2024 Mountain West Football Schedule and Observations

The Mountain West released their 2024 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:

• 3 teams play during Week 0, the same number of last year. The Mountain West thankfully still has a big presence at the start of the season.
• In Week 1, It looks like San Jose State will open their season on a Thursday. All other teams are currently scheduled to play on Saturday.
• Week 2 will have the first conference game, featuring Air Force and San Jose State
• Week 2 will also be the first MW/PAC2 games, with San Diego State and Oregon State squaring off. Washington State’s first MW game will be Week 4 against San Jose State
• Air Force, Hawaii, and San Diego State each start the year with 2 straight home games. Meanwhile, Boise State won’t have their first home game until Week 4.
• Boise State and Colorado State each have 3 straight home games, the Ram’s slate coming before a bye and the Broncos have those games after a bye week.
• The Broncos appear to be the only team that has two different sets of back-to-back road games.
• Nevada playing an extra game this year, taking advantage of the rule that allows them an extra game for traveling to Hawaii. This will likely help build experience and improve for the future.
• Boise State gets a bye week following their trip to Hawaii before playing UNLV. That’s a nice break for them.
• Week 5 and Week 10 will feature the most bye weeks for teams, with six and five teams not playing those weeks, respectively (this includes Oregon State and Washington State). However, only three teams (Air Force, Boise State, and San Diego State) get byes in one of the two middle week of the season.
• In a bit of an oddity, Hawaii and New Mexico have both the earliest bye week (Week 2) and the latest (Week 13)
• In more bye week news, due to the way the calendar falls this year, every team gets an extra bye week in order to keep Week 1 on Labor Day weekend and Week 14 on Thanksgiving weekend.
• Fresno State (UCLA) and San Jose State (Stanford) both play non-conference games the final week of the season.
• Boise State, San Diego State, and San Jose State are the only teams who will play both Oregon State and Washington State next season due to previously scheduled games.
• The “PAC Championship” will take place during Week 13. It’s a bit odd it’s not part of rivalry week in Week 14.
• Speaking of Rivalry week, Week 14 will feature only one traditional rivalry, Nevada & UNLV in the battle for the Fremont Cannon. That is extremely sad the conference continues to not showcase their rivalry games during the last week of the regular season.