When San Diego State kicks off its 2026 football season against Portland State on Saturday, it’ll be the official dawn of a new era for the Aztecs.
As in, a new conference and new rivalries, not to mention new players in the rotation.
The biggest change, long anticipated, is that San Diego State is no longer part of the Mountain West Conference. On July 1, the school’s athletic programs officially joined the reconfigured Pac-12 Conference (which, despite the name, only has eight football-playing members, for now).
The rivals won’t all be new. Four other Mountain West schools – Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State and Utah State – also left the conference for the Pac-12, joining holdovers Oregon State and Washington State, plus Texas State, which defected from the Sun Belt Conference.
Though the experience of playing in the new Pac-12 won’t be completely unfamiliar for SDSU, the Aztecs’ 11-game 2026 schedule, aside from all the aforementioned Pac-12 schools, has four matchups against non-conference games.
After SDSU plays Portland State at home, the Aztecs play UCLA – a former Pac-12 team – James Madison and Toledo over the next three weeks. Of the four schools, James Madison could be the biggest challenge, as it had a 12-2 record last season and made the College Football Playoff (but lost to the No. 5 Oregon Ducks).
The other three schools, however, were a combined 12-25 last year.
The season opener will only be the second time in history that the Aztecs and Portland State have played each other. In the previous matchup, in San Diego back in 2007, SDSU quarterback Kevin O’Connell (now the Minnesota Vikings head coach) threw for a career high 443 yards and five touchdowns – including four in the first half – as the Aztecs rolled over the Vikings 52-17.
This year’s rematch has similar blowout potential. The Vikings were 1-11 last season and ESPN Analytics gives SDSU a 98.6% chance of victory.
Part of the reason why the Aztecs are so heavily favored is that they have some continuity on offense via three returning seniors: starting quarterback Jayden Denegal and two San Diego natives: running back Lucky Sutton and wide receiver Nathan Acevedo.
However, the team is also welcoming new blood on both sides of the ball.
On offense, incoming players include redshirt freshman quarterback Stone Saunders, a transfer from Kentucky who’s expected to back up Denegal, who had shoulder surgery in the offseason.
Another newcomer to watch is special teams player Noah Serna, a senior transfer placekicker vying to replace Gabe “the Hefty Lefty” Plascencia, an NFL free agent after achieving the best field-goal percentage in school history during his three years as an Aztec.
On defense, the team is reloading after losing a couple of impact players in the offseason: cornerback Chris Johnson, picked by the Miami Dolphins in the first round of the NFL draft, and star defensive end Trey White, a Chula Vista native, who transferred to Texas Tech.
But transferring in are senior linebacker Sione Hala, a Los Angeles native who played for Weber State last season and before that, Boston College for two years; center Issac Lucas, who played the previous three years at Ball State, including as a starter last year, and sophomore safety Isaiah Green, who was Portland State’s starting free safety last season.
In a news conference on the day of the Aztecs’ first fall practice, third-year SDSU head coach Sean Lewis talked about the team’s changes on both sides of the ball.
“It’s year three (as the Aztecs coach), but it’s year one with this team,” he said. “We talk about the continuity offensively. There’s quite a bit of lack of continuity defensively, right? So, things are always evolving. We have to adapt.”
The Aztecs and their supporters certainly hope that the season finishes on a better note than 2025 did. Last year, the Aztecs had a 7-1 record after the first couple of months of the season before losing three of their last five and finishing 9-4, including a 49-47 loss in the New Mexico Bowl two days after Christmas.
Lewis said that his team’s immediate goal is to become the first squad to win the new-look Pac-12’s conference title.
“If the work is done properly, (we) will be recognized as Pac-12 champions,” Lewis said. “So, we need to act like champions today and going forward, so that whatever that trophy looks like, it’s in our trophy case at the end of the year.”
