By Alan Snel, LVSportsBiz.com Publisher-Writer
LAS VEGAS, Nevada — It’s a big transition year for UNLV’s sports conference.
And with the dust settled after five teams left the Mountain West Conference, the UNLV football team is expecting to be a big dog in a new-look Mountain West.
Gone are UNLV nemesis Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State, San Diego State and Utah State. Those five moved to a revamped Pac-12. The Mountain West football newbies are North Dakota State, Northern Illinois and UTEP.
Only two seasons ago, Northern Illinois defeated a Notre Dame team that would go on to play for the CFP national championship, while North Dakota State was a perennial football power in its former league.
“It’s not like these are slouch programs,” UNLV Athletic Director Erick Harper told LVSportsBiz.com at Mountain West Media Days at The Palms hotel-casino west of the Strip. UNLV’s football teams under former coach Barry Odom and current coach Dan Mullen won 30 games and one a bowl game in the last three years in 2023, 2024 and 2025.
It’s the longest of long shots in this gambling town, but if UNLV can win the Mountain West and then qualify for the 12-team College Football Playoff tournament, the Rebels would have a shot at playing for college football’s national title game right here in Las Vegas at Allegiant Stadium in January.
But for now, UNLV coach Mullen is focusing on the 2026 season opener — an August 29 showdown against Memphis at Allegiant Stadium.
UNLV has no Friday night games with all six home games scheduled for various times on Saturdays.
That’s fine with Harper, who hopes to continue marketing UNLV home games at Allegiant Stadium as affordable family entertainment in a competitive sports market dominated by pro teams like the NFL Raiders and NHL Golden Knights and pricy major events like the annual F1 grand prix race on the Strip.
The UNLV home game starting times are 7 PM for Memphis Aug. 29, 12:30 PM for Cal Oct. 3, 4 PM for North Dakota State Oct. 10, 7:30 PM for Northern Illinois Oct. 31 (Halloween), 7:30 PM for Wyoming Nov. 7 and 6 PM for Nevada, Reno Nov. 28.
It’s back to the future for UTEP, which used to play in the WAC (Western Athletic Conference) with former and now current conference foes like UNLV, Wyoming and Air Force in the newly-minted ten-team Mountain West football league.
“There’s nothing to sell,” 36-year-old UTEP head coach Scotty Walden told LVSportBiz.com of trying to convince UTEP fans to watch Miners football games in their new conference. “It sells itself.”
MWC Commissioner Gloria Nevarez will be relying on a variety of bowl games including guaranteed ESPN-owned bowl events and a new MW+ streaming platform sold by the MWC directly to fans and customers.
The new aligned football conference now stretches from Illinois to Hawaii and from Texas to North Dakota. For the Mountain West’s new basketball conference, North Dakota State and Northern Illinois are out and UC-Davis and Grand Canyon are in for a ten-team hoops league.
Not only does the Mountain West football conference have more geographic variety, it has more football style variety from North Dakota’s smash mouth football to UNLV’s West Coast style to option football. And even though the football conference’s teams declined in number from 12 to ten, there were actually more media here Wednesday and Thursday at Media Days.
The conference has also moved its headquarters to Las Vegas.
PSA