Big Sky moving to 9 conference game schedule in 2026

[mthoopsfan]

"The Big Sky Conference is moving toward playing nine league games each season starting in 2026, commissioner Tom Wistrcill said Monday at the annual Kickoff event at Northern Quest Resort & Casino.

The increase from eight to nine conference games comes after the NCAA Division I Council adopted on June 25 a recommendation from the Football Championship Subdivision Oversight Committee to increase the regular season from 11 to 12 games beginning in the 2026 campaign.

"We have, as you all know, trouble getting (nonconference) teams to come out and play us at home," Wistrcill said of the reasoning. "So, we made a decision. Hey, if we're going to play this 12th game, let's add a conference game."

Why Big Sky Conference is moving to 9-game league schedule for football in 2026

The move to nine conference games comes after the NCAA increased the FCS regular season from 11 to 12 games beginning in 2026.

missoulian.com

 

[DoubleNicks]

Having an odd number of teams playing an odd number of games means 12 teams will play nine games and one will play eight. That means six teams will play four home games and five road games, six will get five home games and four road games, and one will have four of each.

"I personally think it will cause us to lose at least one team a year in the playoffs because we'll beat each other up and our records will suffer," Montana coach Bobby Hauck said. "So the schedule, instead of becoming more balanced, more equitable in terms of everybody playing everybody, it becomes less balanced. Schedules will be imbalanced both in who you're playing, and home and road."

 

[Ursa Major]

Will this not be a financial net loss for the UM Athletic Department?

 

[DoubleNicks]

Will this not be a financial net loss for the UM Athletic Department?

I think so, especially in the years where we have to surrender a home game pay day.

I wonder how they will determine champions now. For example, two teams finish with a single conference loss but Team A played 9 conference games while Team B only played 8. Does Team A just get the nod by having more conference wins/better winning percentage or will tie-breakers get more complex?

Only thing for certain is the #bsc "leadership" continues to amaze me and not in a good way. One would think openly mocking the conference's largest fanbase and likely the greatest money generator (ala Tommy Boy's snarky/snide UM-Sac State sideline remarks instead of being professionally neutral) was the peak of their stupidity. Sac's president might not be as crazy as he looks and sounds by choosing independence over having any affiliation with the #bsc.

 

[Griz in Texas]

I think so, especially in the years where we have to surrender a home game pay day.

I wonder how they will determine champions now. For example, two teams finish with a single conference loss but Team A played 9 conference games while Team B only played 8. Does Team A just get the nod by having more conference wins/better winning percentage or will tie-breakers get more complex?

Only thing for certain is the #bsc "leadership" continues to amaze me and not in a good way. One would think openly mocking the conference's largest fanbase and likely the greatest money generator (ala Tommy Boy's snarky/snide UM-Sac State sideline remarks instead of being professionally neutral) was the peak of their stupidity. Sac's president might not be as crazy as he looks and sounds by choosing independence over having any affiliation with the #bsc.

I personally have been long against the continued expansion of the Big Sky and prefer the conference to have no more than 8 to 10 teams. I feel we should first rid ourselves of the teams that aren't fully committed to the conference with football only membership and then stop adding weak teams because that is what the CAA does, as if we need to follow their lead somehow. Every time one team leaves, we seem to add more than the number that depart as if we need to stockpile against collapse.
Wouldn't it be better for the western teams if there were two conferences to be able to play one or two OOC games a year? I think we should start with a serious talk with the original 5, and NAU, aimed at finding out who plans to commit, who plans to move up, who might be cutting their programs and so on. Then make the determination from there on who the three or four teams we will move forward with. The rest of them can put together their own conference, try to lure Sac State in and seek to expand with teams that may want to move up.
The thought of having two teams tie for a conference title that don't play head-to-head in a season is something I personally asked about since we went to this unbalanced schedule and no one seems to want to address it because it hasn't happened, yet.
Overall, here is how I view our current membership:
We should not have accepted Utah Tech, they are not going to do anything to add to the Big Sky.
We should not have let Southern Utah back in. When they left a few years back, they thumbed their nose at us and said they were going to be greater for leaving.
The two remaining teams in Cali next season are not Big Sky teams, you can't be if you only operate in one sport.
Northern Colorado is a noncontributor that has only won one basketball title that they vacated for serious violations of their program and all they can do beyond this is fire a football coach every 2 or 3 years.
Eastern Washington and Portland State seem like they are in a debate every month still over cutting all their programs.
The rest of us, I feel, need to be in for sure, even though Idaho State is not where they used to be, Idaho left but they were forced to come back, Weber (to me) seems to have too much say in the league office because it's just down the street, I have no problem with NAU, and bozeman is, well, bozeman.

