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Mountain West weekend roundup
Mountain West Game of the Week
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No. 25 Brigham Young 34, No. 23 Colorado State 13 |
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In the first ever Mountain West Conference game, the host Cougars took it to the Rams, who were playing without star running back Kevin McDougal. With Lucas Staley finding the end zone twice -- once on a one-yard plunge and again on a seven-yard pass from Kevin Feterik -- the Cougars jumped out to a 31-0 lead and didn't allow the Rams on the scoreboard until early in the fourth quarter. The Rams badly missed McDougal. Before suffering a groin injury in a win over Nevada last week, the bruiser was averaging nearly 170 yards a game for coach Sonny Lubick's team. The win may have been a costly one for BYU, which lost linebacker Rob Morris, a Butkus Award candidate, midway through the second quarter.
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Other Mountain West action
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USC 24, San Diego State 21 |
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The 17th-ranked Trojans, favored by 23 points, were taken to the wire by the Aztecs (1-2). "We thought it would be an easy one; it wasn't," said Carson Palmer, who threw two touchdown passes -- but who had a fourth-quarter pass intercepted and returned 62 yards for a touchdown, making the game close.
"We dodged a bullet and found out that we have to play every week like it's our last game," said Hackett, whose 2-0 team visits Oregon next week. "We wanted to play a close game. This took it to the extreme." The Trojans had beaten Hawaii, 62-7, and led San Diego State, 17-0, before the Aztecs came back. |
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Air Force 31, Washington 21 |
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Million-dollar coach Rick Neuheisel has yet to win with the Huskies, now 0-2 -- with both losses to Mountain West Conference teams. It's Washington's worst start since 1985.
Air Force won its 11th straight game, as quarterback Cale Bonds ran for three touchdowns. The game was tied 14-14 at halftime, but the Falcons (2-0) took advantage of Washington mistakes in the second half to beat the Huskies for the second time in less than a year (45-25 Oahu Bowl).
UW freshman Paul Arnold set a Huskies' record by returning a kickoff 100 yards for a touchdown with 5:02 left after Bonds scored his third TD of the day. |
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Utah 38, Utah State 18 |
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The visiting Aggies staked themselves to a 10-0 lead, but could not come up with the upset. Utah State's DeMario Brown found the end zone twice, but Utah QB Darnell Arceneaux threw two TD passes and jumped his record as a starter to 8-0. |
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New Mexico 45, Northern Arizona 14 |
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After opening the season with losses to Texas-El Paso and New Mexico State, the Lobos got off the schneid with a cruise over the Division I-AA Jacks. NAU RB Ronney Jenkins, who scored on a 52-yard pass catch and a 52-yard run against New Mexico last year in a 46-21 BYU win, had just 36 yards on 14 carries and caught five passes for 80 yards. He transferred to the Flagstaff, Ariz., school after being kicked out of BYU. |
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Iowa State 24, UNLV 0 |
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After last week's magical finish against Baylor, John Robinson's Runnin' Rebels were brought back to reality by the Cyclones, who improved their record to a gaudy 3-0 for the first time since 1981. Darren Davis did the dirty work for Iowa State, plunging in from a yard out twice in the first half to stake the Cyclones to the healthy advantage they never relinquished. Davis finished with 208 yards rushing. |
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