Offseason Vibe Checks 2025: The Mountain West

Split Zone Duo: College Football Podcast

Richard Johnson and Alex Kirshner

News, Sports, Sports News, Football

4.9 • 916 Ratings

🗓️ 8 May 2025

⏱️ 41 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Richard Johnson and Alex Kirshner close out SZD’s Offseason Vibe Check series with the Mountain West. How has everything gone for this conference and its teams between the end of the regular season and now? Let’s discuss:

* The state of the Mountain West’s squabbling with the Pac-12

* New Mexico’s new head coach, Jason Eck, has been an FCS lifer

* Utah State’s Bronco Mendenhall hire could be one of the best moves any team made all offseason

* Fresno State gets Matt Entz, formerly of NDSU, and tries to find talent in unconventional places

* Boise State loses Ashton Jeanty but has so much coming back

* Colorado State has an intriguing group of freshmen and an ex-Ohio State WR

* San Jose State tries to build on an encouraging first year under Ken Niumatalolo but has to move forward without an all-time receiver, Nick Nash

* UNLV got Dan Mullen … and then some shaky headlines about its finances

* Nevada looks to a familiar face, Chubba Purdy, to turn around a 3-10 team

* Air Force is a candidate to be one of the most improved teams in FBS, but it’s not clear who will play QB

* Wyoming has holes to fill at positions where it’s produced elite players recently

* San Diego State tries to get back to basics after an ugly first year for Sean Lewis

* Hawaii has athletic director turmoil on an epic scale

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Producer: Anthony Vito

Hosts: Alex Kirshner, Ricard Johnson

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.splitzoneduo.com/subscribe

Transcript

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0:00.0	We're coming, and we ain't backing down.
0:01.9	We don't need a bunch of cats in here.
0:03.4	Looking in the mirror.
0:04.5	Everybody just do your job.
0:06.7	You understand that?
0:07.7	Hey, will you shut up?
0:08.6	I'm bitterly disappointed with the officiating today.
0:11.1	Guys being dudes.
0:12.3	And they run through our like a shit through a ten horn, man.
0:14.8	Ah, fuck it.
0:16.4	Thank you, Lee.
0:18.2	I'm Alex Kirchner.
0:19.3	I'm here with Richard Johnson.
0:25.8	My co-host, Richard, we have reached the end of the off-season vibe check series.
0:31.6	It has been a fun few months, and we're going to close it out today with the Mountain West Conference.
0:38.7	Soon to be the artist formerly known as the Mountain West Conference, or at least the former configuration of the Mountain West Conference. No, yeah, it's still going to be known as the Mountain West
0:41.5	Conference, though there are still some realignment pieces up in the air. I'm actually glad
0:46.2	you mentioned those. So the offseason vibe check series is our bridge between 2024 and 2025.
0:52.4	Not a season recap, not a season preview, just checking on
0:55.8	how things have been going over these long football list months for the teams in these conferences.
1:01.0	So we are going to talk about the Mountain West as it was in 2024 and will be in 2025.
1:07.1	Utep is coming in 26. Northern Illinois is coming in 20206.
	...

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