Open discussion through the weekend.

Barring any big news, I will see you guys on Monday (game week!).

Less than 10 days away, so it’s time to start discussing these guys. The only good mainstream preview I found was this. That makes it sound like they could be a decent team, but then I checked out the forums, and fans don’t sound optimistic.

Any idea how good or bad Weber State is? I know we’re all assuming a win, but has anyone actually looked at them?

I thought these comments from Sitake were interesting, and at the end we see Andersen say they’re putting Weber State stuff into practice. It’s nice to hear they’ll use five WR sets, since their WR corp is the best in the Pac-12 — Bolden, Villamin, Jarmon, Guyton, and Lucas. They can even go seven deep with Gilmore and Dockery completely serviceable players. WR is absolutely stacked.

I’m expecting Bolden and Villamin to be the main guys just by default, but Jarmon and Guyton have huge upside and could ultimately be better fits in this offense (dubious they’d jump Boldon or “Villytron”, though). Lucas has huge upside as well, but he probably won’t get as many snaps as the other four unless he breaks big gainers early in the year, and they simply can’t keep him off the field. Another possibility is using Lucas on kick/punt returns.

Some other guys I like on offense: the entire O-line (people are sleeping on them), Ryan Nall (needs to lose 10-15lbs, but I think he can do some damage as-is), Caleb Smith (this is his elusive breakout year), and Chris Brown. Brent VanderVeen and Deltron Sands are sleepers. I like Sands more than Haskins. Shane Wallen has looked pesky. I don’t expect a ton from him, but he could be a guy who is productive in a specific and limited role and get tough yardage. Zach Lucas and Blake Brandel are good looking OL backups. One final player I should mention is Noah Togiai. He looks fluid as a pass catcher, but with the TE depth I don’t know if he’ll factor in, but I like him.

I was also reading about the effects of time zone changes on the body (and how late afternoon is the ideal time to play sporting events), and it made me think the Michigan game will likely be a MI blowout. That thought will be revisited after I see how they perform vs Weber State.

My lady doesn’t watch the Beavs too much or follow any of this stuff [she doesn’t even read my blog], so I decided to randomly run Seth Collins by her and get some feedback. I played her the StS media day interview and his other interview on YouTube.

Her impression: “He seems like the type of guy who would get into off the field problems like bar fights” ..”or lose his cool and get into a locker room fight.” And my favorite: “He seems like a guy who would sleep with another player’s girlfriend.”

Haha. I love her.

I then told her I wrote a piece saying he seemed like a headcase, and people got angry with me. She agreed something seemed off about him. She said he looked like a “pretty boy” who was “full of himself.” I said people on the blog got mad at me and argued that after getting smacked around by Michigan he could mature and change, and she said, “Yeah that’s possible, but with guys like him it’s usually ingrained and hard to change.”

Well, that’s a lady’s perspective. My lady is about as well-balanced/normal as women get.