Future Football Schedules

[GV Dad]

Montana State has a game at Western on their site for September 14th 2019,

Thanks for the update.

Are both Montana schools home and away contracts?

[ST_Lawson]

Montana State has a game at Western on their site for September 14th 2019,

Thanks for the update.

Are both Montana schools home and away contracts?

Yes. At Montana State this year, vs Montana State in Macomb next year. Montana in Macomb this year, at Montana in 2021.

EDIT - we also have upcoming H&H's with North Alabama (2019/2020), Eastern Washington (2020/2021), and Southern Utah (2022/2023).

[GV Dad]

Thanks for the update.

Are both Montana schools home and away contracts?

Yes. At Montana State this year, vs Montana State in Macomb next year. Montana in Macomb this year, at Montana in 2021.

EDIT - we also have upcoming H&H's with North Alabama (2019/2020), Eastern Washington (2020/2021), and Southern Utah (2022/2023).

Do we just look for the most difficult travel possible and say, "yep, let's schedule them!" LOL

[ST_Lawson]

Do we just look for the most difficult travel possible and say, "yep, let's schedule them!" LOL

The MVFC has a scheduling agreement with the Big Sky. I don't know what the official terms are, but essentially it means just about every MVFC team is playing at least one Big Sky team every year.
I realize that it's quite a ways to many of the Big Sky schools, but we're often lumped in with them since FCS teams get pretty few and far between once you get west of Chicago. That's why you often see MVFC teams play Big Sky teams in the playoffs as well.

This season alone, here's the MVFC/Big Sky matchups:
WIU @ Montana State
Cal Poly @ NDSU
UNI @ Montana
Northern Colorado @ USD
Montana State @ SDSU
Northern Arizona @ MSU
UDS @ Weber State
Montana @ WIU
And all of those are in the first 3 weeks.

Last year there were 8 in the regular season including 5 matchups on 9/9/2017.
Travel can sometimes be an issue, but it does make for strong schedules for the MVFC teams.

EDIT - the MVFC just posted a bit more info about the "challenge series" between the two conferences: http://valley-football.org/news/2018/8/ ... works.aspx

[ST_Lawson]

Looks like FBSchedules has added FCS teams. Here's WIU's page: https://fbschedules.com/ncaa/western-illinois/

We knew most of that, but didn't know about TTU playing here on 9/21/19 and there's some conference games against USD that the Coyotes have already published/announced.

[GV Dad]

The schedule has us not playing SDSU but also says should be a 12 game schedule? If it's 12 games, would we not play SDSU?

[ST_Lawson]

The schedule has us not playing SDSU but also says should be a 12 game schedule? If it's 12 games, would we not play SDSU?

Nope, in a 12-game schedule year, the conference schedule/rotation stays the same and we add a non-conference game. There's no rule that says that non-confidence game can't be against a conference team we don't otherwise play that year (I remember a big sky team did that last year or maybe the year before). The last two years that were 12-games, we added an extra FBS.


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[GV Dad]

The schedule has us not playing SDSU but also says should be a 12 game schedule? If it's 12 games, would we not play SDSU?

Nope, in a 12-game schedule year, the conference schedule/rotation stays the same and we add a non-conference game. There's no rule that says that non-confidence game can't be against a conference team we don't otherwise play that year (I remember a big sky team did that last year or maybe the year before). The last two years that were 12-games, we added an extra FBS.


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Let's either add a Power 5 FBS team for the payday, or add an easy FCS team to get a sure W. Eastern Washington, Montana and Montana St should never be on our schedules. Nothing to gain.

[ST_Lawson]

Let's either add a Power 5 FBS team for the payday, or add an easy FCS team to get a sure W. Eastern Washington, Montana and Montana St should never be on our schedules. Nothing to gain.

I don't know about "nothing to gain", necessarily. There's reasons for each type of team on the schedule.
FBS - we get $
"lower" FCS (like a Pioneer League team...Valpo, Drake, Butler, etc.) - easy win, but unless we do a H&H agreement with them, we have to pay them $ to come here.
Upper level FCS team (like the Big Sky teams) - makes our schedule tougher...I know that sounds like a bad thing, but SoS is taken into account with regards to making the playoffs
In 2015, for example, we played then #25 ranked Eastern Illinois (won), played Illinois (lost), and played at then #1 FCS Coastal Carolina (lost a fairly close one). We went 5-3 in the conference, finished 6-5 overall and 5th in the conference, but became the first 6-5 team to ever make the the FCS playoffs as an at-large (I think a team had that record and won their conference one year to get their autobid...NEC maybe). We got picked ahead of quite a few decent 7-4 teams like Northern Arizona, North Dakota (they were really pissed about that one), Towson, UT-Martin, Western Carolina, and Central Arkansas. UND was especially mad because they'd actually beaten FBS Wyoming that year. They'd gone 5-3 in-conference like us (although Big Sky, as opposed to MVFC). But because we had the #1 toughest SoS that year in the FCS...we got the spot instead of them.

We also have the MVFC/Big Sky scheduling agreement in place, and I don't know what the terms are for that. Like, if we have to schedule a Big Sky team every year, or what.

[GV Dad]

Let's either add a Power 5 FBS team for the payday, or add an easy FCS team to get a sure W. Eastern Washington, Montana and Montana St should never be on our schedules. Nothing to gain.

I don't know about "nothing to gain", necessarily. There's reasons for each type of team on the schedule.
FBS - we get $
"lower" FCS (like a Pioneer League team...Valpo, Drake, Butler, etc.) - easy win, but unless we do a H&H agreement with them, we have to pay them $ to come here.
Upper level FCS team (like the Big Sky teams) - makes our schedule tougher...I know that sounds like a bad thing, but SoS is taken into account with regards to making the playoffs
In 2015, for example, we played then #25 ranked Eastern Illinois (won), played Illinois (lost), and played at then #1 FCS Coastal Carolina (lost a fairly close one). We went 5-3 in the conference, finished 6-5 overall and 5th in the conference, but became the first 6-5 team to ever make the the FCS playoffs as an at-large (I think a team had that record and won their conference one year to get their autobid...NEC maybe). We got picked ahead of quite a few decent 7-4 teams like Northern Arizona, North Dakota (they were really pissed about that one), Towson, UT-Martin, Western Carolina, and Central Arkansas. UND was especially mad because they'd actually beaten FBS Wyoming that year. They'd gone 5-3 in-conference like us (although Big Sky, as opposed to MVFC). But because we had the #1 toughest SoS that year in the FCS...we got the spot instead of them.

We also have the MVFC/Big Sky scheduling agreement in place, and I don't know what the terms are for that. Like, if we have to schedule a Big Sky team every year, or what.

H and H would be fine. The MVFC is tough enough to make our SOS quality. If we made it at 6-5 because of SOS, we would have made it at 7-4. Plus, for recruits, 8-3 looks much better than 6-5 or 7-4.