Mountain West players and coaches are laser-focused on football as the conference race takes shape. Those who don\u2019t earn a championship game berth can console themselves with at least six wins and a bowl berth.<\/p>\n
Boise State (5-2, 3-0 MW) and San Diego State (5-1, 2-0) are the last two undefeated teams in conference play. Hawaii (6-2, 3-1), UNLV (6-1, 2-1), Fresno State (5-2, 2-1) and Utah State (4-3, 2-1) all are in the mix with one loss. Hawaii and UNLV both have reached six victories, and several of their conference peers are expected to follow their lead.<\/p>\n
Every player on every team has a story. The Union-Tribune talked to many of them as the season began about how they got into football, their passions off the field and the fun parts of the game.\u00a0Here is a sampling of their responses:<\/p>\n
If you weren\u2019t a football player, what would you be?<\/p>\n
Fresno State OL Jacob Spomer: \u201cI tell my parents I couldn\u2019t do a 9-to-5 job. I think football is my sport, my lifestyle. I don\u2019t know, but I\u2019d do something in sports. NFL agent would be cool. You ever watch the TV show \u2018Ballers\u2019 (where Dwayne \u2018The Rock\u2019 Johnson stars as a financial advisor to NFL players)? That\u2019s a good lifestyle to live. Working with players. Seeing their lifestyle and how you could change their life. Always being surrounded by football would be good.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fresno State CB Al\u2019zillion Hamilton:\u00a0\u201cI\u2019d be a baseball player. That was the first sport I ever played. I played second base and shortstop. Out of high school, I only had offers for football. During my recruiting process, I really didn\u2019t know how to talk to schools about both sports, so I just took my full ride for football. I did give some thought earlier in my (college football) career to give it a shot when my skills were still kind of there, but baseball is a sport where you\u2019ve got to keep your skills up. So I just focused on football.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nevada DT Thomas Witte:\u00a0 \u201cI got my pilot\u2019s license when I was 17. That\u2019s the plan after football, to become a pilot. If I wasn\u2019t playing football, I\u2019d be up there in the sky flying. Everyone in Alaska (he\u2019s from Anchorage) is a pilot. It\u2019s a cool thing. I\u2019ve had a love affair with it since I was a child. I soloed an airplane on my 16th birthday and got my license when I was 17. I\u2019m working on my commercial pilot\u2019s license now. Whenever I have some free time, I\u2019ll go work with an instructor and build some hours, go for different ratings. It\u2019s a long process, but I love to be in the air.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nevada QB Chubba Purdy:\u00a0\u201cI\u2019ve thought about this. If I didn\u2019t go to college, I\u2019d probably go to trade school and maybe be a lineman (repairing electrical and communication lines) or something along those lines. Also, in high school, when I wasn\u2019t getting offers, I thought about going in the military. I thought about trying to be part of the Army. Serving my country would be pretty awesome.\u201d<\/p>\n
New Mexico OL Richard Pearce:\u00a0\u201cGrowing up I told my parents I was going to be a bounty hunter. I don\u2019t know why. I would watch this show, \u2018Dog The Bounty Hunter.\u2019 I liked the adrenaline rush.\u201d<\/p>\n
Boise State OL Kage Casey: \u201cAfter I\u2019m done playing football, I\u2019d like to go to seminary school and get my degree there. I don\u2019t know if I\u2019d want to become a pastor or just do a ton of mission trips and help lead people that way. But that\u2019s one thing I really want to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
What is your most memorable moment on a football field?<\/p>\n
SDSU edge rusher Trey White:\u00a0\u201cMost memorable moment was probably winning the Oil Can a couple years ago (33-18 at Snapdragon Stadium) against The Team Up North (Fresno State).\u201d<\/p>\n
SDSU center Ross Ulugalu-Maseuli: \u201cWinning the Frisco Bowl (38-24 over UTSA in 2021 for a school-record 12th victory) was really cool. I played special teams. Seeing how the team works. That was the last time I felt a real football family, until this year. I\u2019m feeling that same bond, that same tradition that is Aztecs football.\u201d<\/p>\n
New Mexico edge rusher Gabe Lopez: \u201cMy greatest moment was beating Washington State last year after transferring from there. First upset in years (since 2003 over a ranked team). That one felt so good.\u201d<\/p>\n
What is your most embarrassing moment on a football field?<\/p>\n
SDSU\u2019s White: \u201cEvery time I miss a tackle, it\u2019s embarrassing. Every time.\u201d<\/p>\n
SDSU\u2019s Ulugalu-Maseuli:\u00a0\u201cI tried jumping over someone (against Air Force) who fell down on a play trying to tackle our running back. He got up, hit me between my legs and I fell on my face.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nevada\u2019s Purdy:\u00a0\u201cAt Florida State, I tried hurdling a dude. I hit his helmet and did a flip. I thought it was cool, but it could be embarrassing, I guess. It was crazy. I\u2019ve got (a clip of) it still on my phone.\u201d<\/p>\n
San Jose State LB Taniela Latu:\u00a0 \u201cIt was in junior college at College of San Mateo. We have this punishment where we have to roll all the way 100 yards and back. It was a team punishment. I think somebody said or did something during practice, and our coach was just fed up. This day, we had to do 300 yards. I got up after and threw up and then had a full-body cramp. I just had the whole nine yards all in one day.\u201d<\/p>\n
Originally Published: October 23, 2025 at 6:32 PM PDT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mountain West players and coaches are laser-focused on football as the conference race takes shape. Those who don\u2019t…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20691,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[1327,181,74,76,75,305,127],"class_list":{"0":"post-20690","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-college-sports","9":"tag-latest-headlines","10":"tag-san-diego","11":"tag-san-diego-headlines","12":"tag-san-diego-news","13":"tag-sdsu-aztecs","14":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20690","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20690"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20690\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}