The game of the week for the Mountain West is this Air Force vs. TCU matchup and the winner will have a leg up in winning the Mountain West Conference. TCU is coming off of a shocking 50-48 loss to the Baylor Bears last Friday night where their vaunted defense that had led the NCAA in total defense the past three years and gave up the most points since they allowed 70 to Texas Tech back in 2004. The TCU defense struggled more in the passing game than anything else and that is not the strength of Air Force; the Falcons will throw the ball but it will happen once they lull a team to sleep with their run option attack.
The TCU defense did not perform great against the run last week and gave up 150 yards and 4.2 yards per carry. The Air Force running game will look to take advantage of the weaker TCU defense with running back Asher Clark and quarterback Tim Jefferson. Look for those two players to have a big game in the rushing department and be the key reason to why Air Force will win this game. The yards will come for Falcon offense and the time of possession is also something Air Force will need to control in order to win this game.
The Air Force defense looked just average against South Dakota and gave up 20 points. TCU quarterback Casey Pachall had an impressive game in his first career start and nearly led TCU to a comeback with 25 points in the fourth quarter. The Air Force secondary which has one great corner in Anthony Wright who will be going up against TCU's top receiver and should be able to control what ever receiver that he covers, but the other corner for Air Force is less experienced and could be a weak spot for the Falcon defense. The front seven for Air Force is undersized and will need to get to Casey Pachall and apply pressure to knock him off his game and make him uncomfortable. In the running game TCU has Ed Wesley, Waymon James and Matthew Tucker who have the ability to wear down the Air Force defensive line and linebackers late in the game.
TCU should come out fired up because of their loss last week and will try to take out their frustration against Air Force, but this will be another tough test for TCU since this is possibly the best Air Force team since 1998.
The games kicks off at 1:30 p.m. MT and will be on Versus.