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Well it wouldn't have been SMU either.  Maybe Houston for the hoops?

Ran out of time to do Sunday and Monday, so here is Sunday, and tomorrow will be Monday and Tuesday

88. Nevada Wolfpack

#6 in Mountain West

2019 has the makings of a promising season, so long as the quarterback situation could get sorted out.  But a wave of transfers has gutted the Wolfpack, and raised questions about Jay Norvell’s program in general.  When there is a coaching transition, there is generally some roster turnover, due to fit, from both sides.  But the amount of turnover that Nevada had during Norvell’s first 365 days on the job was staggering, even by those standards.  56% of the roster with returning eligibility going into 2018, were off the team, including 52% of scholarship players.  Only 32% of the roster he had to begin 2018, had been with the team for more than one year.  But offseason #2 did not prove to be any more stabilizing, with several players entering their names into the transfer portal, including probably their best returning offensive player (WR Michael Mannix) and their best returning defensive player (LB Gabriel Sewell).  At this point, it’s more than fair to question what is going on with Norvell.  Nevada still enters 2019 with a seemingly better roster than they had in 2018, which won a very surprising 8 games, including 5 of their final 6.  But expecting them to take the step forward from that, as was previously the thought, now seems unlikely.  Fresno State had a large, albeit expected, roster turnover going into 2019, so a division championship is not out of the question.  To do so, the defensive resurgence that the Wolfpack showed over the second half of the season needs to carry over.  Norvell was an offensive coach under Bob Stoops and Todd Graham prior to getting the Nevada job, and hired Hal Mumme’s kid to run his offense.  In other words, Nevada ain’t planning on winning with defense, but they showed up down the stretch last year.  Nevada gave up 34 ppg in 2017, and finished in the bottom 3 in the Mountain West across the board in defensive stats, bottom 25 nationally.  Through the first half of last year, they were giving up 36.0 ppg to FBS teams, and had lost 4 of 6.  Over the second half, they gave up 18.7 ppg, and won 5 of 6.  That looks like a tall task, even if Sewell, and his brother, starting safety Nephi Sewell, had stayed.  The most interesting player on that side of the ball is easily defensive tackle Dom Peterson.  Defensive coordinator Jeff Casteel flipped between 3 and 4 man fronts, playing him inside on 4 man, outside when just 3.  But he came out of high school as a 3*, 235 pound outside linebacker, who turned down a Power 5 offer from Syracuse.  He spent his redshirt season apparently full time in the cafeteria, and added 80 pounds, showing up as a redshirt freshman interior defensive lineman, and finishing second on the team in sacks.  As he figures out his new body, and new size, he has a chance to be a freak pass rusher.  He wasn’t the only surprise freshman contributor last year, with true freshman Toa Taua winning Mountain West Freshman of the Year, after running for 872 yards.  He had multiple Power 5 offers, from the likes of Arizona State, Cal, Washington State and Iowa State, so he was expected to be a contributor, but not to totally push returning starter Kelton Moore to the side.

	KEY PLAYERS
RB	Toa Taua, Sophomore
WR	Kaleb Fossum, Senior
T	Jake Nelson, Senior
	.
DT	Dom Peterson, Sophomore
CB	Daniel Brown, Senior
P	Quinton Conaway, Senior

