2026 Mountain West odds, prediction: Hawaii will emerge from new-look conference
Change is the norm in college football these days, but even by those standards, what happened to the Mountain West is above and beyond.Five schools departed the conference after the 2025 season, including headliner Boise State.The Blue Turf is now part of the landscape in the Pac-12, but at least the MWC was able to make ends meet by attracting North Dakota State, along with UTEP and Northern Illinois.With five teams out and three teams in, including one from the FCS ranks, the approach to handicapping the race in the Mountain West is also completely different for this season.It used to come down to Boise vs.the field, but it’s now wide open.Two teams, UNLV and New Mexico, are projected to be the class of the competition, with some sportsbooks having the former as a marginal favorite, and others favoring the latter.Either way, the difference between the two teams is negligible.Of the two, UNLV figures to be the trendier pick after Dan Mullen led the Rebels to 10 wins in his first season under the headset in Sin City.Mullen bolstered his ranks by bringing in former five-star recruit Jackson Arnold after underwhelming stops at Oklahoma and Auburn.
Arnold’s athleticism and pizzazz have never been in question, but he’s been unable to turn his talent into success at the college level just yet.Mullen and his coaching staff do have a habit of turning raw signal-calling talent into winning players, which has plenty of folks picking UNLV to represent the Group of 6 in the College Football Playoff.Down in Albuquerque, the Lobos are coming off a remarkable turnaround in 2025.Pegged as the worst team in the conference before Week 1, Jackson Eck guided New Mexico to its first nine-win campaign since 2016.
It was New Mexico’s second winning season since 2007.Catch up on The Post’s college football betting predictions and previews for the 2026 seasonEck’s formula is familiar.He was a standout coach at the FCS level, got a gig in the FBS and brought his best players ...