Ragin Dave's WAY TOO EARLY Wyoming breakdown
Last week, I broke down the Cajuns 1st game of the season vs McNeese State, a game I feel strongly the Cajuns should control from start to finish. Game 2 is a little different, this will be a much tougher test than game 1 against another team named the Cowboys. In game 2 the Wyoming Cowboys of the Mountain West Conference come to Cajun Field to face the Cajuns.
Wyoming finished 8-5 in 2019, they capped off a 7-5 season with a 38-17 victory vs SunBelt foe Georgia State University in Tuscon, Arizona in the Arizona Bowl. That was actually the 2nd SBC team that the Cowboys defeated in 2019, as they had earlier defeated Texas State in San Marcos 23-14. The Cowboys went 3-1 in non-conference play. They defeated SEC member Missouri 37-31 in their opener, then defeated the before mentioned Texas State, they also defeated former SBC member Idaho 21-16 before losing to AAC member Tulsa 24-21 in Tulsa. The MWC was not as good to Wyoming as their non conference schedule was, as they went 4-4 in conference play. They defeated UNLV, New Mexico, Nevada and Colorado State. They had losses to SDSU, Boise State in overtime, Utah State and Air Force. Their best wins were, by far, Georgia State and Missouri as most of the teams they defeated in the MWC were bottom feeders. Again they did have really good showings vs a good Boise, SDSU and Utah State teams, but came up short in each of these.
In 2020 they face the Cajuns in game 2 of their season after they open up with FCS opponent Weber State. Also on their non conference schedule this year are Utah and Ball State. Inside the MWC they face off vs UNLV, SDSU, Air Force, Colorado State, Utah State, Nevada, Boise and New Mexico, the same 8 teams they faced in 2019.
In my week 1 breakdown, I mentioned how McNeese State's offense was very balanced 50/50 on run/pass breakdown, that was not the case with Wyoming they were run dominant. The Wyoming passing game was a complete disaster last year but their running game was really good. In 2019 Wyoming rushed for 3051 yards and a 4.9 yard per carry average they also had 27 TD's on the ground, while they only passed for 1770 yards and 11 TD's and 9 INT's. They had 3 different QB's last year and 2 of them return, none of the 3 were very good throwing the ball. The leader was Sean Chambers, he played in 8 game and passed for 915 yards. He only completed 43% of his passes and had 7 TD's and 3 INT's. Tyler Vander Waal who has entered the transfer portal played in 8 games as well and completed 51% of his passes but only had 1 TD and 4 INT's and Levi Williams played in 3 games and completed 49% of his passes with 3 TD's and 2 INT's. According to their website Chambers and Williams should be the guys leading the charge again in 2020. They do have 2 other QB's on the roster JC Coulter a Sophomore and Ryan Marquez also a Sophomore.
As stated above this team will rely on the run, more than the pass and this team has a really good stable of backs returning. Their #1 rusher will be Xazavian Valladay, he is a Junior that rushed for 1292 yards and 6 TD's and a 5.1 yard per carry average, but he is not their only weapon running the ball. Sean Chambers their QB rushed for 633 yards and a 6.3 ypc average. Titus Swen rushed for 356 yards and 5.2 yards per carry average adn Trey Smith rushed for 236 yards and a 5.2 ypc average. Smith is a transfer from the University of Louisville. As a team they averaged 4.9 yards per carry. They are going to try to run the ball and run the ball allot and they are good at it especially early in the season while they are figuring out their QB situation.
Not only was the passing game weak last season, they also lose their top 3 WR's. But none of them had great numbers. Their leading receiver last year was "Rocket" Ismael's son. He only had 23 catches for 315 yards and 2 TD's. Their #2 guys was Conway with 23 catches for 314 yards and 1 TD and the #3 guy had 20 catches and 2 TD's. None of them return in 2020. Their leading returning receiver was Valladay their #1 running back with 11 Catches for 211 yards and 2 TD's. They did not have a receiver last year with more than 2 TD's. So obviously their passing game does not look like it has significantly improved.
On defense they were pretty good, only giving up 17.77 points per game, but again their offense was not overly powerful as they only averaged 25.38 points per game. They are similar to McNeese on defense as they are really good vs the run, they only gave up 2.9 yards per carry on defense and holding opponents to 107 yards per game on the ground. They were a lot more forgiving in the air. Opponents averaged 257 yards per game through the air. They gave up a total of 364 yards per game total.
They lose their leading tackler from last season., Alijah Haliburton who had 130 tackles last season including 11 TFL from the Strong Safety position. They also lose their #2 tackler in Logan Wilson a LB who had 105 tackles as well as 8.5 TFL and their #3 tackler in Cassh Maluia who had 61 tackles including 7 TFL. The leading returning tackler will be Keyon Blankenbaker who had 57 tackles and 0 TFL's. Solomon Byrd does return, a Redshirt Freshman last year who lead the team in Sacks with 6.5. They only had 12 INT's on the year and the before mentioned Wilson, Haliburton and Maluia had 8 of those and obviously do not return. So they have plenty to replace on the defensive side of the ball.
On special teams they will have to replace their punter, who had 63 of their 68 punts last year, Ryan Galovich. Chances are it will be Tim Zaleski who had 3 punts for 44.67 yard average. As it appears he sat out most of 2019 with injury. He was their main punter in 2017 and 2018. They will also have to replace their FG and Kickoff guy in Cooper Rothe. As he was the guy who did both all season last year. It appears that job will belong to Tanner Shattuck a redshirt Transfer from University of Idaho, who had no stats while there. They also added a transfer kicker Nick Hull from Cornell.
They will also have to replace their only punt returner in Austin Conway who averaged 10.76 yards per return and Tyler Hall who had most of their Kickoff returns, who averaged 33 yards per return.
So they have plenty to replace on both defense and special teams. According to 247, they did not have a great recruiting class. They finished 7th in the MWC and 114 nationally. They signed 23 players of which 17 were 3 stars. The class was lead by cornerback Xavier Carter and TE Colin O'Brien. They signed 5 WR's and 5 LB's, clearly posistions of need as well as 2 QB's.
Wyoming is lead by Coach Craig Bohl, Bohl has coached as a HC for a long time, this will be his 7th year at Wyoming and his 18 as Head coach. Bohl came to Wyoming from North Dakota State where he won 3 National Championships. He started the history of what is the most dominant team in College Football. Bohl has had only 2 losing season at Wyoming, and those were his first 2. He has taken them to bowl games in 3 of the last 4 seasons, only missing out in 2018 where they went 6-6 and did not go to a bowl game. Overall he is 140-72 as a head coach but only 36-40 at Wyoming.
This will be a solid matchup for the Cajuns, but looking at what they lost from 2019, I feel the Cajuns should have the advantage at home.
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Originally Posted by RaginDave
