Who is the favorite to win the Mountain West Conference title?
Before the season, the answer to that question was easy. Perhaps the easiest answer in all of college football.
Boise State has been the traditionally dominant power in the league and the Broncos were coming off a trip to the College Football Playoff. So despite the loss of star running back Ashton Jeanty, the Broncos were a near unanimous favorite to win the MWC in 2025, with only UNLV being considered something of a threat, albeit not a significant one.
Now, though, the race for the MWC crown looks a lot different. And a lot more unpredictable.
Six weeks into the season, seven if you count Week 0, it is anyone’s best guess which team will win the conference.
Right now, seven teams have a better than .500 record:
- Fresno State (5-1).
- UNLV (5-0).
- San Diego State (4-1).
- Hawaii (4-2).
- Boise State (3-2).
- Utah State (3-2).
- New Mexico (3-2).
Of that group, only one has a losing record in conference play right now (New Mexico) while another is .500 (Hawaii).
Teams with a winning record in MWC play right now are:
- Fresno State (2-0).
- UNLV (1-0).
- San Diego State (1-0).
- Boise State (1-0).
- Utah State (1-0).
- San Jose State (1-0).
Realistically, any of the aforementioned teams could win the conference.
The Broncos haven’t looked to be their usual great selves, even though their losses are to fairly noteworthy teams — No. 16 Notre Dame and No. 24 USF.
Fresno State has been excellent at picking up wins against teams considered near or at its own level (think non-P4 teams), but the Bulldogs have largely eked by so far, barely pulling out wins against Hawaii and Nevada in league play.
UNLV is undefeated, but the Rebels’ opponents have been a disappointment. The combined winning percentage for teams beaten by UNLV this year is 7-19.
San Diego State has seemingly come out of nowhere this year and has arguably the best win by any team in the MWC, a 34-0 win against Cal, plus a dominant 45-24 win over Colorado State this weekend. But are the Aztecs for real? That’s a real question, given the program’s struggles in recent years.
Hawaii has been slowly building under Timmy Chang and things are trending even better this year, with a win over a P4 school in Stanford, a near loss Fresno State and a win on the road against Air Force. It is difficult to buy the Rainbow Warriors as true contenders though, at least until they beat multiple conference opponents on the road.
New Mexico has been one of the biggest surprises of the season under new head coach Jason Eck and the Lobos’ victory over UCLA made many pay attention to what was happening in Albuquerque. But a disappointing loss against San Jose State proved that New Mexico isn’t a burgeoning powerhouse in the MWC. At least not yet.
Speaking of San Jose State, the Spartans were picked to finish No. 3 in the MWC before the season, but have largely underperformed those expectations, with the exception being the win over New Mexico this weekend. San Jose State misses out on playing Boise State and UNLV this season, which could help the Spartans in the conference title race, but maybe not as much as was expected before actual football started being played.
And then there is Utah State. In their first year under Bronco Mendenhall, the Aggies have outperformed expectations, are 3-2 overall with a win against Air Force and two competitive — at times — losses to ranked SEC opponents in No. 5 Texas A&M and No. 20 Vanderbilt.
Utah State has the best losses in the league at this point, but not much in the way of good wins yet, with victories over UTEP, McNeese State and the aforementioned Falcons.
Utah State has a chance to record a much different kind of win this weekend, though, when it travels to Honolulu to take on the Hawaii.
Trips to Hawaii are always difficult — there’s a reason that NCAA rules call for teams to get a bye week either before or after a trip to Honolulu, plus teams are given the option to schedule a 13th game in seasons when they travel to the islands — and the Rainbow Warriors have traditionally been a much different team at home than on the road.
As an example, Mendenhall-led New Mexico went to Hawaii last year with everything to play for the last week of the regular season — with bowl eligibility on the line — and the Lobos came away with a loss only a few weeks removed from a bad Utah State obliterating Hawaii in Logan.
Hawaii at home is a real challenge for all but the best MWC teams.
Add in the fact that the Rainbow Warriors appear to be trending upward and are within a game of tying for the highest win total of Chang’s head coaching career, and Saturday’s late-night game presents a serious challenge for the Aggies. And that is before you get to things like Hawaii boasting a top 4 defense in the conference, with the Rainbow Warriors proving effective against both the run and the pass.
Given how things have gone in the MWC so far this season, USU is very much in the mix of things when it comes to the race for the conference title. At this point, it is difficult to eliminate any teams really, except for Air Force.
A win over Hawaii in the islands would go a long way to showing that Utah State is indeed ready and capable of competing alongside the best teams in the MWC. A win against the Rainbow Warriors would be the Aggies’ best victory thus far this season, when taking into account location, travel and impact.
A loss would bring the Aggies back down to Earth a little, though, and remind that this is the beginning of what should be a long-term rebuild of the program under Mendenhall. Utah State wasn’t expected to contend for anything this year except for perhaps bowl eligibility.
Is the Hawaii game a must-win for Utah State?
We’ll put it this way, it is as close as you get to one before having reached the midway point in the season.