Hello everyone, been gone doing some additional training at lovely Ft. Sill (worst place in the USA) but now am home for at least a few months. This being my first post in a while I might as well put down what I have been thinking during training so its going to be a long one
. Very excited for the first season of SUU being in the Big Sky, glad to be back and here are my picks:
1. Cal Poly
2. Montana State
3. Montana
4. EWU
5. Southern Utah
6. Portland State
7. Weber State
8. North Dakota
9. Northern Arizona
10. Sacramento State
11. Northern Colorado
12. Idaho State
13. UC Davis
Despite a few losses to our offense and defense this season I feel that we will be able to compete quite well in the Big Sky conference right from the get go, especially with the return of who I believe to be one of if not the best QB in the league in Brandon Sorensen. Every year under Ed Lamb we have improved beyond expectations and seem to have gotten into a trend of reloading quite well. Last year against Big Sky Teams (new and old) we went 4-2 with a dominating win against Sac State after their upset of OSU, beating our in state rival Weber State and getting the monkey off our backs by beating NAU in another close game. Another fact that should be mentioned is that both our losses came on a combined 10pts. against a good Cal Poly team and much improved UND. Our schedule as of now I am somewhat happy with as we play several of the top teams in the Big Sky (not so much 2 FBS games), here are my super early outlook for our schedule:
-@ Utah State
(L 35-28): Good in state game against a Utah State team that has been improving steadily under Coach Anderson. Will be a good game (last time we played was a shootout) and (I believe) a winnable one for us, but will say Anderson and the Aggies will be ready for us.
-@ Cal
(L 42-24): Tough road game to draw and our 2nd FBS opponent in two weeks, will be a close 1st half with the bears pulling away in the 2nd.
-@ Portland State
(W 38-24): Potential 3rd away game to open the season (have an open date in between Cal and this, may get filled) and our conference opener against the Vikes of Portland State. Think this will be a good game but think Sorensen and Co. will win the day for us here.
-vs. Montana State
(W 27-24): Welcoming the Bobcats to Cedar City for our first home game in the Big Sky, last time we met we lost a close fought game in a snow storm in Bozeman (7-3) but with much better weather will be a much higher scoring game. We have always played better @ home and with this being our first potential home game of the season, think we can beat the Bobcats on our home turf.
-vs. Sac State
(W 31-14): We welcome the Hornets to Cedar City for the 2nd time in two years and see much of the same result. Sorensen and co. after a slow start came back with our defense shutting down the hornets for the entire 2nd half, see our defense playing well again and our offense moving the ball well.
-@ Montana
(L 42-38): A matchup of high scoring offenses against defenses that lost a few starters (in the case of the Griz 9) that will be doing all the can to slow them down. I dont know who to pick in this one mainly because of the lack of starters returning on defense for Montana really means Sorensen might have a great day throwing the ball, but it being in Missoula gives the Griz an edge. Give the Griz the win but dont count us out, can see us able to pull the upset.
-vs. Weber State
(W 28-21): Glad that the rivalry seems to be back on and am looking forward to seeing the Wildcats come down to Cedar City. Last years game was a great one and I can see this one being much of the same, giving the win to us for having home field advantage.
-vs. EWU
(L 31-28): Last time the Eagles came to Cedar City they left with a dominating 41-28 victory, the following year the National Champs escaped with a 31-24 win in a close game. I am giving us a loss here because the Eagles always seem to reload well at the QB position, think we can win this one but will depend on the quality of the EWU QB.
-@ UND
(W 35-24): The Sioux (guess we can call them that now?) have improved very well over the past few seasons and the last couple of games between us have been good ones. However we are undefeated at the Alerus Center so far in the series and see us able to win again in another good game.
-@ NAU
(W 24-21): Easily our biggest rival in the Big Sky besides Weber State my Thunderbirds were able to get the monkey off our backs last season and beat the lumberjacks in yet another close classic. I think we can do it again but as usual, will be a nail biter.
So at this point I have us going 6-4 (6-2 in the Big Sky) with a couple of open dates left to be filled in the schedule. Chances are we are going to fill @ least one of them with a D2 school (Dixie or Adams State) but I hope that we can try to get an FCS opponent or two @ Cedar City. FCS schools that we could potentially schedule are NDSU, Central Arkansas, North Carolina A&T & Davidson or we might be able to get brand new FBS schools UTSA or Texas State on our schedule which could be a very winnable game.