 

[GrizTexas]

I personally have been long against the continued expansion of the Big Sky and prefer the conference to have no more than 8 to 10 teams. I feel we should first rid ourselves of the teams that aren't fully committed to the conference with football only membership and then stop adding weak teams because that is what the CAA does, as if we need to follow their lead somehow. Every time one team leaves, we seem to add more than the number that depart as if we need to stockpile against collapse.
Wouldn't it be better for the western teams if there were two conferences to be able to play one or two OOC games a year? I think we should start with a serious talk with the original 5, and NAU, aimed at finding out who plans to commit, who plans to move up, who might be cutting their programs and so on. Then make the determination from there on who the three or four teams we will move forward with. The rest of them can put together their own conference, try to lure Sac State in and seek to expand with teams that may want to move up.
The thought of having two teams tie for a conference title that don't play head-to-head in a season is something I personally asked about since we went to this unbalanced schedule and no one seems to want to address it because it hasn't happened, yet.
Overall, here is how I view our current membership:
We should not have accepted Utah Tech, they are not going to do anything to add to the Big Sky.
We should not have let Southern Utah back in. When they left a few years back, they thumbed their nose at us and said they were going to be greater for leaving.
The two remaining teams in Cali next season are not Big Sky teams, you can't be if you only operate in one sport.
Northern Colorado is a noncontributor that has only won one basketball title that they vacated for serious violations of their program and all they can do beyond this is fire a football coach every 2 or 3 years.
Eastern Washington and Portland State seem like they are in a debate every month still over cutting all their programs.
The rest of us, I feel, need to be in for sure, even though Idaho State is not where they used to be, Idaho left but they were forced to come back, Weber (to me) seems to have too much say in the league office because it's just down the street, I have no problem with NAU, and bozeman is, well, bozeman.

Sounds like you are making a case to leave?

 

[Griz in Texas]

Sounds like you are making a case to leave?

Quite the contrary, sir. I don't think we need to leave or move up or anything other than strengthen our conference. I don't think we do that when we have a conference so large that everyone doesn't play each other. The FCS can't play a conference championship game, so what's the point of all the teams in the Big Sky, MVFC and CAA? The latter of which is seeing a lot of members shifting to the Patriot.

 

[Da Boyz Mom]

I'm trying to see the benefit here but not finding any. For UM and MSU, they lose the chance to host an additional home game that makes them a lot of money and generates more interest for their program. For the bottom feeder schools they lose a chance to play a money game that they might desperately need to fund their program. For everyone it means a greater unbalancing of the schedule than already existed - and we all know the current system is crap.

I'm wondering if the conference actually spoke to the member institutions and if so what was their input? I guess if the AD wants to be lazy and not have to find extra games, or if your team is bad enough that you're not worried about trying to win the conference, then it works. Otherwise I just don't see the positives here.

 

[Griz in Texas]

I'm wondering if the conference actually spoke to the member institutions and if so what was their input? I guess if the AD wants to be lazy and not have to find extra games, or if your team is bad enough that you're not worried about trying to win the conference, then it works. Otherwise I just don't see the positives here.

Just reading by Coach Hauck's take on it, he wasn't contacted and my version of it would be that the person who is in charge of all this did no more consulting than to walk over to Weber, pour a cup of coffee in their designated mug, prop their feet up on the coaches desk and ask what the rest of us wanted. As I have said, it feels like they have way too much to say.

 

[GrizTexas]

Quite the contrary, sir. I don't think we need to leave or move up or anything other than strengthen our conference. I don't think we do that when we have a conference so large that everyone doesn't play each other. The FCS can't play a conference championship game, so what's the point of all the teams in the Big Sky, MVFC and CAA? The latter of which is seeing a lot of members shifting to the Patriot.

We'll its certainly been this way for a number of years with the unbalanced schedule. I would agree with you in that it certainly doesn't seem fair or at least representative of the BSC when the top contenders don't play each other and I too can't really warm up to the addition of Utah Tech and SUU. Unfortunately what's left is only a small handful of schools really committed (what to I'm not sure)! The debate rages on....leave, but to where?...move up, but how?...merge, but with whom? The appeal of the home schedule every year really lies in who the OOC teams coming in and which of the decent BSC conference games we host which unfortunately gets fewer and farther between. Next year's home schedule ( as it sits today) is a great example of not much excitement coming to Missoula... I worry the appeal will start to wane?

 

[get'em_griz]

I'm trying to see the benefit here but not finding any. For UM and MSU, they lose the chance to host an additional home game that makes them a lot of money and generates more interest for their program. For the bottom feeder schools they lose a chance to play a money game that they might desperately need to fund their program. For everyone it means a greater unbalancing of the schedule than already existed - and we all know the current system is crap.

I'm wondering if the conference actually spoke to the member institutions and if so what was their input? I guess if the AD wants to be lazy and not have to find extra games, or if your team is bad enough that you're not worried about trying to win the conference, then it works. Otherwise I just don't see the positives here.

