Can the Boise State-Nevada series live past this weekend? Coaches hope so
When Boise State football takes the field at Nevada’s Mackay Stadium on Friday night, it will be the last time the longtime rivals will see each other for the foreseeable future.
Boise State, along with four other Mountain West schools, will jump ship to the reinvigorated Pac-12 Conference next summer, but Nevada is not one of the five teams making the move. That means a matchup that’s been played nearly every year since 1971, and dominated by the Broncos, is likely going away.
“Going all the way back to the Big Sky days, this has been a great rivalry,” Nevada head coach Jeff Choate said in a press conference earlier this week.
Choate knows the rivalry well. Nevada’s head coach since 2024, he was the Broncos’ special teams coordinator from 2006 to 2011. He also coached running backs and linebackers during that time.
“I can remember from my time there, we were always gonna have wars with Nevada,” Choate said. “And that was a big part of kind of the fabric of the regionality of the old (Western Athletic Conference), of the Big Sky and even the Mountain West until very recently.”
Choate was on the Broncos’ staff in 2010 when the Wolf Pack spoiled Boise State’s undefeated season with a 34-31 overtime victory in Reno — the Broncos went on to finish 12-1. Nevada is hosting its homecoming this weekend and will induct that 2010 team — quarterbacked by Colin Kaepernick, the Pack went 13-1 — into the Nevada Athletics Hall of Fame.
If it were up to the head coaches, regional matchups like this would stay on teams’ schedules in what become nonconference games.
Choate said that if he were asked about putting Boise State on the schedule, he’d respond with a resounding “yes.” And it’s not just the Broncos that Choate is interested in — he’d like to see more games in this half of the country.
“I think that makes a lot more sense than us going to Middle Tennessee next year or flying all the way to Pennsylvania,” Choate said. “... I think those regional rivalries still matter.”
Broncos head coach Spencer Danielson outlined Wednesday that the Broncos typically look to play at least one FCS team each season, one big team or a team “trending the right way,” and then a couple of regional matchups.
Danielson didn’t specifically mention Nevada, but he did advocate playing more regional schools. Boise State’s upcoming schedules feature a lot of long trips east, including to Kalamazoo to play Western Michigan; to Boone, North Carolina, to play App State; and to Huntington, West Virginia, to play Marshall.
“With us going to the Pac-12, there’s more schools around here that are regional that I know our fan base and other fan bases would like to see us play,” Danielson said. “So (I’m) open for all those matchups. I think as many regional matchups that you can have is really healthy for college football.”
The Broncos have had to open their season on the opposite side of the country the past two years — a frantic 56-45 win at Georgia Southern last year and a 34-7 loss to South Florida in August. The trip to Western Michigan comes next season in September, while the trips to App State and Marshall are in 2027.
“Us being able to play teams in the Mountain West, even (when) in our new conference, is awesome,” Danielson said. “So much respect for every single coach in our current conference. I think it’d be awesome to find ways to play each other.”
Boise State at Nevada
- When: 8 p.m. Mountain time Friday
- Where: Mackay Stadium (30,000, turf)
- TV: CBS Sports Network (Rich Waltz, Robert Turbin)
- Radio: KBOI 670 AM/KTIK 93.1 FM (Bob Behler, Pete Cavender)
- Records: Boise State 5-2, 3-0 Mountain West; Nevada 1-6, 0-3
- Series: Boise State leads the series 32-14
- Betting line: Boise State by 21.5
- Weather: 66 degrees, partly cloudy, 7% chance of rain
