Mountain West Conference Football Programs - TV Tropes

The youngest of the five service academies, The United States Air Force Academy began as the Quietly Performing Sister Show to Army and Navy, often succumbing to Every Year They Fizzle Out syndrome, apart from two early standout seasons: 1958 (Cotton Bowl, #6 final poll finish) and 1970 (Sugar Bowl, #11 poll finish). Two major factors kickstarted the rise of Falcon football: the hiring of Ken Hatfield as head coach in 1979, and joining the Western Athletic Conference the next year. While the Commander-in-Chief's Trophy was introduced in 1972 to go to the winner of the series between Army, Navy, and Air Force, the Falcons didn't win it until 1982. Since then, they've won the trophy 20 times, compared to 11 for Navy and 7 for Army in that span of time. Hatfield brought the option offense with him, and the Falcons have run it ever since, even after most college teams abandoned the run-based option for looser passing or spread offenses. The option helps them deal with the stringent requirements for admission to the academy that limit the team's ability to attract top athletes. The discipline, finesse, and proactive nature of the option mesh well with military training, and after Air Force's success with the offense, Army and Navy have generally run it as well. Hatfield quickly catapulted off of his early success to take other high-profile coaching gigs, but since his departure in 1983, the program has only had two head coaches: Hall of Famer Fisher DeBerry, who took the program within one game of playing for a national title in 1985, and Troy Calhoun, who took over in 2007 and has kept the team competitive in the west.

Despite putting up most of its yards on the ground, Air Force lives up to its name in more ways than one. Besides its (living) Falcon mascot, its stadium near Colorado Springs has the second-highest elevation of any FBS venue (6,621 feet), and its cadets live more than 600 feet higher (7,258 feet).^note  The Academy also has one of the longest-standing helmet designs at any level of football, the lightning bolts that have adorned the Falcons' helmets since the early years of the program, riffing on the frequent use of lightning bolts in fighter pilot insignias dating back to World War II. Fun fact: the Los Angeles Chargers' use of bolts on their helmets was directly inspired by Air Force, though the Chargers deliberately used a different design.

The Broncos of Boise State University have been one of the more consistently competitive programs in the nation, often punching well above their weight class. Going into 2025, BSU has the highest winning percentage of any school outside the Power Four, and when only games played as a member of FBS and its predecessors are counted, Boise State actually leads the entire pack by a healthy margin. The Broncos enjoyed great football success as a junior college, winning 15 conference titles (13 in a row) and one national title before becoming a four-year school in the late 1960s. They were regionally competitive until a surge in the early days of FCS, winning that level's national title in 1980. After some ups and downs, including a move to FBS (then I-A) in 1996, they truly emerged in the 21st century as a member of the WAC, with their coming-out party on the national stage being an epic undefeated 2006 season, capped with an overtime win over Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl fueled by a series of incredible trick plays. The Broncos reached even greater heights from 2008–11 with Kellen Moore at QB, going undefeated again in 2009 and becoming the first FBS team ever to win 50 games in a four-year period (before the CFP) and making Moore the winningest FBS QB ever. Moore's final season was also the Broncos' first in the MW, where they've established themselves as a regular contender and one of the more dangerous Group of Five teams, having not posted a losing record since 1997. In 2024, they received an invite to join the recently decimated Pac-12 Conference for the 2026–27 academic year, concurrent with their best season in a decade under dominant rusher Ashton Jeanty, securing the Broncos their first playoff berth (notably seeded ahead of two power conference champions, with their sole loss coming by a field goal against #1-ranked Oregon).

But that probably isn't what you know Boise State for. Since 1986, the Broncos have played their home games at Albertsons Stadium on a vibrant blue artificial turf. Nicknamed "the Surf Turf", "the Smurf Turf", "the Blue Plastic Tundra", or simply "the Blue", the field was the first non-green field in American football and still the most visible. Though not the only program with a colored field, it holds a trademark on the concept of “the color blue as applied to artificial turf,” and has extended this into claiming common-law rights on all non-green playing fields, insisting that other schools (high school and college) need their permission if they want to color their turf, which the other schools have abided by. However, the legality of their jurisdiction over non-blue colored turf has been questioned.^explanation Keeping their field unique provides more than just financial benefits; the Broncos have one of the most dominant home field advantages in sports, as its blue uniforms can help to camouflage players. The program didn't lose a regular season home game from 2001–11, which led the NCAA to nearly pass a rule requiring the team wear non-blue uniforms (the school successfully campaigned to knock that down).

