Best In The West: Week Eight

Best in the West is The Aggship's weekly Mountain West football round-up.

Boise State 56, UNLV 31

The undefeated Rebels are no more. The last unbeaten team in the conference, and one of the last unbeatens in the nation, fell to Boise State on Saturday, 56-31. A second-quarter surge was only enough to bring the Rebels within four points after they fell into an early deficit, and Boise State dominated the third quarter to bury UNLV.

It was UNLV’s biggest game of the year thus far, and it began with a three-and-out and a defensive stand that only required Boise State to run six plays to traverse the 60 yards to the end zone. The Rebels punted again before the defense settled in and forced a three-and-out, and then the offense got into field goal range and made it a 7-3 game. Boise State was quick to respond, though, marching 75 yards in four plays to take a 14-3 lead by the end of the opening frame.

The Rebels really started to roll in the second quarter. They picked off Maddux Madsen on Boise State’s first drive of the period and scored three touchdowns, but somehow they only outscored the Broncos 21-14 and never took the lead. 

Whatever Spencer Danielson said at halftime was apparently more effective than anything Dan Mullen came up with because a 28-24 game at halftime quickly became a 49-24 game at the end of the third quarter. The Broncos played a nearly perfect 15 minutes of football capped off by a pick-six from A’Marion McCoy and preceded by a pair of Madsen touchdown passes.

The Broncos stacked up 558 yards of total offense with two turnovers on the day, while UNLV had 476 with just one turnover. Madsen had his second four-touchdown game on 14-of-23 passing for 253 yards. Dylan Riley, Cameron Bates, and Sire Gaines each added a touchdown on the ground, though the game belonged to Riley, who rushed 15 times for 201 yards and hit triple digits for the fourth time in the last six games. For UNLV, Anthony Colandrea was 18 of 30 for 215 yards and two touchdowns in the air, plus 13 carries, 87 yards and a touchdown on the ground.

Despite the setback UNLV’s season is still very much intact. The Rebels get to sit with the loss for an extra week before taking on New Mexico in Las Vegas on Nov. 1.

The Broncos are now one of two teams without a Mountain West loss, the other being San Diego State, which had the week off. For Boise State, now seven games into the season, the path to the Mountain West championship game is coming into view. With a win against one of the primary threats, the Broncos now own a valuable tiebreaker. They'll get the chance to pick up another in a couple of weeks when they face the Aztecs in San Diego. But first, the Broncos get Nevada on the road this Friday night.

Hawaii 31, Colorado State 19

With their sixth win, the Rainbow Warriors are now officially in the midst of their best season of the Timmy Chang era, eclipsing the five-win mark where they peaked in the past two years. They'll be bowling for the first time since 2020. On the opposite sideline, Jay Norvell picked up his 26th and final loss at Colorado State – the Rams announced his firing on Sunday, ending a four-year tenure.

Micah Alejado started his 301-yard passing night by leading a 65-yard touchdown drive with a 17-yard pass to Nick Cenacle to top it off. Things started to shift as the first frame came to a close.

After Javion Kinnard took a punt 91 yards to the house to close the quarter and knot the score at 7-7, Jace Bellah picked off Alejado on Hawaii’s next drive. But when Colorado State couldn’t capitalize, the Rainbow Warriors struck fast to take a seven-point lead into the half, connecting on a 75-yard touchdown pass from Alejado to Jackson Harris.

Out of the break, Hawaii found the end zone again, this time on a nine-yard Harris reception, to extend the lead to 14 points, 21-7. Hawaii added a field goal before Colorado State scored its next touchdown, and though the Rams drew within five points in the fourth quarter, Alejado and Co. iced the game with a 75-yard march finished off by Cam Barfield.

Alejado was 26 of 38 for 301 yards with three touchdowns and one interception. He also managed 21 yards on nine carries. Harris caught two touchdowns on five receptions for 109 yards. Cenacle, who caught the other score, had seven catches for 70 yards. Barfield rushed five time for 56 yards, and Landon Sims added 59 yards on 12 carries.

