A Utah State Opponent Lost for the Spring?

The news is not that the Mountain West has postponed the football season to a date to be determined. This has already been known for quite some time. The news is that Air Force is officially playing a two game schedule against Army and Navy in the Fall. The Falcons are set to play the Midshipmen on October 3rd and travel to Army on November 7th.

What is not clear from the two game schedule announcement is if Air Force plans to play in the Spring with the rest of the Mountain West teams or if their season will conclude after the game at Army. It seems unlikely that the Falcons would participate in the Spring if they are already playing in the Fall but again it is unclear because the Mountain West has made no announcement. So, assuming the Falcons don’t play in the Spring, what west division team do the Aggies replace the Falcons with? Well here are some options.

UNLV

This may be a good opponent for Utah State. The Aggies are already going up against San Diego State and Fresno State and this would be a good game for Utah State to work out any kinks they may have, especially in the quarterback position where there is not a lot of experience.

San Jose State

This would be another good option for Utah State if Air Force did not play in the Spring. Utah State and San Jose State are very similar teams in terms of style. The Aggies scored 29.2 points a game last season and the Spartans scored 30.1. Both teams were also close in comparison of yards per game but struggled against the teams in the upper half of the Mountain West. San Jose State lost to Air Force (41-24), San Diego State (27-17), and Boise State (52-42) by double digits and also gave UNLV their only in conference win (38-35). Utah State lost to Air Force (31-7) and Boise State (56-21). The other games that Utah State and San Jose State played in conference were very close. San Jose State was just points away from being a true competitor in the west division, however very close losses on the road to Nevada, Hawaii, and UNLV kept the Spartans out of the running. Utah State vs San Jose State would be really fun to watch and could qutie potentially lead to a shootout.

Hawaii

Utah State and Hawaii are also similar in playing style but the Warriors took it to the next step last year by beating San Diego State and going to the Mountain West Championship game. Both teams are better known for their offense and if Utah State can figure out the quarterback situation early, this would probably be a really close game and a big in conference win if Utah State could pull it off. However, due to COVID-19, there could be complications with Utah State vs Hawaii if the game was not on the conference schedule.

So... what happens then?

If Air Force does not play football in the Spring, the most likely team that Utah State would play instead is UNLV since UNLV is geographically closer to Utah State. This is all just speculation though because it is still possible that Air Force plays football in the Spring but more news will come on that subject as the Mountain West makes decisions on how to move forward.