Mountain West reveals 2025 football schedule. Why Fresno State could win farewell championship
Fresno State will not play back-to-back conference road games this season or three conference road games in four weeks as the Bulldogs have several times in the past, which is a nice going-away present from the Mountain West.
Whether coach Matt Entz and the Bulldogs can take advantage of an advantageous schedule to get to the conference championship game in their final Mountain West season remains to be seen. But the opportunity will be there, with no glaring scheduling challenges to add to the degree of difficulty for the Bulldogs before they make the transition to a rebuilt Pac-12 in 2026.
Fresno State will have a bye after playing its conference opener at Hawaii. The Bulldogs play at Colorado State, but early enough that inclement weather should not be a factor.
Even a Nov. 1 game at defending conference champion Boise State does not come with scheduling challenges, as it has in other seasons. Not for the Bulldogs, anyway. The past four times Fresno State played at Boise State in the regular season (2022, 2018, 2014 and 2012), the Bulldogs were playing on the road for a third time in four weeks, and they lost those games to the Broncos.
This time, Fresno State will be playing a second game after a bye week — Boise State will be playing a seventh game in a row, and it will be the only Mountain West team to do that in 2025.
This season and last, FBS (football bowl subdivision) teams have had two bye weeks built into their schedules due to an NCAA bylaw, which states that teams may not play their first game until the Thursday preceding Labor Day, which falls on Sept. 1 and was Sept. 2 last season. There also is an exception that allows for Hawaii, teams that play at Hawaii and their opponents to play one week earlier on the Saturday before the Labor Day weekend.
Hawaii was the only Mountain West team to play seven games in a row last season, and lost. And, over the past two seasons, there are 11 teams in the league that have played seven or more weeks in a row and in that seventh game they are 2-9. That includes some teams at or near the top of the conference.
UNLV in 2023 ended the regular season playing seven weeks in a row. It was 9-2 and lost that seventh game, played on its home field, to San Jose State. The Rebels then lost to Boise State the following week in the conference championship game.
Boise State, which rallied after a rough start in 2023 to win the Mountain West championship, also lost when playing a seventh game in a row that season. The Broncos were 3-3 with non-conference losses at No. 2 Washington, Central Florida and at Memphis, and lost at Colorado State to a team that finished 5-7.
Fresno State’s longest stretch of games this season is five in a row, starting with the Week 0 non-conference match up at Kansas and ending with the trip to Hawaii. The Bulldogs get a bye week following that stretch, play two games and get another bye. They then play two more games before the third bye week, and end the season with three games in a row with two at home and the regular-season finale at San Jose State.
The Mountain West championship game will be played on Friday, Dec. 5, between the teams with the two highest winning percentages in conference play. The team with the highest winning percentage will host the game.
Dates of the games could be moved to accommodate national television broadcasts by CBS Sports and FOX Sports, which will be announced later this year.
Fresno State schedule
Aug. 23: at Kansas
Aug. 30: Georgia Southern
Sept. 6: at Oregon State
Sept. 13: Southern
Sept. 20: at Hawaii
Sept. 27: Bye
Oct. 4: Nevada
Oct. 11: at Colorado State
Oct. 18: Bye
Oct. 25: San Diego State
Nov. 1: at Boise State
Nov. 8: Bye
Nov. 15: Wyoming
Nov. 22: Utah State
Nov. 29: at San Jose State
This story was originally published February 20, 2025 at 2:08 PM.