The Fresno State Bulldogs football team has long been one of the crown jewels in the reputation of California State University, Fresno.^note  Located in Central California's football-loving San Joaquin Valley, the Bulldogs were a small college power on the West Coast through much of their history, before joining D-I in 1969 along with their longtime rivals San Diego State and San Jose State. Former Washington State HC Jim Sweeney launched them to the next level in The '80s. Behind a series of standout QBs and a balanced offense, the Bulldogs won six titles in the old Pacific Coast Athletic Association (later renamed the Big West). A devoted fanbase (called "The Red Wave") formed around the team, leading to the construction of Bulldog Stadium on campus (after previously borrowing the local junior college's stadium for home games), which also became the home of the California Bowl (which matched the champions of the PCAA and the MAC from 1981-91). Their peak year in this era was 1985, when, led by QB Kevin Sweeney (Jim's son), the Bulldogs finished the season as the only unbeaten major college team, with an 11-0-1 record and a #16 finish in the coaches' poll. The Bulldogs are also the last FBS-level team to score over 90 points in a game, in their 94-17 pulverization of New Mexico in '91 (could've been worse, too—they led 66-7 at halftime). This success helped lead to a Western Athletic Conference invite, and they debuted in the WAC with a bang in 1992, sharing the conference title and upsetting USC in the Freedom Bowl. The conference move was a godsend, since many of Fresno's California-based Big West peers (Cal State Fullerton, Long Beach State, Pacific) ended up dropping football in The '90s.

Because of the dwindling number of four-year college football teams in California, Fresno has a huge swath of the California juco system to itself, guaranteeing a strong talent base. After Sweeney's retirement in 1996, a number of good HCs have passed through Fresno, like Pat Hill, Kalen DeBoer and former Bulldog QB star Jeff Tedford (twice). But the program has also been dogged by Every Year They Fizzle Out syndrome. A typical Bulldog season will see them upset a Power 5 team early in the year, stall in conference play, then close out things with a loss in a winnable bowl game. They've also been at the center of the infamous "Jeff Tedford Curse", with Bulldog QBs Trent Dilfer and David Carr (the #1 overall pick) being among the biggest NFL draft busts ever. Still, they're respected as a program that almost always manages to find a way to pull off some big wins every year.

The Bulldogs' 2023 home opener against FCS Eastern Washington was of note as the first FBS football game to be broadcast over linear TV exclusively in Spanish.^{note Background} The next year, Fresno State got caught up in the realignment of the early 2020s by declaring its intention to move to the Pac-12 in 2026, as part of Washington State's and Oregon State's ongoing attempt to rebuild the collapsed conference.

The University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa's football team has had a proud history as the most prominent athletic representative of its island home. A bit of a novelty for most of its history because of its exotic location, the school received the same conditional invitation to the Western Athletic Conference in 1978 that UNLV did, giving them four years to demonstrate a commitment to improve their program. Unlike UNLV, the WAC was so impressed with UH's progress that they fast-tracked them and gave UH full membership in 1979. Former UCLA assistant Dick Tomey took over as HC in 1977 and built a solid football program, and after he left for Arizona in 1986, his replacement Bob Wagner picked up where he left off, leading them to a conference championship in 1992. The program's on-field peak came under the revolutionary passing offense of June Jones in the 2000s that helped QBs Timmy Chang and Cole Brennan break NCAA passing records; the latter helped the Rainbow Warriors (then just the Warriors) join the BCS Buster ranks with an undefeated 2007 regular season (though they also became the first BCS Buster to lose their bowl game, getting blown out by Georgia).

However, the program is most famous for its location and the various logistical challenges it provides. With the island chain sitting nearly 2,400 miles away from the nearest airport in the contiguous United States, the team is often by far the most traveled American athletic program every year despite only playing six or seven away games. The NCAA allows Hawaiʻi and all of its home opponents to play one extra game per season in an attempt to partially offset these expenses.^note  Until Hawaiʻi started trying to balance out its home-and-away schedule, it often played as many as 9 home games in a season! That's not to say home games are any easier. Hawaiʻi's 50,000-capacity Aloha Stadium, which had served as the team's home since 1975 (and also hosted the NFL's Pro Bowl from 1979-2008, plus 2010-13 and 2015), has been a major concern for decades due to the architects not properly accounting for the effects of the island's climate; the ocean air led the stadium to rapidly rust, leading to the venue being essentially condemned in 2020 and forcing the team to move home games to its athletic practice field, where UH hastily erected some bleachers. After building up and expanding the on-campus stadium a bit, they'll play home games there at least through the 2027 season, while the current Aloha Stadium is demolished and a new 30,000-seat facility is built on the site (which is set to open in 2028). With all those challenges in mind, the team's successes only stand as more impressive. After the raid by the Pac-2, Hawaiʻi decided to go all-in on the MW, upgrading its membership from football-only to all-sports effective in 2026.

