2. Mountain West
Who’ll be a true challenger for Boise State?
UNLV could never, ever turn a corner under Tony Sanchez, but there continue to be enough nice parts to hope for something to start to work under new head man Marcus Arroyo.
The league as a whole should be better with Steve Addazio taking over Colorado State and with Kalen DeBoer likely to show that 2019 was an aberration for Fresno State. Throw in Hawaii getting Todd Graham to take over, and the coaching in the new coaches in the conference are solid.
San Jose State finally is more than simply a free-space game – the passing attack should be a whole lot of fun – and Wyoming, Nevada and Utah State should be good enough to be in the bowl mix again.
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Brady Hoke is taking back his old gig at San Diego State, and there’s no excuse to not keep the production from the Rocky Long era going. It should be another nasty Aztec team defensively, and not it just needs a wee bit more offense.
Air Force gets just enough back to potentially keep the production going after last year’s 11-2 run, and there’s always a surprise or two somewhere in the mix – like Hawaii last season or Fresno State a few seasons ago.
But it’s still Boise State’s conference for the taking.
And then there’s New Mexico, who tried a whole slew of things to get things working over the last few seasons under Bob Davie, and now it’s up to former Arizona State defensive coordinator Danny Gonzales to figure it out.
That’s the issue for the Mountain West. The Lobos should be better, but there isn’t a team that appears to be quite that down in the …