College Football Futures | 2024 Mountain West Conference

College football preview season is in full swing as we're now inside of four weeks until kickoff of the 2024 college football season.

On the BBOC podcast and YouTube channel at Action Network, experts are breaking down all the top conferences in the sport.

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This week on BBOC, experts Collin Wilson, Mike Calabrese, and Mike Ianniello broke down the Mountain West Conference, including their thoughts on every team in the league, their favorite overs, unders, conference outrights, College Football Playoff futures, and more.

Below, you can find an excerpt of analysis from our three experts. You can also watch or listen to the full episode. However you choose to get your college football analysis, be sure to subscribe, rate, and review so that you're up to speed on all the action all season long.

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Mountain West Conference Futures

UNLV Rebels

Conference Champions (+600)

Collin Wilson: Head coach Barry Odom enters his second season in Las Vegas looking to capitalize on a season that ended with a berth in the Mountain West Championship.

Odom, a longtime defensive coordinator and head coach at the Power 5 level, has a perfect complement on the offensive side of the ball with coordinator Brennan Marion.

While the defense returns national average levels of experience for Odoom’s three-man nickel and dime packages, the offense will have plenty of holes to fill at the skill positions.

Marion is the inventor of the Go-Go offense, an eye-appealing system that can satisfy the appetite of any college football consumer.

Opponents have plenty to keep track of in pre- and post-snap activities, from chasing motion in multiple running back sets to RPOs in conjunction with zone-read options.

Marion has essentially created a playbook in EA Sports College Football 25 and brought it to real life at every stop of his coaching career.

The first order for business is determining a quarterback after Jayden Maiava’s transfer to USC.

Two transfers are expected to compete for duties in the Go-Go: Campbell’s Hajj-Malik Williams and Holy Cross' Matthew Sluka. (If Williams' name rings a bell for Action Network readers, we invested in the Camels offense weekly in 2021.)

The sixth-year senior has compiled 58 passing touchdowns to just 26 interceptions in his career, adding another 1,000 yards of scrambling and nearly 500 yards off designed calls.

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Sluka led Holy Cross in two near upsets of FBS teams last season.

The fifth-year senior's career rushing numbers eclipse most FBS running backs, blasting opponents for 38 touchdowns on the ground with 214 missed tackles. A career average depth of target at 12 yards shows the deep-ball skills, as he has 59 passing touchdowns to just 15 interceptions.

Cameron Friel remains on the UNLV roster for a third season, completing a Rebels quarterback room that's full of talent and depth.

The trio of quarterbacks are blessed with the return of Ricky White, who led the team with 115 targets and seven touchdowns in 2023. The junior could be the most explosive target in college football, leading all FBS wide receivers in yards per route run at 4.05.

Odom’s ties to Arkansas have paid off in the transfer portal pipeline to Las Vegas.

Former Razorbacks linebacker Jackson Woodard will begin his second season for the Rebels after leading the team with 71 tackles, and sixth-year senior Jalen Catalon — a former locker room leader for Odom at Arkansas — comes in at safety.

Edge Jalen Dixon returns with second-team all-Mountain West honors after compiling 23 pressures in 2023. UNLV projects to have a better defense than it did a season ago, especially after improving a top-40 rank in opponent on-target rate.

The Rebels' experience numbers moved their offseason power rating down because of the FCS transfers on offense, but UNLV should be as potent as it was in 2023.

The seven-game conference schedule is one of the toughest in the MWC, but Fresno State and Boise State must run through Allegiant Stadium. A trip to Hawaii could also be tricky, but the Rebels head to Honolulu off a bye week.

The nonconference slate includes road games at Houston and Kansas. However, the Jayhawks will host from the smaller Children’s Mercy Park with Memorial Stadium under construction.

With offensive firepower not accounted for in experience metrics, look for the Go-Go offense to be as explosive with the return of White. Defensively, Odom did a great job fortifying a unit with experience in the backfield.

UNLV has just as much talent as its Mountain West peers but at a much better price. Buy a conference future with Fresno State serving as the hedge spot on the schedule.

Utah State Aggies

Under 5.5 Wins

Mike Calabrese: As you've probably heard, Blake Anderson was recently fired as Aggies head coach. In the termination letter sent to Anderson, the reason was for allegedly contacting a potential domestic violence victim and a witness to the incident after an Aggies football player was arrested, and failing to properly report the case.

Now, Utah State is forced to insert a 33-year-old, first-team head coach in Nate Dreiling on an interim basis and short notice.

Spencer Petrus is his quarterback, and the transfer is exactly who you picture when you think of an Iowa Hawkeyes quarterback from the past five years. In his last season in Iowa City, he has a 55% competion percentage, five touchdowns, five interceptions, and somehow -182 rushing yards.

On the plus side, the Aggies have an in tact offensive line and Petrus has a great wide receiver in Jalen Royals. But will it matter with all the upheaval within the facility?

I think this has the potential to fall apart fast for the Aggies.

Defensively, this was low-key one of the worst defenses in the Mountain West a year ago. If you look at the back-half of their schedule, they gave up 37 to Colorado State, 42 to Fresno State, 41 to New Mexico in overtime, and 45 to Georgia State in the bowl game.

There's very little experience here up front, which is concerning. And when you look at the first six weeks of the year: at USC, vs. Utah, at Temple, bye week, vs. UNLV.

I'm not overthinking this. Give me under 5.

Wyoming Cowboys

Over 6.5 Wins

Mike Ianniello: This is my favorite win total in this conference.

Wyoming had the shortest transfer portal page of any Group of 5 team by a mile. They lost three total players to the portal and only one was even remotely a contributor last season. I think that speaks volumes to what this team thinks about Jay Sawvel.

The Cowboys return nearly every starter on both sides of the ball. I love what I'm hearing about the quarterback, Evan Svoboda, who is being compared to Josh Allen left and right. Whether that's true or not, that's obviously a good sign.

The defense should be great again, they have the best home-field advantage in college football, and they have a phoenomenal special teams. John Hoyland is one of the best kickers in the conference. He practically single-handedly won them like two games last year.

They open the season with Arizona State, Idaho, BYU, and North Texas, and they could easily get out to a 4-0 start. And then they get Air Force and San Diego State at home, both of whom I'm down on.

They could legitimately be 9-1 before getting to their hardest games of the season, in which case they'll have already cashed this total by a mile.

I love over 6.5, and I don't hate them to win the conference either.