As the University of Hawaii football team catches its breath during this open week in the schedule, it is an opportune time to see what the rest of the Mountain West conference has been up to.

Which, up to this point, you’d have to say is not much.

This is the last big week of nonconference games for the MWC before it dives whole-heartily into league play with only Utah State and Air Force opening in the MWC on Saturday. And, on balance, it has done little to distinguish itself on the national stage.

With just seven nonconference games remaining after this week, the mild, mild MWC is 9-15 against fellow NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision teams. It is favored in three of the seven nonconference games it plays this week.

So, it isn’t exactly Murderer’s Row that awaits UH over the eight weeks of conference play that begin with the Oct. 1 opener against Nevada. UH’s season finale, Nov. 26 vs. Massachusetts, is its last nonconference game as well.

Overall the MWC can claim a 20-15 record. But on closer inspection, that is heavily built on an 11-0 record against lower tier FCS members such as Weber State, Abilene Christian, Sacramento State and Tennessee Martin.

Against so-called Power Five conference schools, the MWC is 2-11 and the vast majority of those games were over at halftime. If not when the contracts were signed.

The most impressive victory to date is Donnel Pumphrey-led San Diego State’s 45-40 triumph over unranked California. At the moment the Aztecs carry the conference banner with the only national ranking (22nd in the Associated Press poll but unranked by the coaches’ poll) and a 13-game winning streak.

And, in fact, the only other win over a Power Five conference opponent is Boise State’s 31-28 victory against Washington State.

Against non-Power Five FBS teams, the MWC is 7-4, though some of its teams, such as once-potent Fresno State, a 52-17 loser to Toledo last week, and New Mexico, a 32-21 loser to New Mexico State, have stumbled badly there.

Still, this is what passes for improvement in the MWC which experienced its worst out-of-conference showing in its 17-year history last year. Overall, the MWC was 23-33 in 2015.

It was disturbing enough that MWC commissioner Craig Thompson counseled members to avoid signing on the dotted line for too many tough games. This summer at the MWC media day Thompson told reporters that member schools should schedule “creatively” lest their records and the conference’s rating continue to slide, thereby endangering the opportunity to land a representative in one of the big money playoff games.

Thompson said the goal would be to have as many teams as possible come out of nonconference play “3-1 or, hopefully 4-0.”

So far only three of the 12 MWC members have winning records against FCS peers: San Diego State (2-0), Boise State (2-0) and Air Force (1-0).

Things are looking up for the MWC but at this point there are few teams that should strike fear into anybody’s heart come conference play.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.