Boise State voted Mountain West favorite for 15th straight year

July 25, 2025 by CollegeFootballPoll.com staff

Defending Mountain West Conference champion Boise State is favored to repeat in 2025, according to a vote by media representatives at the annual media days. The Broncos have defeated UNLV in each of the last two conference championship games and the media consensus says we will head that way again in 2025.

Boise State received all but 4 of the 39 first-place votes with the remainder going to the Rebels.

The FanDuel.com Sportsbook lists Boise State at +198 to return to the College Football Playoff after the 2025 regular season and MWC Championship game..

The Broncos have led the poll for 15 consecutive seasons, and have won or shared the title in six of those campaigns.

Boise State was 11-1 over-all in the regular season and 7-0 in conference play. The MWC Championship game win pushed the record to 12-1 before the Broncos fell 31-14 to Penn State in the Fiesta Bowl in the College Football Playoff which they entered as the 3-seed..

The Rebels finished 11-3 overall and 6-1 in the conference, including a 24-13 win over a 6-6 California Golden Bears team in the LA Bowl with wide receivers coach Del Alexander serving as interim head coach after Barry Odom had already left for Purdue. Odom was 19-8 in two seasons.

UNLV hired Dan Mullen as Odom's successor on December 12. Mullen was previously the HC at Mississippi State from 2009-2017 (69-46) and Florida from 2018-2021 (34-15). He has been serving as a very capable analyst on ESPN. Odom replaces Ryan Walters at Purdue.

The Rebels aren't the only Mountain West team that will enter the 2025 campaign with a new head coach and staff.

Other coaching changes

Fresno State named former North Dakota State head coach Matt Entz (2019-2023) as its permanent replacement for Jeff Tedford who stepped down for health reasons prior to the start of the 2024 season. Entz spent 2024 on the USC staff as the assistant head coach of the defense and linebackers coach. He was 60-11 in five seasons in Fargo, winning two FCS National Championship and losing in the title game in another. The Bulldogs turned to Tim Skipper, Tedford's AHC and LB coach, to serve as interim head coach for the season. The Bulldogs finished 6-7 after a 28-20 loss in double-OT to Northern Illinois in the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl.

New Mexico on December 14 announced the hiring of FCS member Idaho head coach Jason Eck to the same position with the Lobos. Eck led Idaho to a  10-4 record in 2024 and leaves Moscow with a 26-13 record in 3 seasons, including FCS Playoff appearances each year with quarterfinal losses in each of the last two. On December 6, Utah State and New Mexico both announced Bronco Mendenhall left UNM to become the new HC of Utah State. Mendenhall was 5-7 in his one season at New Mexico.

Dreiling was 4-8 as the interim HC at Utah State. On July 16, Utah State moved forward with the dismissal of Blake Anderson who had been notified 14 days prior of the intended move. Dreiling, the DC under Anderson, had the interim head coaching duties added to his responsibilities. Details involving the situations that led to Anderson's dismissal can be found HERE. An on-line statement regarding the action taken by the school reads as follows, "This action is based on significant violations of his contractual obligations related to USU’s employee reporting requirements. These reporting requirements include a prohibition on employees outside the USU Office of Equity from investigating issues of sexual misconduct, including domestic violence. Additionally, Anderson failed to manage the team in a manner that reflects USU’s academic values. Consistent with Anderson’s employment agreement, the university provided him with written notice of its intent to terminate and 14 days to respond. To USU’s disappointment, Anderson’s response failed to acknowledge his responsibilities as a USU employee and as a head coach and instead sought to make excuses and unsuccessfully recast the clear language of USU’s policies."

Rest of the Poll

San José State sits third in the preseason poll with 359 points, followed by Colorado State in fourth with 326 points. Fresno State is fifth with 301 points, Air Force is sixth with 280, Hawai‘i is seventh at 213 and San Diego State is eighth with 202 points. Utah State (165 points), Wyoming (150), New Mexico (84) and Nevada (83) round out the poll.

The two MW programs with the best Conference records this season will face each other in the 2025 Mountain West Football Championship, which will kick off Friday, December 5, at the site of the Conference team with the best winning percentage in MW play. The contest will be nationally televised on FOX for the sixth consecutive year.

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