Honest question. A spate of injuries? Bad luck? Something else?

As a conference (and including bowl games) they went 3-16 against P5 (wins against 6-7 Baylor, 7-6 Washington State, and 1-11 Colorado). They went 11-13 against G5. And 9-3 against FCS.

Maybe it isn't a coincidence that the PAC had a good season in a year that the other western conference had a down year. They are both recruiting from the same talent pool.

(12-30-2022 10:15 PM)ken d Wrote:  Maybe it isn't a coincidence that the PAC had a good season in a year that the other western conference had a down year. They are both recruiting from the same talent pool.

Well they also play each other a lot. So pac 12 up- more losses for Mwc.

PAC went 7-2 vs the Mtn. this season, so yeah that is part of it.

Still, though. When the last power-ratings come out after the NC game, I think this will be the MWC’s lowest #s since the last realignment about 9 years ago

I don't think it's a hard mystery to solve. Utah, TCU, BYU and Chris Petersen all left the conference a decade ago. The rest of the Mountain West pretty much did what they usually do, give or take (usually take) a game or two.

There was quite a bit of upheaval around the conference with multiple coaching changes and lots of players moving out of and into programs via the transfer portal. It seemed like some teams had most of the pieces needed to be very good but no team had all of the pieces. In particular it seemed like QB play was a notch lower than in recent years, hence it’s no surprise that Fresno State with one of the few good ones (Jake Haener) was able to win the conference title.

(12-30-2022 09:13 PM)Native Georgian Wrote:  Honest question. A spate of injuries? Bad luck? Something else?

As a conference (and including bowl games) they went 3-16 against P5 (wins against 6-7 Baylor, 7-6 Washington State, and 1-11 Colorado). They went 11-13 against G5. And 9-3 against FCS.

The AAC is also 3-16 vs the P5 (through bowls, including Notre Dame), but did much better vs the G5 than did the MW.

This tells me the AAC isn't really P6, just G1.

Wyoming featured the third-youngest roster in the FBS, ahead of only Mountain West foes Nevada and Hawaii, according to ESPN. The 2022 team was made up of only three seniors, 15 juniors, 38 sophomores, 31 redshirt freshmen and 23 true freshmen.

Part of the imbalance in classes is due to COVID circumstances. Several Cowboys who had an additional year of eligibility remaining graduated last year and decided either to: declare for the NFL Draft, transfer to another university for their final year or not utilize their extra year.

Link
https://7220sports.com/just-how-young-is...ll-roster/

I think the MWC is in decline. Boise is their flagship but hasn't been the dominate G5 power that they used to be. The portal is probably funneling their best players to the PAC, and they have far fewer options for replacing that talent in the west. I believe their decline will continue next season, especially if the PAC raids them.

San Jose, San Diego and Utah State just flat out underperformed. Not sure why.

Boise had the worst team I’ve seen since 2001. Now, I’m not talking record-wise. They’ve had very few years in the last 22 that had worse records. But those years were kind of expected due to bigger roster overturn. I wasn’t impressed when my Bulldogs beat them for the ccg a few weeks ago.

Hawaii and Nevada were complete overhauls. New coaches and big losses to transfer portal. So, expected to be down years for two teams that usually carry more weight for the conference.

UNLV started off surprisingly well, then went UNLV football the rest of the season.

New Mexico was New Mexico but even worse than usual…which is hard to do.

Colorado State…been bottom feeders the last few seasons and had new coach…stayed bottom.

Wyoming did surprisingly well for all the losses in the transfer portal. But they’re usually pretty good so a wash for the mw as a whole with them.

Air Force and Fresno were the only 2 bright spots. And the mw is used to having 4 or 5 teams being bright spots. So…big drop in very good teams this year for mw.

Hopefully this was our bottom year for the next 4 or so years. We shall see. Me thinks AAC, MW and Sunbelt will be neck and neck most years for that NYD/12-team playoff spot. Maybe make a super-mega 40 team conference and claim “P6”? LOL

Boise St would’ve got run down in the AAC or SBC this year. The MWC was not good and a bad Boise St proves it.

Overall Record: 10-4
Conference Record: 8-1 (only loss to Fresno St in CCG)
Non-Conference Record: 2-3
> Wins: Tennessee - Martin, North Texas (Bowl Game)
> Losses: Oregon St (Good), BYU (Average), UTEP (Bad)

So we can run the table in the MWC but struggle OOC?

With that OOC schedule, we were poised to get the NY6 G5 spot.

(12-30-2022 10:15 PM)ken d Wrote:  Maybe it isn't a coincidence that the PAC had a good season in a year that the other western conference had a down year. They are both recruiting from the same talent pool.

