Mountain West Power Rankings - Week 2

While this blog covers the national college football scene, it is, on some level a Mountain West, SEC and Pac-10 based blog. Hence, we have this post, the first conference Power Rankings of the season, starting with the Mountain West. Note that these rankings contain quite a bit of projection in them because it is so early in the season and may disagree with where I have teams ranked in my top 25.

1. Utah (2-0 overall, 1-0 in league play) – The Utes stomped UNLV and now continue with the easy portion of the schedule though they traditionally haven't played very well at New Mexico (even to 2008 undefeated team struggled for awhile there against a bad Lobo squad)

2. TCU (2-0) – Ranked below Utah here because I don't believe they will win at Utah this season. Simple as that. Frogs are the most talented team though

3. Air Force (2-0, 1-0) – Finally got the BYU monkey off their back. This week's game against Oklahoma represents a nothing to lose, everything to gain situation. Win and jump into the national rankings easily. Lose and nobody really cares since it was expected. Get blown out and BYU still forms the baseline for where you are perceived in the conference after beating them last week.

4. BYU (1-1, 0-1) – The brutal early schedule continues for the Cougars. First Washington, then at Air Force and now at Florida St. Not good for a team with a quarterback controversy in full force. On the plus, still way more talented than any of the others ranked below them here.

5. San Diego St. (2-0) – A good start to the season, but nobody really knows much about them. Nicholls St. and New Mexico St. have a way of keeping us from learning about a team.

6. Wyoming (1-1) – Good luck for the next few weeks against this schedule. You will need it Cowboys. At this point, surviving to the San Diego St. game at the end of October with bowl hopes intact would be an accomplishment.

7. UNLV (0-2, 0-1) – It hasn't been a good start for the Rebels against a really difficult schedule. Wisconsin and Utah are ranked highly for a reason and while this weeks opponent, Idaho, isn't nearly as good as those team are (see the Vandals loss to Nebraska as evidence of that), they were a bowl team a year ago that UNLV must play on the road.

8. New Mexico (0-2) – It has been as bad a start as possible for New Mexico having given up more than a point per minute. On the plus side Oregon is a national title contender and Texas Tech is really good (an underrated) so maybe there is some hope to win a few games soon (UNLV, UTEP and New Mexico St. are all on the slate before the middle of October and while there is no way the Lobos win them all, one or maybe even two is possible)

9. Colorado St. (0-2) – This team is headed towards smoking crater territory. Nevada scored on every possession except the kneel down at the end of the game last week and Colorado who smoked these guys two weeks ago was incinerated at Cal. Also, there is no offense to speak of. 9 points in two game won't cut it anywhere.