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2025 MWC Football Predictions with Odds and Expert Betting Advice

by Robert Ferringo - 8/19/2025

MWC football predictions Maddux Madsen Boise State Broncos

If you really love college football betting, then you have to love the Mountain West.

The Smurf Turf. Midnight kickoffs in Hawaii. Handicapping home field advantages that range from snow and elevation to heat and desert. Triple option and fun-and-gun offenses. The Mountain West has been a weird and wonderful niche in the sport for nearly three decades.

Unfortunately, The Mountain, as we know it, is dying.

The latest victim of never-ending college realignment, the Mountain West is losing its most prominent members after this season. Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State, San Diego State and Utah State are all exiting the league to join some sort of reconstituted, hybrid-pygmy Pac-12 starting next fall.

However, we still get one more throwback season out West. Boise State is once again the clear front-runner. There aren’t many real challengers for the Broncos this season, though San Jose State and Air Force won’t be pushovers. Eight of the 12 teams in the league have head coaches in either their first or second years in their programs. That should help make this a wild and unpredictable season.

Here is my 2025 Mountain West conference football preview and predictions:

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The Favorite: Boise State (-150)

Ashton Jeanty carried the Broncos to 12 wins and the college football playoffs last season. The Broncos lost Jeanty but bring back just about every other key piece from last year’s squad. Quarterback Maddux Madsen will have to shoulder more of the load and Boise State is hoping that redshirt freshman Sire Gaines can do his best Jeanty impression. The Broncos were dominant in league play last season, with just three teams staying within two touchdowns. Boise has the most talent and most experience in the league. And if they can win key road games at Air Force and Notre Dame then Boise could play its way back into the playoffs.

The Contender: San Jose State (+700)

Ken Niumatalolo took over a San Jose State program with just eight returning starters last year and still coaxed a 7-6 season out of the overachieving Spartans. Now Niumatalolo, who was very good for 14 years at Navy, has his quarterback, top three running backs, and three veteran receivers back. The Spartans also have a wealth of experience back on defense. But those guys need to improve after finishing No. 91 in passing defense and No. 84 in points allowed. SJSU avoids Boise State in the regular season and gets Air Force and Fresno State at home. If they build on last season’s surprise effort this team could be playing for its first title since 2020.

The Dark Horse: Air Force (+1600)

Troy Calhoun just knows what he’s doing. The Falcons went 29-10 from 2021-2023. Last year, with just six starters back, was supposed to be a rebuilding season and I was expecting it to be ugly. And it was, with Air Force starting 1-7 straight up and against the spread. Calhoun and the Falcons won their last four games, though, and now Air Force has an experienced group with 14 starters back. Continuity is key for Calhoun’s option attack and he has it this season. Calhoun has just five losing seasons in 17 years and if Air Force can spring an early upset at home against Boise State they have an inside track at making the league championship.

The Spoiler: Fresno State (+1000)

New head coach Matt Entz won two nationals titles and 60 of 70 games at North Dakota State. Now he is stepping up to the FBS level with a program that has won nine or more games in five of the past seven seasons. Entz and new offensive coordinator Josh Davis should breathe some life into an offense that was No. 106 in the country. New quarterback E.J. Warner, son of Hall of Famer Kurt, is on his third (and last) stop after underwhelming efforts at Temple and Rice. He’s thrown 37 interceptions in three years and his erratic ball security could make Fresno a major wild card in the league race.

The Overvalued Team: UNLV (+700)

Barry Odom oversaw a Rebel revelation, leading one of the nation’s worst football programs to 20 wins over the past two seasons. Odom moved on to Purdue and the Rebels brought in retread Dan Mullen, who has been in a TV studio the last four years. Mullen was great at Mississippi State and was actually pretty good at Florida before getting canned. This is a completely different animal, though, as Mullen has never been the head of a mid-major program. Everything about this UNLV team is new, from the coaches to the systems to the players to the expectations. I’m not buying in at all until I see something from this fresh group. They enter the season as the team with the second-best odds to win the league title. I don’t think they are anywhere close to the second-best squad.

The Undervalued Team: Hawaii (+2000)

Maybe this is wishful thinking because everyone in college football is rooting for nice guy Timmy Chang to succeed at his alma mater. The Warriors still aren’t going to be very good but they could be a lot more competitive than people expect. Chang has taken a methodical approach to rebuilding this program and this is his best squad yet. He has 14 returning starters, including his top five tacklers on defense, and if redshirt freshman quarterback Micah Alejado pops then Hawaii has a soft enough schedule to get back to a bowl game.

The Rest:

Colorado State (+1600): Jay Norvell was able to increase Colorado’s State’s win total each of the past two seasons. Where do the Rams go from here? Because it doesn’t feel like Norvell has built a very solid foundation in Fort Collins. In fact, it feels like he was expecting last year’s eight-win campaign to be a springboard into a major conference gig. Colorado State quarterback Brayden Fowler-Nicolosi gives this squad some hope. They lost a ton of seniors, though, and there are major questions on a defense that wasn’t very good last year (No. 96 in total defense). Their conference schedule is more difficult, particularly in November, but they have enough winnable games to go bowling.

San Diego State (+3000): The Aztecs have seen their win total drop for three straight years. They are no longer in the top tier of the Mountain West, even as they have announced that they are leaving for the new-look Pac-12. Head coach Sean Lewis had a couple decent seasons at Kent State. He flopped at Colorado and wasn’t very good in his first season here. It’s odd to see, but SDSU should still be a punching bag in this league and I think the arrow is pointed down.

Wyoming (+4000): New head coach Jay Sawvel was the defensive coordinator here from 2019-2022 and the Cowboys posted three of four winning seasons during his tenure. Sawvel has cleaned house on the defensive side. If they are better there then it will take some pressure off last year’s No. 123 scoring offense. Wyoming has some statistical indicators pointing up and a schedule that has a path to five wins and a slight improvement.

Utah State (+8000): It has been an odd few years for Bronco Mendenhall. He left a cushy gig at BYU for Virginia and then left abruptly in 2021. He signed a five-year deal to coach New Mexico, stayed for one season, then jumped back into Mormon Country to try to repair things for the Aggies. Utah State has just five starters back. And unlike most new coaches, Mendenhall didn’t sell out to the transfer portal. It looks like a slow rebuild in Logan and they won’t be very good this year, despite Mendenhall’s bona fides.

New Mexico (+15,000): Former Idaho head coach Jason Eck was brought in to pick up the pieces after Mendenhall’s smash-and-grab season in ABQ. It’s not going to be pretty. The Lobos lost their top seven rushers, top seven receivers, and do-everything quarterback Devon Dampier. Early road games at Michigan and UCLA aren’t going to help this team’s healthy or confidence and if the Lobos win three games it would be an accomplishment.

Nevada (+15,000): Here we have another young coach trying to put together another rebuild. Jeff Choate had Nevada competitive last season, nearly knocking off SMU and Georgia Southern early and nearly taking out San Jose State, Fresno State, Air Force and Boise State, losing to those four by an average of just 4.3 points per game. Nevada is in the bottom 10 in returning production and Choate will have to dig deep to have this team overachieve again.

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