Blake Fletcher piled up 13 tackles at Nevada, Jaylin Reese got home for 1.5 sacks, and Jake Kepler broke up a fourth-down pass during the fourth-quarter flurry in which Air Force took the lead. Then, with 1:49 left in regulation and Air Force ahead by 10, Nevada's Herschel Turner ran 57 yards to tie it, part of the final 10 points of regulation Air Force's defense surrendered before needing two overtimes to beat a 1-2 team. The Falcons won 36-33 in Reno on Rocco Conti's 7-yard touchdown in the second overtime. They are 2-1, they are 1-1 in the Mountain West, and the defense still has not finished a game the way it started one.
The offense is no longer the worry it was in August. Liam Szarka rushed 33 times for a career-high 171 yards and two touchdowns, including a fourth-down sneak, and threw 5-of-12 for 92 yards with a touchdown and an interception. That is a rebuilt option offense holding its rushing floor on the road against a conference defense, which is what fans have been waiting three games to see. The passing game is still thin, but the ground game travels.
The second win also arrived at a much faster pace than in recent seasons. Air Force did not get to two wins until the ninth game in 2024 and the seventh game in 2025. That is real progress, even when the win required an extra 20 minutes against a struggling opponent.
Navy at Falcon Stadium, 10 a.m. MT on CBS
This is the first of the two games that decide the Commander-in-Chief's Trophy. Air Force owns a series-best 21 trophy titles and a 66-42 record in the competition, and that history is exactly why the Nevada fourth quarter matters this week instead of next month. Navy has won the last two trophies and the last two games against Army, so the Falcons are trying to take something back rather than defend it.
Steve Russ is the coordinator being asked to do it. He ran Air Force's defense before, spent 2025 coordinating UAB's, and came back this winter while Mike Thiessen kept the offense, so this is a returning, familiar voice installing his own version of a unit that was supposed to be the steady half of the roster. Three games in, the individual play has been there and the closing has not. Against Nevada that same group could not protect a double-digit lead against a team with one win, and Navy is built to run at exactly that kind of defense. The Midshipmen ran for 249 yards on UAB last week and lost 24-20 anyway, undone by fourth-quarter turnovers.
The specific thing to watch pregame is the interior line. Defensive tackle Chaz Barnett was out injured at Nevada, Noah Daniels made his first career start in his place, and sophomore Muhammad Alcine, not added to the travel roster until Thursday, played and recorded a sack. Whether Barnett is back in that rotation against Navy is the open question of the week, because an option running game finds soft interior blocks and keeps finding them for four quarters.
The model has this at essentially a coin flip, 51% for Air Force at home. Win it and Air Force's Mountain West title-game odds sit around 16%; lose and they sit closer to 14%. But nobody is watching this one for conference math.
The rest of Saturday
Three league games nudge the Falcons' title-game odds, and none of them moves much.
Wyoming at North Dakota State: root for Wyoming
The model gives Wyoming a 13% chance to win. This result carries a 3.4 percentage-point impact on Air Force's conference-title-game probability.
The best available outcome of the day and the least likely. Kickoff is 1:30 p.m. MT on The CW Network.
UTEP at New Mexico: root for UTEP
Same idea, longer odds. UTEP has about a 4% chance in Albuquerque, and an upset would be worth about 3.0 points of title-game odds by putting a loss on a Mountain West rival Air Force still has to visit in November. Kickoff is 2 p.m. MT on MW+.
San José State at Hawai'i: root for Hawai'i
The one likely result on the board. Hawai'i wins about 59% of the time, and a San José State loss is worth roughly 1.9 points to Air Force's title-game chances. Kickoff is 9:59 p.m. MT on MW+, long after the trophy game is settled.
Full numbers are in the interactive guide, and the simulation details are in the methodology.