The 2024 Mountain West Conference football season will be the 26th season of college football for the Mountain West Conference. It is part of the 2024 NCAA Division I FBS football season. 12 teams will compete in the conference during the season. The season will begin on August 24, 2024, and conclude with the Mountain West Conference Football Championship Game in December 2024. The full season schedule was released on February 29, 2024.
Conference news For the 2024 season, the Mountain West Conference signed a scheduling agreement with Oregon State and Washington State - the only remaining members of the Pac-12 Conference. All Mountain West teams will play a game against either Oregon State or Washington State. The games will not count toward conference standings, and neither Pac-12 school is eligible for the Mountain West Conference championship game.
On July 1, the Mountain West Conference announced a new broadcasting deal with TNT Sports, with several games to be broadcast on TNT's truTV channel as well as their streaming service Max.
Preseason Preseason Poll The Preseason Media Poll was released July 10, 2024. Boise State was selected as the preseason favorite to claim the 2024 Mountain West football regular-season title.
1 Boise State 543 (38) 2 UNLV 471 (4) 3 Fresno State 460 (4) 4 Air Force 384 5 Colorado State 337 6 Wyoming 296 7 Utah State 285 8 San Diego State 251 9 Hawaii 214 10 San Jose State 185 11 New Mexico 85 12 Nevada 77
Preseason All-Conference team Mountain West preseason awards and all-conference teams were announced on July 10.
Awards Position Player Class Position Team Award Offensive Player of the Year Ashton Jeanty Jr. RB Boise State Co-Defensive Player of the Year Ahmed Hassanein Sr. DLBoise State Co-Defensive Player of the Year Jackson Woodard Sr. LBUNLV Special Teams Player of the Year Jacob De Jesus Sr. KR/PRUNLV
All-conference team Position Player Class Team First Team Offense QB Mikey Keene Jr. Fresno State RB Ashton Jeanty Jr. Boise State Malik Sherrod Sr. Fresno State WR Tory Horton Gr.Colorado State Ricky White III Sr. UNLV Jalen Royals Sr. Utah State TE John Michael Gyllenborg Jr. Wyoming OL Kage Casey So. Boise State Jacob Gardner Gr. Colorado State Mose Vavao Sr.Fresno State Tiger Shanks Sr. UNLV Jack Walsh Jr.Wyoming First Team Defense DL Ahmed Hassanein Sr. Boise State Devo Bridges Sr.Fresno State Soane Toia Sr. San Jose State Jordan Bertagnole Gr.Wyoming LB Andrew Simpson Jr.Boise State Chase Wilson Sr. Colorado State Jordan Pollard Jr. San Jose State Jackson Woodard Sr. UNLV DB A’Marion McCoy Sr. Boise State Jack Howell Sr. Colorado State Cameron Oliver Sr. UNLV Ike Larsen Jr.Utah State First Team Special Teams PK Jonah Dalmas Gr. Boise State P James Ferguson-Reynolds Jr. Boise State PR Jacob De Jesus Sr. UNLV KR Jacob De Jesus Sr. UNLV
Coaches Coaching changes On November 13, 2023, San Diego State head coach Brady Hoke announced that he would retire at the conclusion of the season. On November 29, the school announced that Sean Lewis would become the head coach for the 2024 season. Lewis had previously been offensive coordinator at Colorado and the head coach of Kent State. On November 25, 2023, New Mexico announced that they had fired head coach Danny Gonzales after four seasons as head coach. Gonzales had posted a 11–32 record during his time at the school. On December 6, New Mexico announced Bronco Mendenhall as the new head coach for the 2024 season. Mendenhall had previously been head coach at BYU and Virginia. On December 1, 2023, Nevada announced that they had fired head coach Ken Wilson. Wilson had gone 4–20 in his two seasons with the school. On December 4, Nevada announced Jeff Choate as the new head coach for 2024. Choate had previously been the co-defensive coordinator and inside linebackers coach at Texas and the head coach of Montana State. On December 6, 2023, Wyoming head coach Craig Bohl announced that we would retire following Wyoming's 2023 bowl game. Wyoming's defensive coordinator Jay Sawvel was promoted to head coach for 2024. On January 16, San Jose State head coach Brent Brennan was announced the new head coach of Arizona of the Big 12 Conference for the 2024 season. On January 21, San Jose State announced Ken Niumatalolo as the school's new head coach. Niaumatalolo had previously been head coach at Navy. On July 2, Utah State announced their intention to fire Blake Anderson due to non-compliance with Title IX policies regarding the reporting of disclosures of sexual misconduct. Defensive coordinator Nate Dreiling was named the school's interim head coach. On July 15, Fresno State head coach Jeff Tedford announced he would step down as head coach due to health concerns. Current assistant head coach and linebackers coach Tim Skipper was announced as the interim head coach for the 2024 season.
