an Air Raid offense under first-year coach Jay Norvell, however, there will be some turbulence in the first year.<br>5. San Jose State • Spartans play South Florida, at Texas and at Utah over the first four weeks of the season. Surviving that will be a victory in itself.<br>6. Fresno State • Sixteen starters, including 10 on offense, return. The bad news is those players were part of a 1-11 team last season, and the one win was over an FCS foe.