WAC: UTSA and Louisiana Tech head the pack

WAC conference teams have been quite successful thus far this season against non-conference opponents, but until this weekend, only one conference game has been played. That was between the University of Texas San Antonio and New Mexico State. UTSA defeated New Mexico State in that matchup.

Overall, four of the seven conference teams are above .500, while one is playing .500 ball and two are below .500. The team with the best overall record is UTSA who is undefeated at 5-0. Louisiana Tech, thought by many to be the best team in the conference, is 4-0 overall. San Jose State is 4-1, Utah State with their loss against BYU on Friday dropped to 4-2. Texas State is 2-2 on the season, while New Mexico State is 1-4 and Idaho remains winless at 0-5.

This weekend three games will be played by WAC schools with two of them conference games. New Mexico State visits Idaho in a matchup of teams that have won just one game out of nine played between the two. Idaho holds a 13-5 SU lead in the series over New Mexico State. Last year however, New Mexico State won 31-24, while Idaho won the year before 34-17.

New Mexico State is winless in its last six road games and has lost 14 consecutive conference games away from home. The only real positive about the team thus far in the season is Austin Franklin their wide receiver who leads the conference in receptions with a 6.6 average per game and in total yards receiving with over 125 yards per game. NMS also leads the conference in the least amount of penalty yards

Idaho has lost eight straight games and six consecutive on their home field. Their placekicker Trey Farquhar has made 6 of his 7 field goal attempts and has 7 field goals in his college career that are over 50 yards in length.

Texas State visits New Mexico in another conference matchup. New Mexico has won the only game between the two teams back in 2003 by the score of 72-8.

Texas State has scored a total of 3 points during the fourth quarter of all their games this season. They have good special teams, as the leading punt returner in the conference is Andy Erickson. Texas State also has the conference’s leading kick off returning in Jafus Gaines.

New Mexico lost last week to a tough Boise State team 32-29. In the game, they had just 44 yards passing, but rolled on the ground for 330 yards. The team has two wins in one season for the first time since 2008 when they finished 4-8.

The third game on the schedule for the WAC this weekend pits UNLV against Louisiana Tech. The two teams have played only twice prior to today’s game and UNLV is 2-0 SU in those games.

UNLV was beaten handily by Utah State last weekend 35-13 and are losers of 17 consecutive games on the road. Louisiana Tech has won 11 consecutive games in the regular season and has scored more points than any other WAC team in the first and third quarters.