87. Marshall Thundering Herd

#4 in Conference USA

Marshall had all of the pieces in place to reach their first conference championship game since 2014, and while they had a solid season, every time the Thundering Herd played a big game, they came up short.  Losing to Virginia Tech and NC State out of conference is forgivable, but they also drew a very favorable schedule, and lost 2 of the 3 games they had to play against teams that finished above .500 in the conference.  So it’s a 9 win season, where the best win was maybe over FIU?  The offense, particularly the running game, had a major bounceback from 2017, but if Marshall hopes to improve upon 2018, the offense needs to be perhaps the best unit in the conference.  The key to that growth is Isaiah Green, who beat out Alex Thomson to win the quarterback job in the preseason, but looked like the freshman he was too often.  If he can get his completion percentage up from 56.7% up to 60 or 61%, that makes a big difference.  The defense has carried the program the past two years, but there are more questions on that side of the ball than there has been in a while.  Those questions start up front, where Marshall has dominated conference opponents the past two years, averaging 3.31 sacks per game, third in Conference USA, and holding opponents to 31.5% third down conversions, second best.  They get Ty Tyler back, who led the team with 8 sacks; but the rest of the line graduated.  That is where returning production vs. returning starters is important though, as interior pass rushing specialist Channing Hames, who actually finished second with 5.5 sacks, and led the team with 10.5 tackles for loss, likely moves into a starting role.  The problem is he in undersized to play inside except in his specialized role.  So does he get moved around based on situation?  The graduated seniors were so stout against the run, a conference best 2.9 ypc allowed, that teams more or less stopped trying.  Teams passed on 53.3% of their snaps against Marshall, third highest rate in the country.  The secondary looked to be the strength of the team in 2019, so it’s unlikely that would have continued, but Malik Gant declaring early for the NFL Draft does put a bit of a damper on that.  With the other three they do return, and the massive losses suffered at both levels in front of them, I think that’s still a fact, but it’s more of a concern than a fact.  Chris Jackson has taken the next step every time he’s been asked to.  He came in as a lightly recruited wide receiver from Florida, switched to defensive back, and made all-freshman Conference USA, then was honorable mention all-conference as a sophomore, and all-conference as a junior.  In his last year in Huntington he needs to be THE lockdown cornerback in the conference.  If he’s that, and I think he does become that, it opens up a lot.  There is a ton of cornerback depth with Kereon Merrell being given an extra year of eligibility.  Gant is an NFL player though, so his early departure, from a mid-major team, does give me pause.  Add him, and this would have been in the conversation for being a top 20ish secondary nationally.  As it is, it still could be the best in the conference, and with the front seven concerns, it might have to be.

	KEY PLAYERS
QB	Isaiah Green, Sophomore
TE	Armani Levias, Senior
C	Levi Brown, Senior
	.
DE	Ty Tyler, Senior
LB	Omari Cobb, Senior
CB	Chris Jackson, Senior

86. SMU Mustangs

#8 in American

The American isn’t the easiest conference right now to take a big jump in, but if any team is primed to do so, it would have been SMU.  The Mustangs went just 5-7 last year, but that was after an 0-3 start with a new head coach, against a stretch that was on the road against a very good North Texas team, followed by TCU and Michigan.  The more concerning part was the two losses at the end, even with a forgivable loss to Memphis, followed by the unforgivable one to a 2-9 Tulsa team, that cost SMU a bowl.  In between, SMU was one of the best teams in the conference, winning 5 of 7, with the two losses being on the road at Central Florida, and at home to Cincinnati, in overtime, the two best teams in the conference.  It included a win over then #17, 7-1 Houston.  They started 18 underclassmen, with a new coach, against a gauntlet schedule, playing 4 teams ranked in the top 20 at gametime.  So going from 5 wins to 8 or 9 wins seemed highly possible.  So why “would have”?  The graduate transfer of Ben Hicks, a three year starter who became the school’s all time passing leader midway through his junior season, with hypothetically 19 games left in his career.  Hicks followed one year behind the coach who brought him to Dallas, Chad Morris, to Arkansas.  All is not totally lost, with the play of true freshman William Brown, who saw action in six games last year, valuable substantial action in four of those.  With a not insignificant sample size of 85 pass attempts, he actually had a better completion percentage than Hicks (62.4% to 55.9%), better yards per attempts (7.4 to 6.9), better passer rating (148.9 to 127.3) and better TD:INT ratio (7:1 to 19:7).  I don’t want to say losing your school’s all time leading passer a year early is ever a good thing, but there’s a chance it’s not as bad as it initially appears either though.  He’s not the only option though, as the transfer carousel turns, and brings Texas transfer Shane Buechele into the mix.  He’s got the flashy pedigree, but I actually think Brown winds up beating him out.  Hicks wasn’t nearly the only Mustang to pack up, he’s one of nine offensive players to put their name in the portal.  While none of the others are expected contributors, that’s a major depth hit, no matter who you are, particularly three offensive linemen.  The five receivers who left may have figured no matter who the quarterback was, there was no reason to ever get beyond their second read.  James Proche had a legitimate chance to leave early for the NFL, and decided to return.  Once West Virginia transfer Reggie Roberson Jr. got going, and was healthy, that really opened up things for Proche as well.  Roberson had one 100 yard game in September, and returning from an injury on October 20, he did so in four of his first five games back.  They finished first and fourth in the conference and receiving, and both return.  The talent on defense is mostly in the back seven, led by Texas A&M transfer Richard Moore at linebacker.  The graduation of middle linebacker Kyran Mitchell is a huge loss from a leadership standpoint, but from a talent perspective may be a non-issue.  There is such a glut of safety talent, that they look to show some more 4-2-5 looks, with Patrick Nelson, at only 210 pounds, playing a hybrid position.  The Mustangs made unexpected improvements defensively in Dykes’ first year, but they are too thin on that side still, to not simply find ways to get their most talented players on the field.  No matter how this year goes, the future seems bright with the program.  Sonny Dykes is only 49, even though it seems like a name that has been around forever.  He had good success at Louisiana Tech, before failing at California.  He’s had that taste of Power 5 though, and might be content to coach it out at SMU, which is a solid mid-major job.  He brought in the #69 class in the nation, which ranked #3 in the conference.  There seems to be stability and upgraded talent coming into the program, which really has everything in place to probably be the second best program in the American West, behind Houston.

