Peak Perspective: Are any Mountain West teams good? 2025 Week 1 Impressions

Week 1 is in the books. The Mountain West has gone 2-2 in their opening round of games (12 teams playing this past weekend, plus three teams also playing in Week 0), complete with some big wins, big losses, and others of the more heartbreaking variety.

Though it’s only one week, impressions can start forming from the games we saw this weekend. Clearly, sample sizes are, in fact, small, and there is still a lot of season left. But for now, we are going off of the results of these first games. Therefore,

let’s look at the initial impressions and small sample size from the Mountain West.

The Mountain West appears to be in for a down season.

This wasn’t surprising coming into the season, but Week 0 and Week 1 have still been a disappointment for the conference. After losing some all-time greats for a handful of teams, plus the usual droves of players leaving the conference in the transfer portal, this season appeared to be more of an unknown than usual.

The Mountain West is once again fighting for national prestige and respect. Over the past decade or so, it has competed with the American Conference to stake a claim to be the best mid-major conference in college football. Outside of 2024, the American ends up winning that annual battle, even after the top teams in that conference were poached. Now, with the MW splitting off next season to make the PAC-12 2.0, and the biggest conference out west for now can’t really afford to get off to a poor start. But that’s exactly what happened, as this snap-shot of the year so far demonstrates:

MW OCC Record Week 1: 6-6

Overall: 8-7
P4: 1-5
G5: 4-2
FCS: 3-0
— Mike Wittmann (@Mike_SBN) August 31, 2025

8-7 doesn’t seem terrible at first glance; after all, it’s above .500. Looking at the subcategories, and the win total is being helped by three FCS games (one of which was nearly a loss), and the record against teams from Power Conferences is bleak and doesn’t even indicate the severity of the final scores. In those six games, the Mountain West has been outscored 209-85. And while the record against fellow mid-majors doesn’t look bad at face value, the actual story is bleak.

To start, Boise State and San Jose State, who were thought to be the top two teams entering the season, both lost their opening games to G5 teams they should have beaten. UNLV, probably the third-best team in the preseason, nearly lost to FCS Idaho State during Week 0, but looked better playing Sam Houston this past weekend. Ditto for Fresno State, which got smoked by Kansas but pulled away from Georgia Southern late to make that game a laugher. Otherwise, there were teams that beat up FCS opponents, like Air Force and San Diego State. Then there were MW teams that were beaten up by P4 programs, like Colorado State and Nevada.

Hawaii has a P4 win to its name, and New Mexico played competitively on the road against Michigan. Are they at the top of the conference instead of Boise State? Speaking of the Broncos…

Boise State looks ill-prepared for life at Jeanty.

This post is ripe for overreactions, and this category is a big one. Jeanty had a historic 2024 season, and the Broncos were missing his play-making ability in their season-opener. The running game, thought to be deep, lacked consistency and had ball security issues. The offense lacked a playmaker and displayed it can’t function as a pass-heavy attack. No, Jeanty can’t be the excuse for the tackling issues, blown coverage in the secondary, and poor special teams play, but without his long touchdown runs and ability to pick up big first downs, it leaves a big hole in the offense, putting more pressure on the other aspects of the game. It appears that Boise State couldn’t identify fixes after nearly eight months.

Rebuilt teams are a mixed bag.

Which shouldn’t be a surprise. When you roll the dice, the odds can be unpredictable. Fresno State, UNLV, and Utah State have almost entirely different rosters than last season, and the growing pains of new players learning to play with one another are on display from play to play. The Bulldogs were embarrassed in their opening game, but then put a beatdown on their opponent in the next. Similarly, the Rebels looked like an average FCS team before playing at the top of their potential during the second game. Through one game, the Aggies displayed the inconsistency and unpredictability that any team made up of mostly transfers is sure to make.

Expect all of these teams to continue looking different week to week as they learn to play together. It remains to be seen if any of them can come together enough to be competitive enough to challenge for the conference championship.

Teams may be living and dying by their Quarterbacks in the early going.

Most teams go as far as quarterbacks will take them, but it seems even more extreme so far in the Mountain West 2025 season. Take a look at the stats of QBs on teams that won this weekend:

Josh Johnson (Air Force): 112 passing yards, 2 TDs
Jayden Denegal (San Diego State): 208 yards, 1 TD
Anthony Colandrea (UNLV): 195 yards, 1 TD + 93 rushing yards in Game 1. 249 yards, 2 TDs + 1 rushing TD in Game 2
Bryson Barnes (Utah State): 233 yards, 1 TD + 1 rushing TD
Caden Anderson (Wyoming): 260 yards, 1 TD

And here are the stats for the teams that lost:

Maddux Madseon (Boise State): 225 yards, 1 TD
Brayden Fowler-Nicolosi (Colorado State): 180 yards, 1 TD, 1 INT
Chubba Purdy (Nevada): 97 yards, 1 INT
Jack Layne (New Mexico): 208 yards, 1 TD, 3 INTs
Walket Eget (San Jose State): 308 yards, 2 TDs, 2 INTs

Fresno State and Hawaii are both 1-1, although only the Rainbow Warriors can correlate QB play to wins and:

EJ Warner (Fresno State Win): 179, 2 INTs
EJ Warner (Fresno State Loss): 176 yards, 2 INTs
Micah Alejado (Hawaii Win): 210 yards, 2 TDs
Micah Alejado (Hawaii Loss): 157 yards, 1 INT

All of this is simply looking at box score stats and don’t quite divide up evenly, but it is still clear that the teams whose quarterbacks have the best showings won games more often that not. If this small sample is an indication of how things will go, some teams need to find ways to improve their QB situation in a hurry. Or like Fresno State, have a dynamic rushing attack.