Boise_State–Nevada_rivalry
Boise State–Nevada football rivalry
College football rivalry between the Boise State Broncos and the Nevada Wolf Pack
The Boise State–Nevada football rivalry is a college football rivalry between the Boise State Broncos football team of Boise State University and Nevada Wolf Pack football team of University of Nevada, Reno. The game has been played annually since 1971, with the exception of 1978, 1992, 1995, 2000, 2015–2016 and 2019–2020. The teams met twice in 1990 as the second game was a Division I-AA semifinal playoff game; it remains the only post-season game played between the two programs.
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The series has often been a conference match-up, with the exception of ten games: 1971–1977, 1993–1994 and 2011. Boise State and Nevada have met as conference rivals in four conferences—Big Sky, Big West, Western Athletic and Mountain West. These have included three NCAA classifications: Division II (originally "college division"), Division I-AA (now FCS) and Division I FBS.
Since the Mountain West's expansion to twelve football members in 2013, the rivalry is no longer played annually. The conference split into two six-team divisions for football, with Boise State placed in the Mountain Division and Nevada in the West Division. Future MW football schedules include five divisional games and three cross-division games, with no permanent cross-division opponents. In a four-year cycle, teams in opposite divisions play only twice (two seasons on and two off, or vice versa). They played in 2013–2014 and 2017–2018, but not in 2015–2016 and 2019–2020. They can still meet in the Mountain West Championship game.
