Welcome to Kickoff Week here at MWCConnection! Coinciding with Mountain West Media Days week, it is the unofficial start to the football season. It’s a great time to get hyped about your team and start getting nuggets of football news. Yesterday was our all-conference team, and releases will continue all week long.

Today, we are releasing our preseason awards as well as our predictions for the order of finish and champion for the conference. Like yesterday’s post, our team members submitted their picks, and the players and teams with the most votes won out. Take a look at what we compiled below:

Offensive Player of the Year:

• RB Jai’Den Thomas (UNLV)

Defensive Player of the Year:

• LB Jaxton Eck (New Mexico)

Special Teams Player of the Year:

• WR Jackson Williams (NDSU)

Offensive Breakout Player of the Year:

• Scottre Humphrey (New Mexico)

Defensive Breakout Player of the Year:

• EDGE Landen Thomas (UNLV)

Offensive Transfer of the Year:

• QB Jackson Arnold (UNLV)

Defensive Transfer of the Year

• DB Isaiah Buxton (San Jose State)

Offensive Freshman of the Year:

• WR Jesse Harden (UNLV)

Defensive Freshman of the Year:

• DB Joey Thomas III (Nevada)

Coach of the Year:

• Jason Eck (New Mexico)

The points for voting went as follows: 10 points for a first-place vote, 9 for second, 8 for third place, and so on.

Mountain West Predicted Order of Finish:

11. Here is our December list for reference.

    • There were no unanimous selections this year, which is a bit of a rarity. However, the DPOY award came within a single vote of being unanimous.

    • Some players won their categories with relative ease, such as Thomas, Arnold, Hudson, and Thomas III.

    • On the other hand, OPOY, Offensive Breakout, and Defensive Transfer were all tight races.

    • The most wide-open category was Special Teams Player of the Year, with six different players receiving votes.

    • UNLV and New Mexico were the only two teams that received first-place votes. Then North Dakota State and Hawaii were a step down in the next two slots.

    • There was a big gap between the fourth- and fifth-place teams, but spots five, six, and seven were all close in votes.

    • San Jose State had the most variance, placing as high as second and as low as ninth in the voting.

    • UTEP was unanimously picked to finish tenth in its first year in the Mountain West.

    There it is. So let’s hear it. Who did we snub? Who did we put on here that shouldn’t be? Let’s hear your feedback in the comments section.

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    Coming tomorrow: Our Kickoff Week continues as tomorrow we will take a look at which teams have the best position units heading into 2026.