Snapdragon Stadium hosted a college football game and an MLS playoff game within 48 hours of each other over the weekend.

If SDSU and San Diego FC are successful in playing for their respective conference and league championships in two weeks — and serve as hosts for those events — then it would require playing both events within little more than 12 hours between football players leaving the Snapdragon field and futbol players walking onto it.

“That’s impossible,” said John David Wicker, SDSU’s director of athletics.

So SDSU has a contingency plan in place if such circumstances arise.

SDFC will host the MLS Cup at Snapdragon Stadium a day after SDSU hosts the Mountain West championship game at Petco Park.

“The best path forward is playing the Mountain West championship game at Petco Park and the San Diego FC to play the MLS Cup at Snapdragon Stadium, as it would be logistically impossible to play the two events in the stadium due to the natural grass surface and the required field setup for each event,” SDSU said in a statement.

“We are tremendously thankful to the San Diego Padres for allowing us to possibly host the Mountain West championship game. Petco Park has previously hosted two football bowl games, and the venue will still provide a homefield advantage for our student-athletes, staff and fans. The Padres have been supportive throughout this process, and we appreciate their efforts to possibly host this event.”

Officials from both SDSU and SDFC contacted the Padres and toured Petco Park as they considered potential scenarios and solutions.

“The San Diego Padres have been cheering for and supporting San Diego FC and the San Diego State football team as they pursue championships,” Padres CEO Erik Greupner said. “The Padres are committed to San Diego and the success of our fellow sports teams. When approached by both teams about potentially playing their championship games at Petco Park, we enthusiastically offered to help in any way we can.

“It was determined that it would be a better fit for San Diego State to play at Petco Park, so we are prepared to host the Mountain West Championship game and give our Aztecs and their fans an amazing experience and home field advantage.  We wish both teams the best of luck and hope to celebrate with them when they win their championships.”

SDSU and MLS officials have known for months that the Mountain West championship would be played Dec. 5 and the MLS Cup would be played a day later.

But who knew the Aztecs, picked for eighth place in a preseason Mountain West media poll and SDFC, a first-year expansion team, would play their way to the cusp of their respective championships?

SDSU (9-2, 6-1 MW) will host the Mountain West championship game if it wins Friday at New Mexico (8-3, 5-2). The Aztecs still could host if they lose, though it will be left to computers to sort that out.

SDFC will host the MLS Cup if it beats the Vancouver Whitecaps and New York City FC upsets Lionel Messi and Inter Miami.

“I would much rather have San Diego State fans and SDFC fans and sports fans in general have the opportunity to partake in two championship events, where it’s a win-win for the City of San Diego,” Wicker said. “We always said when we built this stadium that we built it for the community of San Diego and for the good of San Diego. I don’t think there could be a better example of that than this.”

While all of this is conjecture until the teams play, there is some definitive — and welcome — news for SDFC.

Snapdragon Stadium’s field is in the process of being resodded, with the new field expected to be in place on Wednesday. That gives it 72 hours to settle in before SDFC’s 6 p.m. kickoff Saturday.

SDFC announced Tuesday afternoon that the match is already a sellout.

There are more moving parts to this for SDSU officials. The Aztecs’ ticket staff has to prepare for two venues.

SDSU will host at Snapdragon if SDFC does not. If both teams host and the Aztecs need to go to Petco, then it becomes more challenging to create a ticketing map for the football game.

There also is the matter of preparing the ballpark for football. Petco Park is hosting the WWE’s Survivor Series on Saturday. The wrestling event includes two rings and adjacent seating, taking up virtually the entire field. Offloading that event would coincide with onloading for the football game.

In addition, the ballpark is preparing to host its annual Holiday Wonderland, which opens Dec. 5, the same day as the Mountain West title game. If the game is played there, then the Holiday Wonderland schedule would be adjusted so there is no conflict that evening.

SDSU will know by Sunday morning, at the latest, if it needs to host at Petco Park. In that case, the Petco field would be replaced on Tuesday and Wendesday, painted Thursday and be ready Friday for a 5 p.m. Mountain West championship game kickoff.

“We have proof of concept hosting a football game at Petco,” said Wicker, referring to the Holiday Bowl games staged there from 2021-23. “The thinking of that is that if we can play football at Petco, while it’s not our home stadium for San Diego State, the game is in San Diego, it’s a place where football has been played and it allows us to have two championship games within basically 12 hours of each other in San Diego.

“That’s the best-case scenario for the community at large.”

One thing no one wanted to see was a potential MLS championship game moved out of San Diego to, say, Carson’s Dignity Health Sports Park, which is home to the MLS’ LA Galaxy. It’s also where the NFL’s Chargers initially relocated when they fled San Diego.

The downtown ballpark was not originally large enough to accommodate football.

In 2021, a two-month, $2 million retrofit was done. Much of the work was completed along the first-base line, where 440 seats were made removable in order to fit the “buffer” area behind the south end zone for a football game.

Construction was completed well in advance of the 2021 Holiday Bowl, which matched UCLA and North Carolina State. The game was canceled just five hours before kickoff when the Bruins cited COVID-19 issues within the team.

Two Holiday Bowls were played at Petco, the 2022 game between Oregon and North Carolina and the 2023 game between USC and Louisville.

The Holiday Bowl moved back to Mission Valley last year, with Syracuse beating Washington State in the game at Snapdragon.

This season’s Holiday Bowl is scheduled to be played at Snapdragon on Jan 2, 2026, matching an ACC team against a former Pac-12 member. Bowl matchups will be announced on Dec. 7.

“Snapdragon Stadium was built for the San Diego community. This would be a unique opportunity to host multiple championship events in San Diego in an 18-hour period. After exploring multiple options and working with the San Diego Padres and San Diego FC, we collaboratively determined that, if both teams make their respective championship games,