No, they are not recruiting the same players. The best players in the west go to power conference schools, either the Pac-12 or a power conference school back east. The success this season in the Pac-12 was due to coaching hires and the transfer portal.

The MWC has to develop talent two-star and three-star talent. In the 2023 football recruiting class, the MWC has zero four-and-five-star recruits. Oregon alone has 2 five-star recruits and 19 four-star recruits in the 2023 class. Chris Petersen and his staff did a great job of developing talent. The conference misses him. The MWC has always done a good job of finding and developing talent. Players like Devante Adams, Josh Allen, DeMarcus Lawrence, and Bobby Wagner. This is just a down year.

(12-31-2022 01:45 AM)SoCalBobcat78 Wrote:  

(12-30-2022 10:15 PM)ken d Wrote:  Maybe it isn't a coincidence that the PAC had a good season in a year that the other western conference had a down year. They are both recruiting from the same talent pool.

No, they are not recruiting the same players. The best players in the west go to power conference schools, either the Pac-12 or a power conference school back east. The success this season in the Pac-12 was due to coaching hires and the transfer portal.

The MWC has to develop talent two-star and three-star talent. In the 2023 football recruiting class, the MWC has zero four-and-five-star recruits. Oregon alone has 2 five-star recruits and 19 four-star recruits in the 2023 class. Chris Petersen and his staff did a great job of developing talent. The conference misses him. The MWC has always done a good job of finding and developing talent. Players like Devante Adams, Josh Allen, DeMarcus Lawrence, and Bobby Wagner. This is just a down year.

You say that but if you'd be hard pressed to find a Pac 12 recruit that didn't also have offers from multiple MWC schools. Just because the Pac schools typically win the H2H recruiting battles and get their pick of the litter, doesn't mean they aren't still after the same recruits.

I think the collapse of two of the leagues programs (Hawaii and Nevada) and the Pacs resurgence were the primary cause of the dip in metrics.

I don’t think a lot of programs hold much value anymore because they’re not big boys.

(12-31-2022 12:00 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(12-30-2022 09:13 PM)Native Georgian Wrote:  Honest question. A spate of injuries? Bad luck? Something else?

As a conference (and including bowl games) they went 3-16 against P5 (wins against 6-7 Baylor, 7-6 Washington State, and 1-11 Colorado). They went 11-13 against G5. And 9-3 against FCS.

The AAC is also 3-16 vs the P5 (through bowls, including Notre Dame), but did much better vs the G5 than did the MW.

This tells me the AAC isn't really P6, just G1.

I think the G1 status will be up for debate next year as UCF, CINCY, Houston leave for the B12. Not sure who the King of G5 will be, but it looks to get interesting in 2023.

According to the 100 polls used this season for the Massy Composite ranking:

100% of polls say the AAC is better than the MWC.
98% of polls say the SBC is better than the MWC.
23% of polls say C-USA is better than the MWC.
1% of polls say the MAC is better than the MWC.

https://masseyratings.com/cf/compare.htm

(12-31-2022 09:41 AM)Yosef181 Wrote:  According to the 100 polls used this season for the Massy Composite ranking:

100% of polls say the AAC is better than the MWC.
98% of polls say the SBC is better than the MWC.
23% of polls say C-USA is better than the MWC.
1% of polls say the MAC is better than the MWC.

https://masseyratings.com/cf/compare.htm

When does Masseys update? This information was from 12.3.

(12-31-2022 10:37 AM)Gemofthehills Wrote:  

(12-31-2022 09:41 AM)Yosef181 Wrote:  According to the 100 polls used this season for the Massy Composite ranking:

100% of polls say the AAC is better than the MWC.
98% of polls say the SBC is better than the MWC.
23% of polls say C-USA is better than the MWC.
1% of polls say the MAC is better than the MWC.

https://masseyratings.com/cf/compare.htm

When does Masseys update? This information was from 12.3.

I expect some of the new rankings to be online the morning of January 10, after the NCG the night before. But not all of the post-Bowl rankings will be posted immediately. I would give it about a week for all 100-120 rankings to be tabulated.

(12-31-2022 12:07 AM)Side.Show.Joe Wrote:  I think the MWC is in decline. Boise is their flagship but hasn't been the dominate G5 power that they used to be. The portal is probably funneling their best players to the PAC, and they have far fewer options for replacing that talent in the west. I believe their decline will continue next season, especially if the PAC raids them.

Fresno got badly beat up in the USC game. They lost Haener and their best defender plus others. It’s one reason they went 1-4 (USC was game 2) then finished with 9 wins including a thumping of WSU.

For the record Fresno last year took a starter from Cal (Remigio) and did not lose a starter to the portal. Wyoming which recruits Texas hard did lose key players to the portal.