	KEY PLAYERS
WR	James Proche, Senior
WR	Reggie Roberson, Jr., Junior
G	Hayden Howerton, Junior
	.
LB	Richard Moore, Senior
S	Patrick Nelson, Senior
S	Rodney Clemons, Junior

Didn't stAte used to be the Indians? Or am I misremembering things?

Abandoned it about a decade ago

84. Air Force Falcons

#5 in Mountain West

As I stated in my Navy write up, it’s always hard to gauge the returning talent on the military academies, because they still heavily favor seniors, more than most programs do.  So that’s not nearly as good a predictor as it is for other schools, because they seem to always lose a lot of production, making them tough to read or predict.  Stars can emerge out of nowhere as seniors.  But the Falcons were actually a young team last year, and now enter 2019 with 16 returning starters, unheard of for the service academies, at least off the top of my head.  The Falcons only missed a bowl once in Troy Calhoun’s first ten years at the school, and after that 2-10 season in 2013, they immediately bounced back in 2014 with a 10 win season, and a division championship in 2015, the first of each since 1998.  But now they’ve missed back to back bowls, albeit with 5-7 records, not the 2-10 disaster of 2013.  The roster looks primed to have another bounce back season.  They return a pair of quarterbacks who started last year, but more importantly to Air Force’s offense, they return their top six rushers.  For good measure they return four of their top 5 tacklers, and their kicking/punting specialist.  The only position that looks to be a major question mark is receiver.  While Air Force does throw more than the other triple option teams, that’s still the position where they can most absorb a blow.  Bringing in solid recruiting classes is not the lifeblood of the service academies, but it doesn’t hurt.  While bringing in a class that ranked #102 overall, and #8 in the Mountain West doesn’t exactly read as something to be excited about, considering the limitations in recruiting, and the hesitation of most recruits to consider the military schools, that actually equates to the Falcons’ best class since 2012.  That group formed the nucleus as upperclassmen that led to a pair of 10 win seasons, and a Mountain West divisional title.  So it would not be crazy to think some of these guys could be the rare contributing Air Force freshman.  The depth chart at receiver is open enough for Deavyn Woullard from Mission Viejo to contribute, the issue is, unlike most schools, being more athletic than anyone on the roster isn’t necessarily an advantage at Air Force for wideouts.  You have to block, and very few freshmen, particularly 5’11, 175 pound ones, can do that.  But he has too much athleticism for Calhoun not to figure out a way to get him on the field.  Last year the only question on the defensive front was whether rising sophomore Jordan Jackson was ready to step into a starting role.  After leading the team in sacks and tackles for loss, and making second team All-Conference, he certainly answered the bell.  With the graduations of Micah Capra and Cody Gessler, he is now the only certainty along the line, and how he transitions to drawing all of the attention will matter, because the back end of the defense struggled last year, the second worst pass efficiency defense in the conference.  John Rudzinski, in his first year as defensive coordinator, moved Jeremy Fejedelem from cornerback to safety, after returning starting safety James Jones IV suffered a torn ACL during August camp that ended his season.  Whether Fejedelem moves back to cornerback now, or pairs with Jones at safety, there is no shortage of experience with starting strong safety Grant Theil also returning.  Whether that translates to any improvement remains to be seen.

	KEY PLAYERS
QB	D.J. Hammond III, Junior
RB	Kade Remsberg, Junior
FB	Cole Fagan, Senior
	.
DE	Jordan Jackson, Junior
LB	Kyle Johnson, Senior
S	Jeremy Fejedelem, Senior

so, you're saying the Huskers have a chance in Boulder?

Montez looked like a hypesman contender in Lincoln last season.  Shenault is back with him.

The Blackshirts held CU to just 44 rushing yards while recording seven sacks – the most by the Nebraska defense in five seasons. But Montez answered with 351 yards on 33-of-50 passing with three scores, two touchdown passes to Jay MacIntyre and the game-winner to Shenault, who had 177 receiving yards.

this will help me sleep better