Idaho's Non-Football Sports Reportedly Coming to Big Sky

This became big news late last week, as Idaho was granted permission to explore independent football, which would of course mean that the rest of their sports would need a home.

Idaho's athletic website said that the Vandals' athletic director and president are "looking at the possibility of returning other sports to the Big Sky Conference," and that a decision will be made in the next three weeks.

Brian Murphy of the Idaho Statesman is reporting that they will be moving to the Big Sky, and his notes from the teleconference certainly suggest that it is all but a done deal. While they are going to attempt football independence, there is not a lot of other places for them to go.

Idaho told the state board about its plans during an executive session Wednesday. In its documents to the state board, Idaho cites the re-establishment of historic rivalries, more regional travel and reduced costs and loss of academic class time for student-athletes.

Idaho was a charter member of the Big Sky in 1963 and played in the league until 1996.

Big Sky commissioner Doug Fullerton told the Statesman on Wednesday that he would accept the Vandals under that arrangement.

"I would support that. It's not what we asked when we invited them," Fullerton said. "But I understand the concept."

Many have said that the Big Sky should tell Idaho that if they want to join the conference, they should join in football as well, but it appears that the conference will not take that stance for now. One of the big reasons, I would guess, is that with so many challenging factors for Idaho as an independent, there has to be a strong thought within the Big Sky that Idaho will be joining the conference as a full member in 2015.

For basketball, it is an interesting situation. It gets the conference up to a more convention 12 teams rather than 11 teams, which may mean that it makes sense to split into two divisions. That would be an interesting split because of all of the rivalries involved. My guess would be that we would see some type of split like this:

North
Eastern Washington
Montana
Montana State
North Dakota
Northern Colorado
Portland State

South
Idaho
Idaho State
Northern Arizona
Southern Utah
Sacramento State
Weber State

All speculation obviously, but that makes sense to me. The other thing is that it likely means that each team playing every other team in the conference twice will likely be a one season proposition. 20 conference games (which will happen this year) is already pushing it a bit, and increasing it to 22 conference games does not seem realistic at all. I would expect something along the lines of 16-18 conference games once (and if) Idaho joins the Big Sky.

Thoughts? Some of you have been following the Big Sky a lot longer than me and likely remember the days of Idaho being a member of the Big Sky... do you like the idea of them re-joining the conference?

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An Early Look at Montana's Schedule

I have looked at a few of the other schools, and now it is time to take a look at the schedule for the Montana Grizzlies, who look to be one of the top two teams in the Big Sky Conference once again.

They will start off the season with a bang, traveling to Fort Collins to take on Colorado State, an upstart program under Coach Tim Miles who will be looking to build on the momentum created last season. It should be an interesting matchup right out of the gate, as it will be a nice resume booster for whoever wins. It looks like a pretty even matchup to me, and one I hope to attend.

There are a couple other interesting non-conference road games. They will take on San Diego, who had an eventful offseason for all the wrong reasons. The Toreros struggled last season, but they had a young team and they have a solid coach in Bill Grier. Then the Grizzlies will travel to take on North Dakota, in a preview of what could be a solid rivalry for years to come, as UND joins the Big Sky.

The other remaining road games are Portland(who was in the middle of the pack in a solid WCC), Oregon State (which will look to be improved behind the play of Roberto Nelson, who will be eligible all year long), and a bracket buster game. Montana needs to go at least .500 in these games, and going at least 4-2 seems like a reasonable goal.

At home, the big game is against Nevada, which will be one of the best non-conference games of the Big Sky season. The Wolfpack have been down a bit, but they are projected to be near the top of the WAC with budding stud Deonte Burton. This would be a very nice resume booster for the Griz, and a game they surely have marked on their calendars. They will also take on Idaho out of the WAC, a team that finished 4th last season, so they are certainly no gimme.

They will get couple other solid home games against San Francisco (who finished behind only Gonzaga and St. Mary's in the WCC as one of the youngest teams in the country), and Long Beach State, a team that sees itself as a potential at-large possibility.

The other non-conference home games included games against usual suspects - low level teams that shouldn't provide a huge challenge. Games against Great Falls, Montana Tech, and Utah Valley are schedule fillers, ones that every Big Sky team needs to have on their schedule.

Add it all up, and I think it is a pretty impressive schedule for the Grizzlies. Other than Oregon State they don't play any BCS Conference teams, but they have a lot of games against solid mid-major opponents. It will be a nice test for Montana, and if they can win some of these games, it will go a long way to helping their seeding if they are able to make it to the Big Dance.

Montana Releases Tentative Schedule

I will have more of my thoughts on Montana's schedule in the next couple weeks, but for not go check out a very thorough and very excellent article from KAJ18 (out of Kalispell, MT) about the tentative release of the Grizzlies schedule.

Tons of great information in the article, I highly recommend it.