2018 College Football Team Previews: Portland State Vikings
Portland State Vikings
Location: Portland, OR
Coach: Bruce Barnum (12-22) 4th Season
Stadium: Providence Park (Capacity: 22,000)/Hillsboro Stadium (Capacity: 7,600)
CSJ Projections:
13th: Big Sky
3rd: Oregon
84th: FCS
214th: Division I
2017 In A Sentence: After a promising start that included competitive losses to FBS opponents BYU and Oregon State, Portland State regressed to go winless for the 2017 season (0-11) — only the second winless season in school history.
Biggest Shoes to Fill: OG Tyshon Mosley started every game for the Vikings at left guard. He started all 20 games in his two year career at Portland State, missing two as a junior due to injury. In that time, the Vikings averaged well over 400 yards per game on offense and over 200 yards per game rushing.
Key Player: TE Charlie Taumoepeau, now a junior, put up big numbers with 45 receptions for 673 yards and three touchdowns last year while being named to the All-BSC second team. He averaged 15.0 yards per catch and had the most receptions by a tight end at PSU since Viking Hall of Famer Barry Naone’s 48 catches in 1988.
Fearless Prediction: The Vikings are again a very young team but can only go up from last year. Two FBS opponents in Nevada and Oregon begin the season just as the team did last year and the school moved all but one its games to the smaller Hillsboro Stadium from Providence Park. Expect PSU to get in the win column at least a couple of times but this team reminds many of the first Coach Barnum team where little expectations were garnered yet still won the Big Sky that year.
Originally from LaMoure, North Dakota, Kent is a 1996 graduate of North Dakota State University. His prior writing experience is over 15 years having previously worked with D2football.com, I-AA.org, and College Sporting News before coming to College Sports Journal in 2016. His main focus is college football is the Missouri Valley Football Conference within the Division I FCS. And in 2017, he began also to look at the FBS Group of Five conferences of the American Athletic, Conference USA, Mid-American, Mountain West, and Sun Belt.
Reach him at this email or click below:
