Air Force Football: Season Simulation with EA Sports College Football 27
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The wait is over! College Football has officially kicked off, with nearly half of the Mountain West Conference loggings games in Week Zero. Unfortunately for three of the four teams to play got an early loss on their resumes (Hawai’i, UNLV and San Jose State). The long winner was a newcomer to the Conference as well as the FBS, in the North Dakota State Bis(z)on. Although, anyone familiar with that football factory from Fargo knows winning is deep in their DNA for quite some time.
The balance of the Conference will see their first action between Friday and Saturday this week. And that includes the 2026 edition of the United States Air Force Academy Fightin’ Falcons. There is a lot of optimism around Colorado springs in advance of their season opener against the Duquesne Dukes of my local Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
However, before their season officially is under way, we conducted a simulation of the entire 2026-2027 season using EA Sports College Football 27 (PS5 Edition). There was no tampering whatsoever, just a simulation of the season, documenting the results.
And the results are in….
The New Mexico Lobos are MWC Champs
A few years ago, this headline may of seemed unthinkable. Not so much anymore. Jason Eck quickly turned the Lobos into a contender in his first year in Albuquerque. Our simulation would suggest the hype around Eck and the Lobos is legit. With a victory over UNLV in the Conference title game, New Mexico reigned supreme. And lets be honest, the Lobos were due some good news, with the recent confirmation of last year’s starting quarterback Jack Layne being sidelined for the year.
Our own Roger Holien put together a great read on how the loss of Layne doesn’t necessarily spell doom for the New Mexico season. Give it a read here— No Jack Layne, No surrender.
6-6 with no Bowl
Despite winning six regular season games, Air Force did not get selected for a bowl game in our simulation. Maybe the most ironic part in all of this is their 3-point loss in overtime versus New Mexico to end the season. Not only did that doom the Falcons bowl hopes, but it secured the Lobos place in the MWC title game, which as previously mentioned, they won.
In addition to New Mexico, losses were dealt by San Jose State, UConn, Wyoming, UNLV and Northern Illinois. The silver lining has to be the absence of two programs in that list- Army and Navy. You heard it here first, the Commander-in-Chief’s Trophy returns to Colorado Springs! A seemingly impossible feat of late, I believe Air Force die-hards would take this record with no Bowl appearance 100/100 times, if it meant victory over their Military brethren.
Stats and Accolades
I don’t think it would come as any surprise to see Owen Allen rush for over a 1,000 yards this year. In our season sim, he did just that rushing for nearly 1,300 yards and 11 tudd’s. Quarterback Liam Szarka passing stats were incredibly pedestrian, but he did rush for 977 yards and 13 touchdowns of his own. The biggest surprise probably game with Keegan Sack being a 500 rusher, and Rocco Conti registering just under that same mark.
Defensively, Ronald Jones Jr. led the way in tackles and registered a pick. One of the areas that is a real question mark entering the season for Air Force had a real bright spot with Lucia Rawls Jr. collected 9 TFL’s and a pair of sacks in our sim. The biggest concern is that Blake Fletcher was either injured or kicked off of the team, because he didn’t register any meaningful statistics. It’s just a game, it’s just a game…. say it with me.
One of the cooler yields of this exercise was the fact that Luke Vonderhaar earned second-team All-American honors. Air Force officianado Rick Baum @Falcon8fan has told anyone that would listen this was going to happy. Congrats Rick, you spoke it into existence here!
Vonderhaar was joined by the entire offensive line basically on the Mountain West’s All-Conference Team. Vonderhaar, Nathan Elwood and Alec Falk earned first team honors while TJ Tarascio, Marcus Roser placed on the second team. These elite offensive lineman were joined by Antonia Menard (Edge) and Korey Johnson (CB) from the defensive side of the ball.
Closing
So while this may not be the best case scenario for the 2026 season, a CiC Trophy is a result that I can live with. I’m not sure how likely our simulation is to reflect actual results on the field come year end, but it was a lot of fun to consider. Even if it did mean a third consecutive December with no Air Force football come Bowl season. While I personally don’t see that happening this year, I can’t help but to dream of better days of normalcy. And by normalcy, I mean the CiC Trophy going back to where it belongs, comfortably on that Colorado Springs located mantle.
In case your wondering, we had a very polarizing national champion in the LSU Tigers and their roster of NFL Training Camp cast-offs and transfer portal prizes, who got the job done for Lane Kiffin.
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