All-WAC teams are out and Toledo is the bowl opponent

AGGIES VS. ROCKETS IN THE POTATO BOWL
You likely have heard already, but Utah State will be playing Toledo in the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl. The Rockets produced the nation's 28th best offense and the 105th ranked defense when it comes to total yards. The Aggies on the other hand rank 26th in offense and 15th in defense.

In other words, USU has plenty more than just a slight edge in the yardage numbers.

We'll talk plenty more about this in the next week and a half though.


ALL-WAC TEAMS RELEASED
Utah State lands 14 players on this year's All-WAC teams, with eight of them making their way onto the first team. Gary Andersen was also named as the WAC's Coach of the Year.

First team
OT - Eric Schultz
C - Tyler Larsen
RB - Kerwynn Williams
QB - Chuckie Keeton

DE - Al Lapuaho
LB - Jake Doughty
LB - Kyler Fackrell
CB - Will Davis

Second team
WR - Matt Austin 
OG - Jamie Markosian

DE - Jordan Nielsen
LB - Zach Vigil
CB - Nevin Lawson
S - McKade Brady

A FEW THOUGHTS ON ALL-WAC...
You kind of have to just expect the WAC to totally mess up a few things in whatever they do these days, and this is no different.

First thing: Colby Cameron as the Offensive Player of the Year... The WAC dun goofed on this one. Yeah, I get that Cameron has put up some crazy awesome offensive numbers, but so could a lot of quarterbacks on good teams who stay in the entire game to run up the score on teams. Can you imagine how insane Chuckie Keeton's numbers would be if the playbook was kept wide open all game, with CK still on the field late against the likes of UTSA, Texas State, New Mexico State and Southern Utah? Not to mention Cameron pretty much fell flat in La Tech's two biggest WAC games. Keeton was exceptional in those big WAC games.

The WAC set somewhat of a precedent last year for team success being a factor in the postseason awards when they tabbed Adrien Cole as last year's Defensive Player of the Year over Bobby Wagner. They didn't keep it consistent this year. The team that dominated conference play didn't have either one of the POY awards, and that just isn't right. Keeton should have been the Offensive Player of the Year without question.

When it comes to overall selections, San Jose State led everyone with 16 guys getting picked. Both the Spartans and Bulldogs had nine selections to the first team, while USU only had eight first-teamers and 14 total selections. Dafuq is up with that??

Travis Johnson deserved Defensive POY, so no complaints there. How a guy like Bojay Filimoeatu gets left off of both teams is a mindf*** though. Kellen Bartlett should have easily occupied that second-team tight end spot over Chase Harper too.

Kellen and Bojay still have a trophy to show for this season at least. Still a bit of a bummer to see some deserving guys left out of the mix while the second place team gets two more guys earning all-WAC and the third place team has just as many as USU. I guess you could just say that's the WAC being wack...

That's WACtastic!! Polls and awards are out!

The Western Athletic Conference released its preseason polls and all-conference honors today, giving Utah State just about the same level of hype that most of us expected to see.

Nabbing 15 of a 25 first place votes, the Aggies were picked as the favorite to win the conference by the media, with New Mexico State, Denver, Louisiana Tech and Idaho rounding out the top half of the projected standings.

The coaches left me scratching my head a little bit, but since five of them are total n00bs to this whole WAC thing, I suppose I can give them a bit of a pass on duffing this one. Utah State and New Mexico State shared the first place votes at an even 5-5 split, but at some point on another coach's ballot, they put USU a notch lower than the bad Aggies. So technically, NMSU gets the nod as the favorite in the coaches poll, but like I said, n00bs all over this bitch.

It's pretty much tradition at this point for a Utah State player to be picked as the WAC's preseason Player of the Year, with five of the last six preseason polls giving that nod to an Aggie by either the coaches or the media. This year's guy was the no-brainer pick with Preston Medlin getting the nod by both the coaches and media as preseason Player of the Year.

