98. Wyoming Cowboys |
#8 in Mountain West |
Wyoming fans have to be a little worried, now that Kansas State has hired Chris Klieman, who succeeded Craig Bohl at North Dakota State and went 69-6, with five FCS titles in five years. DO they have the architect of the best program in the FCS, or was it the guy underneath him? Are they Michigan State hiring John L. Smith, leaving Bobby Petrino at Louisville; or Colorado hiring Dan Hawkins, and leaving Chris Petersen at Boise State? Not that Craig Bohl has been bad, but in five years his best year was 8-5, with a Potato Bowl win, when he had the best player in Wyoming program history playing quarterback for him. Without Josh Allen, the Wyoming passing attack was a complete mess. Redshirt freshman Tyler Vander Waal began the year as the starter, and played probably way too long, with his 48.8% completion rate and 5.3 ypa. But the Cowboys were sort of backed into a corner with the only other options being senior Nick Smith and true freshman Sean Chambers. They knew what they had in Smith, and there was no sense using a senior in a rebuilding season. But thanks to the new NCAA redshirting rule, they did give Chambers some run in October. The problem was, he actually showed some promise, completing 60% of his passes, for 10.6 ypa. Plus he was a threat with his feet, running the ball actually more than twice as often as he threw it, and averaging 5.6 ypc. He created a problem though, as how do you send your best quarterback back to the bench, and sell your fan base on it, just in the name of preserving his redshirt? In a cruel way fate gave Bohl some help, and Chambers wound up breaking his leg against Air Force, ending his season...in his fourth game, thus preserving his redshirt. Assuming he’s fully healthy going into 2019, still technically as a redshirt freshman, there’s no reason to think he won’t be the starter, which leads to I believe only the second time ever I’ve listed a freshman as a key player in these write ups, going back to 2005. And before you ask, I don’t remember the other, I just vaguely recall doing it, and it specifically comes to mind. But the redshirt rule, and the weird circumstance of the team’s best quarterback still qualifying means it’s now uniquely possible. I don’t want to get ahead of myself as though he’s some savior. He threw 25 passes. The Cowboys still finished last in the Mountain West in passing at 131.3 ypg, behind a triple option team, on 5.7 ypa. If that offense can get the ball anywhere close, Wyoming does have the best kicker in the conference to finish things off. Cooper Rothe won Mountain West Special Team Player of the Year, missing only one of his 17 field goal attempts, ranking first in the nation at 94.1%, was perfect on PATs, with range beyond 50 yards. Kicking in Cheyenne sounds nice. Wyoming wasted a very good defense last year, which finished second, behind Fresno State, in the Mountain West in total defense, scoring defense and passing defense. Tyler Hall, who played a linebacker/defensive back hybrid position last year, may move to more of a safety this year, with 3/4 of the secondary graduated. The Cowboys did close on a 4 game winning streak, after a 2-6 start, so maybe some positive vibes going into 2019?
| KEY PLAYERS |
QB | Sean Chambers, Freshman |
WR | Austin Conway, Senior |
K | Cooper Rothe, Senior |
| . |
LB | Logan Wilson, Senior |
CB | Antonio Hull, Senior |
S | Tyler Hall, Senior |
97. Southern Miss Golden Eagles |
#7 in Conference USA |
In my formative years of development as a college football fan, Southern Miss fancied themselves the marquee mid-major program, with the same “Anyone, Anywhere, Anytime” motto used by Jeff Bower that Bobby Bowden used to build Florida State. Let’s just say Southern Miss, as good as they got, plateaued a little south of that, with a couple of top 20 finishes in the late 90s. While they’ve recovered from rock bottom post-Larry Fedora, going 4-32 from 2012-2014, they haven’t won, or even played for a conference title since 2011. They’ve almost become irrelevant. The only noteworthy thing they accomplished this offseason is stage a very public internal battle over the attempted hire of Art Briles, without the approval of administration. On the field, while this doesn’t look like a Conference USA title team, it has a chance to be perhaps the school’s best team since 2011. There is certainly more top end talent than has been in the program since then, but depth due to a revolving door of players has been an issue. The upside there is that at the time of this writing, the Eagles have nobody entered into the transfer portal, and are actually looking to pick up defensive end Torrence Brown from Penn State. The passing game looks to be dynamic if Jack Abraham, who missed two different stints with injuries last year can stay healthy. He’s got as good a receiver duo as there is in the conference with Quez Watkins and Tim Jones, who lead a deep group that returns their top 5 from a year ago. The loss of Jay’Shawn Washington at tight end is an underrated loss. Will they be able to run the ball at all, a year after mustering just 112.6 ypg on 3.1 ypc, with just 11 rushing touchdowns, second worst in Conference USA across the board. Head coach Jay Hopson has to hope his youth movement there pays off in 2019, with all five starting offensive linemen returning, three of them, the entire left side plus center Arvin Fletcher, returning for their third seasons as starters. They were blocking for Trivensky Mosley and Steven Anderson, who were thrown to the wolves as a true freshman and redshirt freshman respectively. It’s not as though running the ball has been an ongoing issue, so the fix could be there. But can the defense possibly be as good as it was last year, when it led Conference USA in both rushing and passing yards allowed per game. The pass defense was particularly stingy, surrendering just 5.8 ypa with a defensive pass efficiency of 106.3, both top 10 nationally. All of the stats suggest that this should have been a much better team last year, so you look for things like penalties, turnovers and record in close games for reasons why a record may flip to be more in line with what you would expect, but nothing is out of whack there for Southern Miss. They are in the middle of the pack for turnover margin and penalties, and they were 2-3 in one score games, so right about what you would expect. The infighting within the program does suggest something might be amiss, so while the Eagles turning it around and challenging for the division title would be far from a shock, based on the talent on the roster, none of the factors that would indicate that to be likely are present here.
| KEY PLAYERS |
WR | Quez Watkins, Junior |
WR | Tim Jones, Junior |
C | Arvin Fletcher, Junior |
| . |
DE | Jacques Turner, Junior |
LB | Racheem Boothe, Junior |
S | Ky'el Hemby, Junior |