San Jose State football will face challenges in new-look Mountain West

LAS VEGAS — San Jose State has entered a new reality: A Mountain West that no longer has the likes of Boise State, Fresno State and San Diego State.

When the rebuilt conference held its football media days this week in Las Vegas, it welcomed three new members, Northern Illinois, North Dakota State and UTEP.

San Jose State is one of the holdovers after five previous Mountain West schools – Utah State and Colorado State were the others – left for the new Pac-12 Conference.

If various media projections are accurate, the Spartans face significant challenges as they aim to bounce back from last season’s 3-9 finish.

SB Nation’s Mountain West Connection picks San Jose State to finish fifth, behind UNLV, New Mexico, North Dakota State and Hawaii. ESPN’s Mountain West Power Index ranks the Spartans eighth in the 10-team conference.

The low expectations are nothing new for SJSU.

“We just always have a chip on our shoulder,” linebacker Ethan Powell said at the conference’s media days. “We’re counted out a lot, so just prove people wrong.”

The Spartans will enter the season with a new-look offense centered around an open quarterback competition. Luke Weaver, a transfer from Hawaii, Daniel Rolovich and Robert McDaniel are competing for the job after last year’s starter, Walker Eget, transferred to Duke.

“I don’t know who the starting quarterback will be,” SJSU coach Ken Niumatalolo said, adding that he hopes to make a decision early in camp. “It’s that close. They all do their things. All of them have their good days and bad days,”

Whoever wins the job won’t be passing to last year’s star receiver, Danny Scudero. After leading the nation in receiving in 2025, the former Archbishop Mitty High standout transferred to Colorado. Scudero helped SJSU earn a reputation as “Wide Receiver University” as he took over from Nick Nash, who won the receiving Triple Crown in 2024.

This year, the position group will be led by Anthony Ivey, a Penn State transfer, and Malachi Riley, who appeared in just one game last season before suffering a season-ending injury.

San Jose State, UTEP and Northern Illinois were the only schools that did not have a single player selected to the 2026 preseason All-Mountain West team.

With fall camp about to begin, the Spartans will use the coming weeks to prepare for their season opener at USC on Aug. 29. Kickoff time is noon.

After the season opener, San Jose State plays Eastern Michigan and Cal Poly before a home game against longtime rival Fresno State on Sept. 19.

The conference opener is Oct. 3 at Hawaii.

San Jose State closes the regular season at home on Nov. 27 against North Dakota State.

The Bison are making the jump to the FBS after winning 39 conference championships and 18 national championships in lower divisions.

They finished 12-1 last season.

“We really do believe in the strength of Mountain West football,” Mountain West commissioner Gloria Nevarez said. “There’s a lot of industry experts, our own experts that are really, really optimistic about the talent we’ve retained, the talent we’ve attracted, and the coaching caliber that we have in this league. So it really is exciting.”