It’s another week of the Mountain West Recruiting Roundup.
The class of 2026 is signed, sealed, and delivered, but our coverage of the class is still going. New offers for the class of 2027 and beyond are being handed out, as some teams are wasting no time in doing work for next year’s class, but February will mostly focus on breaking down the 2026 class.
This week will look at this year’s sleeper team. The sleeper team is made up of recruits who are rated lower (or not at all) on recruiting ranking
sites but are either personal favorites or good bets to exceed their recruiting ratings coming out of high school.
This week’s cover photo goes to the team with the most players on the sleeper team, which was Wyoming this year.
Class of 2026 Cover Photo Total:
- Boise State: 6
- Hawaii: 6
- Colorado State: 5
- San Diego State: 5
- Nevada: 4
- New Mexico: 4
- UNLV: 4
- Wyoming: 4
- Air Force: 3
- Fresno State: 3
- San Jose State: 3
Recruiting Calendar:
Starting today and extending through the rest of January, we are in a contact period (except for a dead period of Jan 12-14). This is the most open of the recruiting periods. All communication and contact is allowed, on or off campus.
Next College Student Athlete defines it as:
The NCAA Contact Period is exactly what it sounds like—all communication between athletes and coaches is fair game. Coaches can email, text, call, direct message, and generally contact athletes and their parents through any NCAA-approved method. In-person contact can occur on the college campus, as well as at tournaments, at the recruit’s school, and home. In other words, the communication floodgates are open, so take advantage of this opportunity to get unlimited access to talk to coaches.
Air Force Commitment Tracker:
Since the Air Force Academy regularly has by far the most commits among Mountain West recruiting classes, it’s fun to track them over the course of the year.
Number of Falcon verbal commits: 39 signees
Commitment Spotlight:
Visit Recap:
2026 Mountain West Sleeper Team:
This team is easily the most subjective of all the teams we do here. This team was composed of high school players with lower 247 ratings who may not have been seen as headliners in this class, but they showed up on their highlight films while analyzing them. It goes without saying that there are many other “sleepers” across the conference, but these are the ones we are keeping an eye on.
Quarterbacks
Reeve Slone (Nevada)
Running Backs
Courshawn Hill (San Jose State)
Ryken Banks (Wyoming)
Wide Receivers
Franklin Lockard (Fresno State)
Yasser Jackson (Colorado State)
FLEX
Jarell Gary Jr (Wyoming)
Tight End
Vai Fanuaea (Hawaii)
Offensive Line
Mateo Bilaver (UNLV)
Johnny Notarianni (San Jose State)
Cooper Troy (Hawaii)
Pierce Decker (Wyoming)
Max Zuro (Nevada)
Defensive Line
Deuce Alailefaleula (Boise State)
Jerbralon Stewart (New Mexico)
EDGE
Cole Albrecht (UNLV)
Walter Moore (New Mexico)
Linebackers
Caleb Mooring (Nevada)
Henry Newton (Air Force)
Bo Gable (Wyoming)
FLEX
Damian Horace (Air Force)
Defensive Backs
Vern Blair (UNLV)
Marco Beltran (New Mexico)
Marquis Richardson (Hawaii)
Thomas Cook Jr (Colorado State)
Kicker
N/A
Punter
N/A
Long Snapper
N/A
Team Totals:
Wyoming: 4
Hawaii: 3
Nevada: 3
New Mexico: 3
UNLV: 3
Air Force: 2
Colorado State: 2
San Jose State: 2
Boise State: 1
Fresno State: 1
Recruiting Updates:
Offers:
Note: Trying something new to capture all the offers going on this week.
- Air Force:
- Boise State: 8
- Colorado State: 8
- Fresno State: 9
- Hawaii: 1
- Nevada: 9
- New Mexico: 1
- San Diego State: 10
- San Jose State: 3
- UNLV: 1
- Utah State: 2
- Wyoming:
Visits
Commits:
- 2027 QB Jack Devine: San Diego State
Decommits
Follow @Mike_SBN on Twitter for all the latest recruiting news and updates.