Finally out of the basement... Let's catch up

After 27 different posts from the start of April until Mountain West Day (w00t!), mixed in with a little bit of this being the slow time of the college sports year, a break was in order. Plus, between moving back to glorious Logan, UT (w00t again), a little illness, getting my fat ass into shape, and undoing that work with plenty of Nintendo, time was sparse.

But now, as Jim Rome would say, I'm out of the basement. So let's get to catching up, even if there's not a whole lot to mention.

• UTAH STATE BASEBALL!!!! They're currently at the National Club Baseball Association World Series in Georgia, two wins away from a national championship!! It'd be pretty freaking awesome if our team was able to finish this thing off and come out champs right in the heart of SEC country where USU has developed quite the quality rep since the start of last football season. Two more wins and the championship comes to Logan!!
• A new football recruit. Quarterback from SoCal. One has got to think that either one of he or Jeff Manning is going to redshirt this year, with the other serving as the 3rd string QB, and likely ending up never seeing the field and redshirting as well.
• Phil Steele put out his preseason all-WAC team. Tyler Larsen, Bojay Filimoeatu, Nevin Lawson and Kerwynn Williams (the kick returner) made the first team. Chuckie Keeton, Kerwynn Williams (the running back), Oscar Molina-Sanchez, Al Lapuaho, Jumanne Robertson and Kerwynn Williams (the punt returner) made second team. Eric Schultz, Patrick Ward, McKade Brady and Tyler Bennett made up the third team. And yes, Kerwynn Williams landed on there three times.
• Salt Lake Metro has a couple potential USU recruits who are tearing things up this summer. East High School's Parker Van Dyke was one of the top players at the Nor Cal Spring Showcase and has reportedly narrowed his college choices to Utah State, Arizona State, Stanford and Utah. South Sevier High School's Race Parsons was also named one of the top players and is a guy who the coaches will likely be watching closely throughout his senior year.
• One of these days, those basketball final grades will get finished.... Then some way too early season previews... One of these days...
• Boise State and San Diego State are apparently still set on going to the Big East, for which I personally don't blame them. I just can't envision the Big East losing AQ status. The people in charge of the BCS aren't going give up any power they don't have to give up, nor give any power away. If you're a smaller school and can have AQ status to play for, take it. You can always just pack up and bail a few years down the road if a playoff in some form happens.

That's all for now. Surely more stuff will come about soon, and being out of the basement and all, there will be a bit more content here.

It's good to be back!!!

Medlin makes the first team (as he damn well should have!)

All-WAC honors were announced Sunday, and for the most part, they got it right.

The all-WAC first team consisted of Deonte Burton, Wendell McKines, Vander Joaquim, Olek Czyz aaaaand.... Preston Freaking Medlin!!

Earning this honor is nothing short of totally deserved for a player who has been the heart and soul of Utah State basketball this season. If you call yourself an Aggie fan and don't love pretty much everything about Medlin's game, I can only wonder if there's any lead pipe big enough that could knock some sense into you. He plays hard, he plays team ball, he's a very good defender, a phenomenal scorer and above all, you can just tell he loves Aggie basketball like the rest of us.

He is only the second Aggie sophomore ever to earn first-team all-conference honors, joining Nate Harris, who was named to the Big West's first team in 2004. Harris went on the be first-team all-Big West in 2005 and first-team all-WAC in 2006 to become the only Aggie to be three-time first-teamer. Medlin now has the chance to be the second should he keep up the momentum of his game over the next two seasons.

As for the rest of the all-WAC team, everyone knew that Burton and McKines were locks for the first team, with Medlin essentially in that conversation too after USU's strong finish to climb back up to at least the top-half of the league.

From there, things were largely up in the air for the other two spots. Hawaii had a couple guys worthy of consideration, Kevin Olekaibe is a superstar deserving of first team honors, and for how thoroughly Nevada dominated the conference, you couldn't count out them getting two guys on the first team.