For quite a few reasons this past week was not the greatest for the Mountain West. The conference’s once bright future now hangs by a thread with its overall survival now in question. Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State and San Diego State are all excited about their respective futures while the rest sit in silence. There’s already been a lot said and more will be said, but here isn’t going to be the time or place for that as the focus will (mostly) be what’s happening on the field of play itself.
Week 3 Mountain West Standings / AP Poll Rankings
| Rk | Team | Record | MW Record | AP Poll |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | San Jose State | 3-0 | 1-0 | – |
| 2 | UNLV | 3-0 | 0-0 | RV (29th) |
| 3 | Fresno State | 2-1 | 0-0 | – |
| 4 | Boise State | 1-1 | 0-0 | RV (27th) |
| 5 | Hawai’i | 1-2 | 0-0 | – |
| 6 | San Diego State | 1-2 | 0-0 | – |
| 7 | Utah State | 1-2 | 0-0 | – |
| 8 | Colorado State | 1-2 | 0-0 | – |
| 9 | Nevada | 1-3 | 0-0 | – |
| 10 | New Mexico | 0-3 | 0-0 | – |
| 11 | Wyoming | 0-3 | 0-0 | – |
| 12 | Air Force | 1-2 | 0-1 | – |
San Jose State remains technically at the top of the standings for now, but Fresno State will take on New Mexico for the potential right to stand alongside the Spartans at the top of the table. UNLV and Boise State remain just outside the top 25 and are only a win or two plus a loss from teams at the back end from getting in. The Rebels did get to celebrate being in the top 25 in the Coaches Poll for the first time in program history. It’s a sign of the programs increasing competency and hopefully growth for a program that’s had a long run of poor form in football.
Walker’s MW Power Rankings
1. UNLV
- Last Week: 2nd
- Week 3 game: 23-20 Win @ Kansas
I hesitated to put UNLV at the top but after an impressive win at Kansas I’m making the move to put them at the top. The Rebels still have yet to give up more than 20 points in a game, something the rest of the conference would love to have on their resume and have performed well enough on offense to take advantage of the solid defense.
2. Boise State
- Last Week: 1st
- Week 3 game: Bye
Moving a team down during a bye week feels like it’s against some rule. But when other teams have a chance to prove themselves and you don’t, that’s what can happen. Boise State is still probably the conference favorite, but will need to stake their claim to the top spot in these power rankings in the coming weeks (because that honor would mean so much to them).
3. Fresno State
- Last Week: 3rd
- Week 3 Game: 48-0 Win vs New Mexico State
Nothing much to report except that Fresno State looks pretty solid. Even if it is New Mexico State, a perennial doormat (usually) in college football, shutting out a team is no small task and neither is putting up 48 points. The Bulldogs remain one of the likely contenders in the conference.
4. San Jose State
- Last Week: 4th
- Week 3 Game: 31-10 Win vs Kennesaw State
The Spartans are a bit iffy on whether to consider them a true contender alongside the BSU, UNLV, FSU crowd. They’re definitely above the riff-raff of the teams we’ll get to in a second, but are they really contenders? Their wins aren’t super-impressive but they are 3-0, which is a lot more than a bunch of teams have at this point. There’s plenty of football left to be played and plenty more chances for the Spartans to rid me of doubt.
5. Utah State
- Last Week: 7th
- Week 3 Game: 21-38 loss vs #12 Utah
It feels a little wrong to have the Aggies jumping two spots after losing by 17 points at home, but this ranking isn’t so much what USU did to earn it as what the teams ahead of them did to lose it. Utah State showed improvement this week despite the loss. Teams below them looked even worse, so someone has to take over this fifth spot. Either way, it’s not like USU is in the same tiers as the teams above them. There’s a pretty clear gap.
6. Air Force
- Last Week: 6th
- Week 3 Game: 3-31 Loss @ Baylor
The only thing keeping Air Force in the top half of the conference at this point is the incompetence of the many teams below them. Losses to SJSU and Baylor are concerning, especially given the lack of scoring. But those losses are also much better than the ones taken by other Mountain West teams, so there’s hope yet for the Falcons to salvage a solid season.
7. Hawai’i
- Last Week: 5th
- Week 3 Game:
A close loss to UCLA last week looked like a moral victory following a decent outing against Delaware State. But now having lost by 18 to a team ranked 101st in ESPN’s SP+ rankings and having scored just 13 points in a second straight game, the Warriors are not looking much like a solid team.
8. Colorado State
- Last Week: 8th
- Week 3 Game:
Talking all kinds of smack and then getting smacked by Colorado of all teams has to hurt. When you make Deion Sanders’ squad look good you have problems and it seems the Rams have a lot of problems to contend with over the next few weeks. One of those seems to be the health of Tory Horton, who played while injured in the loss to the Buffaloes but appears likely to miss CSU’s upcoming game against UTEP.