Head coaches Team Head coach Years at school Overall record Record at school MW recordAir Force Troy Calhoun 18 130–82 130–82 77–54Boise State Spencer Danielson 2 3–1 3–1 2–0Colorado State Jay Norvell 3 41–42 8–16 29–27Fresno State Tim Skipper (interim) 1 0–0 0–0 0–0Hawaii Timmy Chang 3 8–18 8–18 5–11Nevada Jeff Choate 1 28–22 0–0 0–0New Mexico Bronco Mendenhall 1 135–81 0–0 0–0San Diego State Sean Lewis 1 24–31 0–0 0–0San Jose State Ken Niumatalolo 1 109–83 0–0 0–0UNLV Barry Odom 2 34–30 9–5 6–2Utah State Nate Dreiling 1 0–0 0–0 0–0Wyoming Jay Sawvel 1 0–0 0–0 0–0
Mid-season changes
On December 8, UNLV head coach Barry Odom was announced as the new head coach of Purdue in the Big Ten Conference. UNLV named their wide receivers coach Del Alexander as the interim head coach for the team's bowl game. On December 12, UNLV announced that Dan Mullen would be the new head coach for the 2025 season. Mullen had previously been head coach of Florida in the SEC.
Post-season changes On December 4, Fresno State announced that Matt Entz would become the new permanent head coach beginning in 2025. Entz had previously been the associated head coach at USC On December 6, Utah State announced that they had hired Bronco Mendenhall away from New Mexico to become their head coach for 2025. On December 14, New Mexico announced Jason Eck as their new head coach for 2025. Eck had previously been head coach at Idaho.
Rankings
Pre Wk1 Wk2 Wk3 Wk4 Wk5 Wk6 Wk7 Wk8 Wk9 Wk10 Wk11 Wk12 Wk13 Wk14 Wk15 Final Air Force AP C RV RV CFP Not released Boise State AP RV RV RV RV 25 21 17 15 17 15 12 13 12 11 10 8 8C RV RV RV RV RV RV 22 19 19 19 14 13 13 11 10 8 9 CFP Not released 12 13 12 11 10 9 Colorado State AP RV C RV CFP Not released Fresno State AP C CFP Not released Hawaii AP C CFP Not released Nevada AP C CFP Not released New Mexico AP C CFP Not released San Diego State AP C CFP Not released San Jose State AP C RV CFP Not released UNLV AP RV RV RV RV 25 RV RV RV RV RV 23 21 19 24 23C RV RV RV 25 23 23 RV RV RV RV RV RV 23 21 19 24 24 CFP Not released 24 22 20 24 Utah State AP C CFP Not released Wyoming AP C CFP Not released
+ Legend Improvement in ranking Drop in ranking Not ranked previous week No change in ranking from previous week RV Received votes but were not ranked in Top 25 of poll т Tied with team above or below also with this symbol
Schedule The schedule was released on February 29, 2024.
Index to colors and formattingMW member wonMW member lostMW teams in bold All times Mountain time.
Week 0
Week 1
Week 2
Week 3
Week 4
Week 5
Week 6
Week 7
Week 8
Week 9
Week 10
Week 11
Week 12
Week 13
Week 14
Week 15
Postseason
Bowl Games
Legend Mountain West win Mountain West loss
Bowl gameDateSiteTelevisionTime (MST)Mountain West teamOpponentScoreAttendance LA Bowl December 18 SoFi Stadium • Inglewood, CA ESPN 7:00 p.m. No. 24 UNLV California W 24–13 24,420 Famous Idaho Potato Bowl December 23 Albertsons Stadium • Boise, ID ESPN 12:30 p.m. Fresno State Northern Illinois L 20–282OT 10,359 Hawaii Bowl December 24 Clarence T. C. Ching Athletics Complex • Honolulu, HI ESPN 6:00 p.m. San Jose State South Florida L 39–415OT 6,720 Arizona Bowl December 28 Arizona Stadium • Tucson, AZ The CW 2:30 p.m. Colorado State Miami (OH) L 17–43 40,076College Football Playoff bowl games Fiesta Bowl December 31 State Farm Stadium • Glendale, AZ ESPN 5:30 p.m. No. 9 Boise State No. 4 Penn State L 14–31 63,854
Selection of teams Bowl eligible (5): Colorado State, Boise State, Fresno State, San Jose State, UNLV Bowl ineligible (7): Air Force, Hawaii, Nevada, New Mexico, San Diego State, Utah State, Wyoming
Mountain West records vs other conferences 2024–2025 records against non-conference opponents:
Power Five ConferencesRecordACC1–3Big Ten0–6Big 122–6Pac-128–7SEC0–2Power 5 Total11–24Other FBS ConferencesRecordAmerican0–4C-USA4–1Independents0–0MAC0–1Sun Belt2–1Other FBS Total6–7FCS OpponentsRecordFootball Championship Subdivision11–2Total Non-Conference Record28–33
Mountain West vs Power 5 matchups This is a list of games the Mountain West has scheduled versus power conference teams (ACC, Big 10, Big 12, Pac-12, and SEC). All rankings are from the current AP Poll at the time of the game.