San Diego State University's football history was initially forged in the small-college ranks. The Aztecs were generally a mediocre team with occasional flashes of brilliance until future NFL coaching great Don Coryell arrived in 1961. During his 12 seasons, he perfected the high-powered passing offense that he took to the pros, leading the Aztecs to small-college national titles in each of their final three seasons before they moved to what's now NCAA D-I in 1969, generating a huge local following in the process (the 1967 Aztecs averaged 41,030 fans per home game, still an attendance record for a non-D-I team). They were up and down for the next couple of decades after Coryell left in 1972, with a few conference titles, several productive quarterbacks, and Marshall Faulk finishing second in the 1992 Heisman race. They bottomed out by not posting a winning season all through the 2000s, then finally bounced back to bowl eligibility throughout the 2010s behind a strong rushing attack that saw diminutive Donnel Pumphrey become the FBS all-time leading rusher.
The Aztecs opened the new Snapdragon Stadium (Aztec Stadium behind the sponsorship) in 2022. After having played on campus in the Aztec Bowl^* since 1935, they moved to the Chargers' new stadium in 1967, two years before that venue also became home to MLB's Padres. The Aztecs and Chargers would share that stadium for 50 seasons (1967–2016), the longest co-tenancy between college and pro teams. After the Padres moved to a park of their own and the Chargers returned to Los Angeles, SDSU was the only tenant in an increasingly run-down venue that was far too large for its needs. Not long after the Chargers left, SDSU bought the stadium site and announced plans to redevelop it as a non-contiguous campus expansion parcel, with the 35,000-seat Snapdragon Stadium being the centerpiece of the development. In the meantime, they played in the LA Galaxy's Dignity Health Sports Park nearly two hours' drive away (not counting traffic delays); coincidentally, the Chargers also played at the LA Galaxy's home ground before the opening of SoFi Stadium.^note  With its location and new stadium, and the impending move of UCLA and USC to the Big Ten, SDSU was heavily linked with a Pac-12 invitation in the first part of 2023. Multiple media reports that June indicated that SDSU had given the MW notice of its intent to leave in 2024, and that the MW was treating SDSU's departure as a done deal. However, on the very day that SDSU's exit fee would have doubled, and with no Pac-12 invite (or, equally important, new Pac-12 media deal) on the horizon, SDSU told the MW it planned to stay for the time being. After hemming, hawing, and lawyering up, the MW and SDSU settled the dispute, with SDSU staying in the conference for the immediate future. Ironically, the Aztecs ended up on their feet—within weeks of that settlement, the Pac-12 imploded, losing eight more schools.^note  Despite this setback, San Diego State ultimately managed to get that Pac-12 invite in September 2024 with their first season there in 2026, albeit as part of the conference's rebuilding following the collapse.

San Diego State's "Aztec Warrior" mascot (adopted in 1925 after experimenting with "Normalites", "Professors", and "Wampus Cats") is one of the few in American college sports that remains based on an indigenous people group; the NCAA did not require the school to change it due to the Aztecs not having a modern day recognized tribe, but that hasn't stopped various student and indigenous groups from protesting its trope-y depiction of Aztec culture.

The oldest public university on the West Coast, and the founding campus of the California State University System, San José State University^note  has long been the Quietly Performing Sister Show to Cal and Stanford in San Francisco Bay Area college sports (despite both institutions being younger than SJSU). After sponsoring football for a few years toward the end of the 1800s, they relaunched the program in 1921, becoming a steady if not spectacular winner over the next few decades. The 1941 Spartans had the misfortune of being in Hawai'i on the morning of December 7, when the Pearl Harbor attack not only canceled their scheduled game against Hawaii on December 13, but left them stranded on the islands for the next few weeks; the Honolulu police enlisted them to help patrol the beaches. SJSU also gained a "cradle of coaches" reputation. Former Spartans who went onto to coaching greatness included Bill Walsh, Dick Vermeil, and Bob Ladouceur (the coach behind the 151-game winning streak of California's De La Salle High School from 1992–2003).

Their peak came in The '80s, a decade that saw the Spartans earn seven winning seasons and three bowl bids, a string of success begun by HC Jack Elway (John Elway's father). They couldn't sustain that level of achievement in the next decade but still got an invite to the 16-school WAC expansion in 1996, even though (much like Rutgers joining the Big Ten in the future) everyone recognized that SJSU was only invited to give the league access to a Top 5 media market. In the years before joining the WAC, they struggled to hit the I-A attendance requirement (the largest attendance mark for an event at their home stadium is a ZZ Top concert) and their football games were broadcast on the school's student-run radio station. Despite grabbing notable coaches like John Ralston and Dick Tomey in the twilight of their careers, Spartan fans haven't had much to cheer about in the last few decades. Their best recent season came amid the bleak days of the COVID-19 Pandemic in 2020, winning a conference title and finishing the regular season undefeated.

