San Diego State University kicks off the 2025 football season on Thursday, Aug. 28, at Snapdragon Stadium with a non-conference game against the Stony Brook University Seawolves. Start time is to be announced.
The Seawolves are making the cross-country trek from their den in Long Island and should be hungry. The Aztecs are looking to continue improving under head coach Sean White, now in his second season with the team.
It should be an interesting matchup between fellow NCAA Division I teams, though at opposite ends of the spectrum. SDSU, 3-9 last season, competes at the Football Bowl Subdivision level while Stony Brook, 8-4 last year, competes at the Division I Football Championship Subdivision.
SDSU will host its annual Fan Fest scrimmage on Thursday, Aug. 14, at Snapdragon Stadium to serve as a season preview. Admission is free but all fans will need to claim their ticket in advance through a ticket app (https://am.ticketmater.com/sdsu/buy/AztecFanFest). Fans may claim up to four tickets. For additional tickets, call the Aztec Ticket office at (619) 283-7378.
Parking is $10.
The parking lot opens at 5 p.m. while gates to the stadium open at 6 p.m. Kickoff is set for 7:05 p.m.
The team store and select concessions will also be open.
Fans and season ticketholders will be able to get a first glimpse of this new SDSU unit before it formally opens the season. Lewis said he is looking forward to that as well.
“It will be an open scrimmage for all our fans to be able to come out to support this new Aztec team and be able to get a first glimpse, first look at what this team looks like in a full scrimmage opportunity,” Lewis said.
“We’re also going to be showing off for the first time some new gameday experiences, introducing some new gameday traditions that’s going to make Snapdragon Stadium the place to be this fall. We want our fans to be a part of that little dress rehearsal, so two weeks from that date, we can have an awesome home experience.
“Loading up to this event, we are going to be doing some different giveaways to generate some excitement and some buzz around that night and the season.”
The buzz around the 2025 squad is already building from within the ranks.
“I think there’s a greater level of comfort and connection in the building than there was a year ago,” the SDSU head coach said. “I think just the time on task that we have had together that ultimately leads to confidence. I think that any time that you are confident is what you are doing, I know our kids and our staff believe in our process, and they’re trusting one another and, the work that’s getting done that’s ultimately going to yield a better product on the field and better results on the scoreboard.”
This is the Aztecs last season in the Mountain West Conference as the program transitions to the Pac-12 (or whatever number the rebuilt conference comes up with).
“We’re looking at all possibilities as we go,” Lewis said. “As we approach the upcoming season, with everything transitioning to the Pac-12, we’ll still be a 85 full scholarships. We’ll have 20 walk-on players, and there’s a great balance there within the locker room that we’ll continue to manage as more comes in the future, we’ll see where that brings.”
The focus, of course, remains on the upcoming season and a chance to do some damage in the MW standings as a send-off to a potentially greater future.
Team leaders have already begun to emerge after Trey White and Gabe Plascencia were each named Mountain West preseason players of the year.
White, a junior, was chosen as the preseason MW defensive player of the year, while Plascencia, a senior, was selected as the special teams player of the year.
Tano Letuli joined White and Plascencia on the all-conference team. The preseason poll and all-conference team are voted on by media representatives.
White has also been named to the Bronko Nagurski Trophy Watch List, one of hust 11 defensive ends-edge rushers out of the 60 on the preseason list for the tropohy, which goes to the national defensive player of the year.
An Eastlake High School alumnus, White (6-2, 245) plays the edge position in the Aztecs’ 4-2-5 defense. He was a first-team All-MW performer last year after totaling 60 tackles (40 unassisted, 18.5 tackles for loss (No. 1 in MW), No. 7 (tied) in FBS), 12.5 sacks (No. 1 in MW, No. 5 (tied) in FBS), two pass breakups and a forced fumble. White’s 12.5 sacks were tied for the third most in SDSU single-season history.
White is the first San Diego State defensive lineman to be named the MW preseason defensive player of the year and the fourth defensive player overall, joining cornerback Leon McFadden in 2012, cornerback Damontae Kazee in 2016 and safety Patrick McMorris in 2022.
The Aztecs, who return seven of their nine all-conference performers from a year ago, have all 11 starters back on defense this season.
Plascencia, meanwhile, became SDSU’s third MW preseason special teams player of the year over the last four seasons (also kick returner/punt returner Jordan Byrd in 2022 and punter/kicker Jack Browning in 2023). Plascencia made 13 of 14 field goals last year for the best field goal percentage (.929) in program history.
The left-footed kicker from Oakland has made 12 consecutive field goals entering 2025, tied for the sixth-longest active streak in the country and the second longest by an Aztec since at least the 1996 season.
Plascencia was a second-team All-MW selection last year and is the third SDSU kicker to make an all-MW team — all since 2015 (also Donny Hageman in 2015 and John Baron II in 2017).
Letuli, a team captain in 2024 along with White — the first underclassmen captains at SDSU since Kevin O’Connell in 2005 —led the Aztecs last season with 70 tackles despite missing two games with a broken hand.
An honorable mention pick in 2024, Letuli (Cathedral Catholic) had at least eight tackles in five games and seven in another two.
The Aztecs. who have missed qualifying for a postseason bowl game since 2022, were picked to finish eighth in the preseason poll with 202 points — 11 behind Hawaii in seventh place and 37 points ahead of Utah State in ninth place. Defending champion Boise State is predicted to win the league with 464 points, totaling 35 of the 39 first-place votes. UNLV is second with 415 points. San Joss State is third with 359 points, followed by Colorado State (326), Fresno State (301), Air Force (280), Hawaii (213), the Aztecs (202), Utah State (165), Wyoming (150), New Mexico (84) and Nevada (83).
Besides the season opener, San Diego State also has home games against California (Sept. 20 at 7:30 p.m.), Colorado State (Oct. 3 at 7:30 p.m.), Wyoming (Nov. 1 at 4 p.m.), Boise State (Nov. 15 at 7:30 p.m.) and San Jose State (Nov. 22, time TBA).
