MWC News and Notes: 11/16/12

Air Force:
AIR FORCE ACADEMY  — Twenty-three Air Force seniors will be on a collective mission Friday night when they play their final game at Falcon Stadium.
They believe it's still possible to make a significant mark in a rough season, and there's no better place than in front of the home crowd. If the Falcons can beat Hawaii, it would give them a 6-5 record — and eligibility to play in a sixth consecutive bowl game under coach Troy Calhoun.
"It's a must-win and we have a short week to prepare," said senior fullback Wes Cobb. "It would be a good feeling for us to accomplish something on senior night."
The prospects for the seniors to reach their hopes are good. Quarterback Connor Dietz has 1,701 total yards, including 1,095 passing. He has accounted for 12 touchdowns, seven by passing, and thrown three interceptions. Tailback Cody Getz has 1,006 yards and eight touchdowns on the ground. Cobb is one of five players who have more than 400 yards rushing.
http://www.denverpost.com/afa/ci_22007333/seniors-want-bow-out-style#ixzz2CPVqKgMy

Boise State:
BOISE — Though they lost five seniors off last season’s roster, then had a key member’s season end with a torn ACL, the Boise State defensive line still somehow is overflowing with depth.
Eight defensive linemen have at least one sack, and the group has been instrumental on a defense ranked No. 8 in the nation (14.4 points per game allowed). The Broncos have 28 sacks, four more than they had all last season.
“(Defensive coordinator Pete Kwiatkowski) develops defensive line guys like I’ve never seen,” Boise State coach Chris Petersen said. “… It has to do with coaching them up, recruiting the right guys and playing them when they’re young.”
http://www.idahopress.com/sports/boise/bsf-football/bsu-d-line-deep-talented/article_1cd16164-2d6d-11e2-b2bb-001a4bcf887a.html

Colorado State:
Believe it or not, at 3-7, this Colorado State football team is better than they have been the last three years.
To think of all first-year head coach Jim McElwain has accomplished is astonishing.
He's brought in new coaches and new players, getting them all to work together with the players that were already in Fort Collins. He's won over those players that were recruited to play at CSU years ago, proving they can still start if they win the position through hard work. He's put in place new physical and mental conditioning programs that his players have latched onto, and the head coach is more like a motivational speaker in the way he talks not only to the young men, but his coaches and even the media. He's had to teach a new offense, but beyond that, teach them the expectation of “how do I achieve the goal of being excellent every day?”
http://www.examiner.com/article/colorado-state-football-continues-to-improve-jim-mcelwain-s-first-season

Fresno State:
It was a matter of timing, and TV.
Fresno State didn't kick off its Saturday game at Nevada until 7:30 p.m., and by that time Louisiana Tech's Colby Cameron had thrown for most of his 337 yards and Kenneth Dixon had rushed for most of his 144 in a 62-55 victory over Texas State -- the quarterback surpassing 3,000 passing yards and the running back 1,000 rushing yards.
Coupled with Quinton Patton, who went into that game with exactly 1,000 receiving yards, and Louisiana Tech became the first team this year to have a trio hit the 3,000/1,000/1,000 trifecta.
Fresno State became the second in the third quarter of its win over the Wolf Pack when redshirt freshman Davante Adams caught a 25-yard pass from Derek Carr in the third quarter.
But no matter who was No. 2 or No. 1, the feat can't be discounted because it just doesn't happen very often anywhere. For now, Fresno State and Louisiana Tech are the only teams in the Football Bowl Subdivision with players past all of those milestone markers.
http://www.fresnobee.com/2012/11/13/3065398/kuwada-fresno-state-trio-vaults.html#storylink=cpy

