San Diego State’s hopes of participating in the 2025 Mountain West championship game were dashed Sunday morning when the conference announced that Boise State and UNLV will play for the title.

Boise State will host Friday’s conference championship game, which will be played at 5 p.m. PT and broadcast on Fox.

SDSU would have clinched a spot in the title game — and hosted it — if the Aztecs had beaten New Mexico in Friday’s regular-season finale.

The Lobos won 23-17 in double overtime, leaving both teams with 6-2 conference records. Boise State rallied Friday for a 25-24 win Friday at Utah State to join them at 6-2. UNLV made it a foursome Saturday night with a 42-17 win at Nevada,

Head-to-head competition could not be used as a tiebreaker because all of the teams did not play each other this season.

The tie was broken by computer metrics, using the average from the Connelly SP+, ESPN SOR, KPI and SportSource rankings.

UNLV had a composite average of 45.50, followed by Boise State at 47.75, SDSU at 51.00 and New Mexico at 54.75.

The top two teams advanced to the conference championship. Boise State was selected to host the game based on its head-to-head victory over the Rebels. This is the third straight year Boise State and UNLV will play for the title. The Broncos won it last year after the Rebels beat them for the 2023 title.

SDSU turned last season’s 3-9 record into 9-3 this season, led by a defense regarded as the best in the Mountain West and among the best in the country as well as solid special teams play. The Aztecs tied for first place after being picked for eighth place in a preseason media poll.

Since SDSU won’t be playing in the conference championship game, Aztecs players are expected to get time off from practice this week while they await a bowl assignment. Bowl matchups will be announced Sunday morning on ESPN’s three-hour Selection Show, which begins at 9 a.m.

Among potential landing spots for SDSU are the Arizona Bowl (Dec. 27) or Famous Idaho Potato Bowl (Dec. 22), which both have tie-ins with the Mountain West. It’s also possible SDSU could be assigned to an ESPN Events bowl, such as the Frisco Bowl (Dec. 23).

The Aztecs are bowl eligible for the first time in three years. They were bowl eligible a program-record 13 straight seasons from 2010-22.