UNLV and Idaho State are facing off on Saturday of the opening weekend of college football. The game will take place at 4:00 P.M. EDT at Allegiant Stadium. UNLV made it to the Mountain West Championship Game last season before losing to a College Football Playoff team, Boise State. They will start their 2025 campaign off against FCS Idaho State.
The Rebels are 25.5-point favorites in this game on the DraftKings Sportsbook. UNLV is a -5000 favorite on the Moneyline, and the total is set at 65.5 points. This is a preview, prediction, and pick for this UNLV-Idaho State game.
UNLV vs. Idaho State Preview
UNLV Preview
Barry Odom did a fantastic job at UNLV. The program had been in a bad place for a long time. UNLV didn’t have a coach leave the program with a winning record since Tony Knap in 1981, until Odom. Odom won nine games in his first season at the program, the first time UNLV had hit that mark since 1979, and won Mountain West Coach of the Year. He followed that up with a joint-best season in program history in 2024, winning ten games and making the Mountain West Championship Game. Odom got a job at a Big Ten program, Purdue, that he couldn’t pass up, so he moved on this offseason. UNLV decided to capitalize on the positive momentum within the program and hire former Florida head coach Dan Mullen.
There was a decent amount of roster turnover after Odom left, as is the case in this era of college football. However, Dan Mullen coming back to coaching for the first time since leaving Florida in 2021 is a huge appeal for a lot of players. Mullen has been a successful coach at multiple SEC programs and is a great offensive mind, which means he should work wonders at UNLV, given the time and resources. UNLV might be using two quarterbacks for this game: UVA transfer Anthony Colandrea, who loves a deep ball, and Michigan transfer Alex Orji, who is much more of a runner. UNLV has the second-best odds to win the Mountain West, behind Boise State. Against an FCS opponent, this will be a great time for Dan Mullen to experiment in his first game and see how this offense will work with two totally different quarterbacks.
Idaho State Preview
Idaho State is a middle-of-the-pack FCS team, and it will be an uphill battle for them to compete in this game against UNLV. The Bengals went 5-7 last season, and this will be the third season under head coach Cody Hawkins. They played an FBS team, Oregon State, to open last season and lost 38-15. They really struggled on the defensive side of the ball last season, giving up 77 points to Eastern Washington and 40 points to Idaho in their final two games of 2024. The Bengals will hope to keep moving in the right direction under their offensive-minded head coach, but the defense has major issues and could be in trouble on Saturday.
UNLV vs. Idaho State Pick
My best bet for this game is the over 65.5 points. Idaho State showed that they can give up this many points to a single team last season. The Bengals had the third-worst run defense in the entire FCS last season, giving up over 250 rushing yards per game. Alex Orji will be able to run the read option with Jai’Den Thomas and give them massive issues. Thomas is the returning leading rusher in the Mountain West Conference, and alongside Orji, Idaho State should struggle to stop them. Due to having two quarterbacks who could both start at different points in the season, Dan Mullen likely won’t take his foot off the gas. In his first game at the program, he will want to test out these players as much as possible and see what he has on the roster, particularly at quarterback. If Idaho State can manage to get a couple of scores up, this game should cruise over the total.