Hawaii gets its second bye of the month this week before heading to San Jose State on Nov. 1. Colorado State, led now by interim head coach and defensive coordinator Tyson Summers, hits the road this week for a matchup at Wyoming.

New Mexico 24, Nevada 22

After dropping two in a row, New Mexico sneaked past Nevada to get back on track, while the Wolf Pack picked up their fifth loss in a row. Nevada trailed for the entirety of the game, meaning it hasn’t led since the second quarter of the Fresno State game on Oct. 4.

A nine-point second quarter did get the Pack within two at the break, 14-12, but a turnover on downs coming out of the locker room gave the Lobos the chance to score first in the second half and extend their lead. The Wolf Pack would cut it to two twice more and had the chance to make New Mexico pay for a missed field goal in the fourth, but another turnover on downs with 2:34 left in the game ended their hopes of closing the gap.

Carter Jones connected on 23 of 29 attempts for 202 yards. Caleb Ramseur took on the scoring duties with 14 carries, 39 yards and two touchdowns.

Jack Layne put together a 14-of-22 passing night for 138 yards, while Scottre Humphrey took 13 carries for 58 yards and a score, and D.J. McKinney took eight carries for 39 yards and two touchdowns.

The Wolf Pack’s season is looking bleaker than ever. In addition to stacking five losses in a row, Nevada is still without an FBS win. The gut punch of coming up short against a vulnerable New Mexico squad is accentuated by the upcoming matchup against Boise State, all but guaranteeing a 1-7 record when Nevada hits the road to Logan at the start of November.

New Mexico was all too happy to put the two-game losing streak in the rearview mirror and get back on track just in time for the much-anticipated game against Utah State. This week, Bronco Mendenhall and a band of players who followed him from ABQ to Logan will return to the Land of Enchantment to face Jason Eck and his new-look Lobos, who have rebuilt in their wake.

Air Force 24, Wyoming 21

Wyoming took a 14-6 lead in the third quarter, but 18 unanswered points from Air Force gave the Falcons a 10-point lead with three minutes to go and ultimately proved sufficient to snap a five-game AFA losing streak. Kaden Anderson led the Cowboys on a two-minute, 68-yard drive capped off with a 13-yard touchdown pass to Michael Fitzgerald to make it a three-point game, but the Falcons recovered the onside kick, and once they got a first down, the game was over. With the win, Air Force is now 2-5, while Wyoming falls to 3-4.

The Falcons have been experimenting with a high-scoring, uncharacteristically pass-heavy offense. The experiment, although worth plenty of yards, ultimately failed. So, the Falcons went back to what they do best. The result was a classic, textbook Air Force football game. The Falcons rushed for 330 yards and passed for just 33. They had two penalties for 10 yards, they won the time of possession, they didn’t have any turnovers but forced two, and they won. It was Air Force’s lowest-scoring game of the year – and its only FBS win.

Both teams are more than likely far out of contention in the conference, but with shades of last season echoing for both programs, the teams had plenty to play for. The Falcons were off to their second 1-5 start in a row. Last season, they dropped seven in a row after winning the season opener, only to rattle off four wins in a row to end the season and come up just a game short of bowl eligibility.

Wyoming is also trying to shake off the demons of last year. In Jay Sawvel’s first season after taking over for Craig Bohl, the Pokes went 3-9, their worst season in nearly a decade. Coming into the game, they had already tied their win total from last year.

Both teams were looking to get ahead of schedule, and it was the Falcons who succeeded. Stopping their slump at five rather than seven games puts them ahead of schedule and gives the Falcons plenty of time to figure things out down the stretch and get to a bowl this time. They'll enjoy a bye this week and open November against Army. Up next for the Cowboys is the Border War as they host Colorado State.