What is the story about?
The
Mountain West released their 2026 football schedule yesterday, and now that we have it, we can offer thoughts and observations.
Check out the release of the schedule here:
A few thoughts:
- Four teams play during Week 0, which is two more than last year. Hawaii, NDSU, SJSU, and UNLV give the Mountain West a strong presence at the start of the season.
- In Week 1, San Jose State will once again start before Saturday. This time, their game is on a Friday. All other teams are currently scheduled to play on Saturday.
- Week 2 will have the first conference game, featuring Hawaii and UNLV. It will also feature the first MW/PAC matchup, with Wyoming playing Colorado State.
- Air Force won’t play an away game until Week 4. On the flip side, the Spartans play two games before their home-opener.
- Everyone is pretty balanced, with streaks of home and away games, and no team plays more than two in a row either way.
- The schedule is back to one standard bye this season. Although three teams actually have two byes due to the Hawaii rule. In addition to the Rainbow Warriors, those teams are North Dakota State and UNLV.
- The earliest bye is Week 3, with Air Force, Hawaii, and UNLV all off. The latest bye is North Dakota State, occurring all the way in Week 10.
- On an interesting note, no team has a Week 7 bye, which would be the true middle of the season. But New Mexico, UNLV, and UTEP are on either side, giving them the most favorable bye weeks.
- During the last week of the season, Hawaii and Wyoming will play non-conference games. And to add another twist, North Dakota State and San Jose State will play a non-conference game against one another to close out the season.
- Week 14 will also feature Nevada and UNLV playing for the Fremont Cannon and then a manufactured rivalry with newcomers NIU and UTEP matching up against one another. It would have been nice to have another rivalry game, with Hawaii playing Air Force or San Jose State. Those may not be classic rivalry games, but at least it’s something.
