Hey there folks, sorry for the down time in the blogging action. Real life has gotten in the way of my digital Wyoming Cowboy time but I hope to make up for it with the return of Toxic Tuesday! It has been a while since our last toxic differential standings and these new standings really do reflect the lay of the land in terms of the current status of Mountain West football. Every team with a winning conference record has a positive rating while every team with a losing conference record has a neutral or negative rating. I find it amazing that year after year this simple calculation can accurately rate the strength of football teams. This week’s standings with stats courtesy of cfbstats.com are below!
In terms of Wyoming’s rating there are two things that jump out of me. First of all while the offense is putting up good numbers with a healthy Brett Smith the boys in brown and gold aren’t really all that explosive. The Cowboys are 9th in the Mountain West in explosive plays after finishing 6th last season. The drop off seems to be in the rushing department where Wyoming has only had 6 explosive running plays as compared to 19 last year.
Secondly, Wyoming has flipped their turnover margin from -1 in early October to +4 in mid November. Making the Cowboys only one of five MW teams with a positive turnover margin. So from that standpoint Wyoming has improved and it will be key to keep that trend going to end 2012 on a positive note.