9. San Diego State
- Last Week: 10th
- Week 3 Game: 10-31 Loss @ California
Sean Lewis was supposed to come in and fix the offensive woes of the Aztecs, but in the last two games they have scored a total of 10 points, getting shut out by Oregon State and only putting up 10 against Cal. The Golden Bears may rank 28th in points allowed per game but Oregon State is 71st, so it’s not necessarily a strength of schedule issue. Marquez Cooper seems to be a legit all-conference contender at running back, but SDSU has some issues to deal with in the passing game to get a balanced offense.
10. Nevada
- Last Week: 9th
- Week 3 Game: 0-27 Loss @ Minnesota
Nevada played opponents very close in its first three games but completely fell off against Minnesota, the offense unable to get anything going in the slightest in the shutout loss. Probably the biggest positive for Nevada, though, is that their defense is holding steady at allowing fewer than 30 points in each of their games. It may not be an elite defense, but it’s not one of the worst in the country (they were 118th in points allowed in 2023, 89th so far this year). Setting aside the Minnesota game, the Wolf Pack have kept themselves in most games. It’s just that they’re not winning most of the time.
11. New Mexico
- Last Week: 11th
- Week 3 Game:
Putting up 19 points against Auburn will probably feel like a moral victory in the same vein as Utah State putting up 21 against Utah does for the Aggies. But it’s the lowest offensive output of the season for them and a third straight game of giving up at least 35 points. New Mexico is second to last in points allowed per game and that defense is going to keep wins off their record for several weeks to come.
12. Wyoming
- Last Week: 12th
- Week 3 Game:
It may not be a loss to Idaho, but losing to BYU seemed to put one of the first nails in the coffin of the Jay Sawvel era at Wyoming. Obviously, it’s too early to be calling for the job of a first-year coach, but the Cowboys have just been awful with the third-worst offense in the country at just 11.3 points per game — and it went up this week since they managed 14 points at home against the Cougars.
Biggest Risers
The “fortunate four” (or “unfaithfull four” depending on who you ask)
Boise State, San Diego State, Fresno State and Colorado State all had varying levels of success this week on the field but off the field all got a jump in prestige by the fact they’re all going to be in the Pac-12 starting in 2026. It’s not a massive jump, but it’s a lift nonetheless and each will gladly take the upgrade despite what it may cost.
Nick Nash
In a conference filled with wide receivers like Tory Horton, Ricky White III and Jalen Royals, you’d think it’d be hard for a receiver adjusting to a new quarterback would be able to top the accomplishments of those three.
Nick Nash is laughing at such an assumption.
Through three weeks, Nash leads the conference in receptions (34), receiving yards (485) and receiving TDs (six) with second-place players not even really being close to him (those totals being 22 catches, 384 yards and three TDs). Last week’s 17 catches for 225 yards and three TDs was absurdly impressive, but even through two weeks he had 17 catches and 260 yards with three TDs so it’s not like one week is making his season-long stats look completely out of whack. He’d still be the leader, or close to the leader, in every category regardless.
Biggest Fallers
The entire Mountain West?
I don’t necessarily mean the conference in terms of losing its key members (though that wouldn’t be a misplaced point in this section). I mean that the Mountain West went 3-8 for the week with only two wins against FBS teams and only one victory over a team ranked in the top 120 of ESPN SP+. UNLV beat Kansas, for the one quality win of the week, Fresno State blasted New Mexico State (a bottom 10 team this year) 48-0 and SJSU beat up on a Kennesaw State team in its first FBS season. Aside from that, zero wins.
In some defense of the league, most of the matchups were against P4 teams (of the losing teams, only Hawai’i wasn’t facing a P4 squad), but it’s not like they were the cream of the crop and several of the losses were pretty ugly. Nevada was shut out by Minnesota, Colorado State lost a rivalry game at home to Colorado, Wyoming lost by 20 to a middling BYU team and SDSU fell by 21 points to a California squad picked to finish in the bottom half of the ACC.
Perhaps the most telling stat of the conference’s struggles is that, as a whole, the Mountain West is 7-19 against FBS teams. Three weeks into the season, seven teams in the Mountain West remain winless against FBS competition.
Evan Svoboda
Wyoming’s post-Craig Bohl era was supposed to begin with Evan Svoboda stepping in at QB and helping the Cowboys repeat, or improve on, last year’s 9-4 overall record which was the program’s best mark in nearly 30 years. But the offense has tanked with Svoboda behind center as he’s completed just 30 of 70 passes for 308 yards, one passing TD and three interceptions. Svoboda ranks dead last among FBS quarterbacks in passer rating and PFF’s subjective grading ranking him 123rd (out of 125) among QBs with at least 50 dropbacks.