Hawaii:
TEMPLE TRIED, hard. It had even reached a tentative agreement. But it just didn't end up making financial sense from the University of Hawaii's perspective.
So the Owls will not be playing at Hawaii on Dec. 7 in Honolulu.
The Owls wanted to play a 12th football game this season to make up for the one they lost when they moved back from the Mid-American Conference to the Big East in March.
"It's disappointing," second-year Temple coach Steve Addazio, whose 3-6 team will try to break a four-game losing streak Saturday at Army (2-7), said at his weekly news conference. "It would have been a great opportunity, to play an extra game and get a couple extra weeks of practice. Temple did everything it could. We were set and ready to roll. I guess they have their own issues out there, so they just weren't able to come through on that."
http://articles.philly.com/2012-11-14/sports/35113047_1_temple-coach-steve-addazio-honolulu-star-advertiser-hawaii

Nevada:
Wolf Pack running back Stefphon Jefferson, who is second in the nation in rushing, is one of 10 finalists for the Doak Walker Award, which is given annually to the top running back in the nation.
The junior from Visalia, Calif., has 1,341 rushing yards and 16 rushing scores this season. He’s one yard behind NCAA leader Jordan Lynch, a quarterback from Northern Illinois who has played one more game than Jefferson.
Jefferson, who has hit the 100-yard mark in seven of nine games this season, is in his first year as a starter at Nevada. His 1,341 yards rank as the 10th most in a single season in program history.
He is on pace to break Chance Krestchmer’s program record of 1,732 yards in 2001.
http://www.rgj.com/article/20121110/SPORTS06/311100038/Nevada-football-notes-Stefphon-Jefferson-finalist-RB-award

New Mexico:
They’ve done all the little things to put themselves in a position to win.
They lead the country in time of possession and rank near the top of all college football in turnover margin and fewest penalty yards.
Now all the Lobos have to do is win three straight games to extend their season into a bowl game.
The University of New Mexico will host Wyoming (2-7 overall, 1-4 Mountain West Conference) on Saturday in the first of three consecutive conference games to close out the 2012 campaign.
At 4-6 overall and 1-4 MWC, the Lobos need to reach seven wins to become bowl eligible.
http://www.santafenewmexican.com/Sports/11102012LoboFBadvance#.UKaA2odX2So

San Diego State:
The Aztecs finally have an idea of which teams they'll play against in 2013.
The Big East, San Diego State’s future football home, announced its conference divisions Monday at a meeting in Chicago.
After considering several different proposals, the league opted to go with an East-West model that splits the divisions based roughly on geography.
Each team will play eight conference games each season, with five of the eight against divisional rivals. The Aztecs will begin Big East play in 2013.
http://www.nctimes.com/sports/college/usd/aztecs-will-play-football-in-big-east-west-in/article_73b664b1-e6c9-5d27-a852-9d582004afd3.html

UNLV:
The UNLV athletic department announced Thursday it has signed a home-and-home football series with BYU starting in the 2014 season.
UNLV is tentatively scheduled to travel to Provo, Utah, on Nov. 15, 2014, and BYU will play in Las Vegas on Nov. 14, 2015. You could easily argue the game at Sam Boyd Stadium won’t have much of a home-game feel for UNLV, because of the heavy BYU fan base in Las Vegas.
The schools played 18 times from 1978 to 2010 with BYU holding a 15-3 series advantage. They stopped playing in 2010 when BYU left the Rebels’ Mountain West Conference to compete as an independent.
UNLV is the first school in the league to agree to play BYU.
“We’re excited to renew our series with BYU and we think those will be two terrific games for our fans,” UNLV Director of Athletics Jim Livengood said in a statement.
http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2012/nov/15/unlv-football-adds-two-games-byu/

Wyoming:
LARAMIE, Wyo. (AP) — Tim Gleeson received quite the introduction.
The freshman Wyoming punter had never played a game of American football before. His punting skills were newly acquired, helped some from a decade of playing the Australian-rules version of the sport in Melbourne, Australia.
Those games back home, they were played in front of 200, 300 people.
What Gleeson saw Sept. 1 was different.
"It was my first football game ever," Gleeson said. "100,000 people at Texas."
Actually it was 101,142 -- most of whom were orange-clad Longhorn fans who take pride in making opposing football teams feel uncomfortable in Austin, Texas.
That intimidation worked on Gleeson.
http://www.sfgate.com/sports/article/UW-punter-Gleeson-settles-in-after-rough-start-4044016.php