Another case of a football team that struggles at a school where basketball is king, the University of Nevada, Las Vegas makes for an interesting contrast with Boise State. Both teams began playing at the four-year level in 1968 and became D-II powers over the next few years. In fact, Tony Knap, the coach who led BSU into the NCAA, left for UNLV in 1976. The Rebels elected to move to the I-A level in 1978, having secured a conditional invitation from the WAC, who gave them until 1981 to improve their facilities and address the issues in coach Jerry Tarkanian's men's basketball program, which had been placed on probation by the NCAA, before they'd extend full membership. They made a solid I-A debut, going 29–15–2 from '78 to '81. Fully expecting to get the WAC invite, they played a full conference schedule in '80 and '81, doubled the size of their stadium from 15,000 to 30,000 seats, and made plans to build an 18,000 seat arena for basketball. But the end of the 1981 season saw two complications: Knap retired, and the WAC decided not to invite them, apparently hinging on their sticking with Tarkanian as their basketball coach (they finally got their WAC invite for the conference's massive 1996 expansion). Undaunted, they accepted an invitation from the PCAA instead and produced a genuine star in QB Randall Cunningham, who led them to a conference title and bowl win in 1984. Then the bottom fell out. The football program was accused of various improprieties, including using ineligible players, plus several players getting into trouble with the law, and the NCAA, already keeping close watch on the school because of Tarkanian, gave them a harsh probation, including ordering them to forfeit their 18 wins in the '83 and '84 seasons. Rebel football has never really recovered from these controversies; since 1986, UNLV has had just six winning seasons,^note while their instate rival Nevada thrived. Outside of Cunningham and Cincinnati Bengals one-season wonder Ickey Woods, their two most famous ex-players are better-known for non-football endeavors: SportsCenter anchor Kenny Mayne was a backup QB, and Death Row Records mogul Suge Knight played nose guard for two seasons. The move to the newly arrived Raiders' Allegiant Stadium in 2020 and the hiring of former Missouri coach Barry Odom as HC in 2023 led to a bit of a resurgence, with the Rebels making the MW championship game in 2023 and 2024, the latter season matching the most wins for the program since Cunningham's tenure four decades prior.

If you're wondering- yes, the "Rebel" moniker is a reference to the Confederate States of America, invented back when UNLV was Nevada Southern in contrast to their rivals in Reno; they even originally used a wolf in a Confederate army uniform as a mascot in a deliberate Take That! to Nevada's wolf mascot. Adding to the irony/controversy around this nickname, Nevada was given statehood during The American Civil War to help keep Lincoln in power and defeat said rebels. And another layer of irony is that UNLV won the first-ever matchup between Black head coaches at the I-A/FBS level, when, under coach Wayne Nunnely, they defeated Ohio, coached by Cleve Bryant, 26-18 in 1988.^note  One more notable bit of UNLV football trivia is that they hosted the first regular season game to be broadcast on a cable TV network, with their 1982 season opener against BYU airing on TBS (TBS cut a deal with the NCAA for live telecasts, which ESPN was unable to do until the Supreme Court's 1984 antitrust ruling against the NCAA and its handling of TV rights).

The University of Wyoming's football team is the ultimate in local market domination: it's the only public four-year college in the state (and was the only four-year school period until the founding of Wyoming Catholic College in 2005). However, since the state just happens to be the smallest one in the union in population, the Cowboys have never been a major powerhouse. They were one of the worst teams in the nation in the early 20th century but became a regional power in The '50s (posting undefeated seasons in '50 and '56) and The '60s, peaking with a #5 finish and Sugar Bowl appearance in 1967. However, two years later, the program took a huge hit over the "Black 14" incident, in which 14 African-American players were kicked off the team after announcing their plan to wear black armbands in a game against BYU in protest of the LDS Church's (since disavowed) anti-black doctrines and practices. That episode caused Wyoming no end of recruiting problems for years, and they've fluctuated wildly ever since. Those glory years also highlighted another big issue for the school: they've never been able to hold onto any of the multiple good coaches who pass through town. Bowden Wyatt started their turnaround before leaping to jobs at Arkansas and Tennessee; Bob Devaney lasted five years, then went to neighboring Nebraska and launched the meteoric rise of the Cornhuskers. Pat Dye and Dennis Erickson likewise only lasted one year before moving on to high-profile jobs. To give you an idea of how bad the musical chairs game is in Laramie, Craig Bohl's 10-year stint (2014–23) was the longest in team history (which dates back to 1893).

Their 103–0 defeat of Northern Colorado in 1949 holds the record for the most points in a single game by a major college team since the end of World War II. Their home field at War Memorial Stadium has the highest elevation of any major college field, sitting at 7,220 feet above sea level.^note  The logo caption used here comes from signs posted in the visitors' locker rooms of various sports (including football) as ominous reminders of the elevation.