Today is part two of WyoNation’s look at Cowboy football players who could do some damage to the Wyoming record book this season. Earlier, WR Chris McNeill was the focus and today we move on to the 2011 Mountain West freshman of the year Brett Smith.
Brett Smith
The sophomore out of Salem, Oregon was better than anyone could have expected last fall. Smith was the second most productive player in the conference behind Kellen Moore of Boise State, averaging 256.3 yards of total offense per game. Last year Smith posted 2,622 passing yards with 20 touchdown passes and an additional 710 rushing yards. What UW records can he achieve with another solid season? His targets for this season are listed below:
Passing Yards: 1,197
Smith only needs half of his production from last season to crack the top ten in all time passing yards. If the sophomore signal caller can match his production from last year he would move into 9th place ahead of Randy Welniak with something close to 5,200 career passing yards. With a few hundred yards improvement over his freshman numbers Smith could pass Scott Runyan and Corey Bramlet who sit in 7th and 6th place all time. Probability: 99%
Passing Touchdowns: 3
With 20 touchdowns last season Smith has left himself easy work to crack the UW top ten. He only needs 3 more touchdown passes to make the top ten putting him in a tie with Phil Davis and Tom Wilkinson. A season just as productive as last year would see Smith have 40 total career touchdown passes putting him in fourth place all time ahead of Jay Stoner and Joe Hughes. Probability: 99%
Total Offensive Yards: 1,081
Number sixteen is also on the doorstep of the total offense top ten list. With 1,100 yards this season, Smith would rank tenth with about 4,400 yards of total offense. Tenth place is currently held by a certain recent QB who wanted to play closer to his home of California and then transferred to a school in Tennessee (must have failed geography) who had 4,413 yards of total offense in his career. With a season just as productive as last, Smith would climb to 5th on the list ahead of Joe Hughes who had 6,249 yards of total offense in his Cowboy career. Probability: 99%
Bottom Line
Smith is on the edge of breaking into the top ten of pretty much every major career statistic for a quarterback. The good news is, he has three more seasons to potentially start and if his production continues or improves from his freshman year there is a very good chance he will be the best QB in Wyoming history statistically. Now let’s hope he can rack up a bunch of wins to go with that!
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