MWC slips among the pigskin odds and ends

Scattershooting around the college football scene while taking note of how Mountain West football is slipping with Idaho defeating Colorado State, Navy beating Air Force and UNLV's humiliation by Nevada-Reno.

Is Idaho really 2-0 in the Mountain West? Yup, with wins over San Diego State and Colorado State. With Oklahoma losing to Miami and slipping to two losses, Florida State has made BYU's schedule look even weaker by losing at Boston College to slip to 2-3 with the locals nipping at Bobby Bowden's pants.

THUMBS UP: Harvey Unga missed BYU's opener against Oklahoma but has now replaced Matt Asiata as the league's top rusher. Unga is averaging 86.2 yards per game and 6.2 yards per carry.

THUMBS DOWN: Gotta be UNLV against Nevada wherein the Rebels gave up 772 yards on 74 plays and the 0-3 WAC Wolfpack had three rushers gain 170 yards or more. Up next? Unga.

THEY SAID IT: Las Vegas columnist Ed Graney on UNLV's defense: "(Mike) Sanford is 13-39 at UNLV, but what might be even more troubling than his failure to win is his utter inability to identify anyone capable of coaching defense. Dennis Therrell is the third defensive coordinator under Sanford.

The names change. The results don't."

STATISTICALLY SPEAKING: The MWC is 18-17 against non-conference foes, and some of those were gimmes against Texas State, Nicholls State and New Mexico State. Still, the MWC is tied with the Big East at 25-26 (.490) in games against automatic qualifier BCS conferences the past three years.

AFTER FURTHER REVIEW: Cougar senior QB Max Hall has 10 interceptions in five games yet is the league's No. 1 passer (average yards) and No. 15 in the NCAA and is No. 14 in the country in pass efficiency at 155.7 just 5 rating points from overtaking TCU's Andy Dalton as the league's leader in that category. Hall needs 7 TD passes to tie John Beck as the MWC's all-time leader at 79.

MY MWC PLAYER OF THE WEEK: TCU punt return specialist Jeremy Kerley had 3 punts for a whopping 123 yards and a touchdown against SMU. Better boot it out of bounds.

DUMB AND DUMBER: The squabble between DirecTV and Versus (Comcast) remains the prime idiotic underachievement of two partners signed up to peddle the Mountain West. Some partners, eh?

YEAH, BUT ...: Bronco Mendenhall announced on Monday WR McKay Jacobson would be out 4 to 6 weeks with a hamstring pull. That is most likely the very worst case painted for Mendenall for Jacobson. Bank on it, he will be back for TCU.