So hypothetically:

2026: 3 non-conference games, 5 home conference, 4 away conference
2027: 3 non-conference games, 4 home conference, 5 away conference

Montana would need to every other year pad an extra home game via the non-conference schedule, which could be tough in that Montana would essentially need to ensure that 2/3 non-conference games are home games to get at least 6 home games for those odd years. My assumption is that the 9-game conference schedule helps to some extent getting a "truer" conference champion than the current 4-game schedule. But again, we added two more teams after having only lost one in Sac State, so... I guess it's not much of an improvement.

 

[Griz til I die]

I will admit that in principle it seemed like a decent idea to go to 9 conference games with the regular season expanding to 12 teams and the Big Sky having one more team, however after reading some of the finer details in yesterday's article, I struggle to see how this is a good idea. I guess I never realized that with an odd number of teams it's not possible for everyone to play 9 games and that would lead to an odd man out having to play 8. Now Wistrcill did say yesterday that one of the clauses in the agreement stated that UTU and SUU would take turns for the first couple years playing 8 games so at least the Griz aren't gonna get shafted on that front anytime soon. Wistrcill did also mention that if any Big Sky teams have UTU or SUU on their non-conference schedule in the immediate future (Griz and NAU are on UTU's next year), that they will be allowed to keep them as non-conference opponents and the BSC will not schedule them against each other in conference play so that's good.

The biggest thing I never liked about it and why I never understood the idea of why power conferences like the Big Ten like playing 9 games is just the every other year of having to play 5 conference road games. I agree with Bobby that it is unbalanced. An odd number of games or teams just has never worked out very easily. Now when I say this, I do wanna point out that it shouldn't make it anymore difficult for UM to have 6 home games every year. If next year we get 5 home conference games (which I suspect we will in year one) then that means we will already have 6 home games and likely 7 as there's still one more hole to fill on the non-conference schedule. I suspect UM is not gonna change the way they schedule non-conference games and will always schedule 2 non-conference games. That means some years we will get 7 home games, and other years we may only get 6 home games. In that regard, we're gonna be ok. In terms of the conference title race though and the inequity of 9 game conference schedules, that's where I think things will get a little bit hairy.

 

[GrizTexas]

I will admit that in principle it seemed like a decent idea to go to 9 conference games with the regular season expanding to 12 teams and the Big Sky having one more team, however after reading some of the finer details in yesterday's article, I struggle to see how this is a good idea. I guess I never realized that with an odd number of teams it's not possible for everyone to play 9 games and that would lead to an odd man out having to play 8. Now Wistrcill did say yesterday that one of the clauses in the agreement stated that UTU and SUU would take turns for the first couple years playing 8 games so at least the Griz aren't gonna get shafted on that front anytime soon. Wistrcill did also mention that if any Big Sky teams have UTU or SUU on their non-conference schedule in the immediate future (Griz and NAU are on UTU's next year), that they will be allowed to keep them as non-conference opponents and the BSC will not schedule them against each other in conference play so that's good.

The biggest thing I never liked about it and why I never understood the idea of why power conferences like the Big Ten like playing 9 games is just the every other year of having to play 5 conference road games. I agree with Bobby that it is unbalanced. An odd number of games or teams just has never worked out very easily. Now when I say this, I do wanna point out that it shouldn't make it anymore difficult for UM to have 6 home games every year. If next year we get 5 home conference games (which I suspect we will in year one) then that means we will already have 6 home games and likely 7 as there's still one more hole to fill on the non-conference schedule. I suspect UM is not gonna change the way they schedule non-conference games and will always schedule 2 non-conference games. That means some years we will get 7 home games, and other years we may only get 6 home games. In that regard, we're gonna be ok. In terms of the conference title race though and the inequity of 9 game conference schedules, that's where I think things will get a little bit hairy.

"I suspect UM is not gonna change the way they schedule non-conference games and will always schedule 2 non-conference games."

Except if the BSC allows for conference games in Week 0 ( as some have eluded to) ... certainly going to make it harder to get teams scheduled...

 

[Griz til I die]

"I suspect UM is not gonna change the way they schedule non-conference games and will always schedule 2 non-conference games."

Except if the BSC allows for conference games in Week 0 ( as some have eluded to) ... certainly going to make it harder to get teams scheduled...

Ya so you schedule your non-conference games in weeks 1-3. That's not that hard to do, especially if you're playing an FBS team like the Griz are next year.

 

[Griz in Texas]

We'll its certainly been this way for a number of years with the unbalanced schedule. I would agree with you in that it certainly doesn't seem fair or at least representative of the BSC when the top contenders don't play each other and I too can't really warm up to the addition of Utah Tech and SUU. Unfortunately what's left is only a small handful of schools really committed (what to I'm not sure)! The debate rages on....leave, but to where?...move up, but how?...merge, but with whom? The appeal of the home schedule every year really lies in who the OOC teams coming in and which of the decent BSC conference games we host which unfortunately gets fewer and farther between. Next year's home schedule ( as it sits today) is a great example of not much excitement coming to Missoula... I worry the appeal will start to wane?

My feeling on moving to FCS has always been, why should we move up? We'd hope to be 6-6 so we could play in the Kohler Toilet Bowl and earn a banner and a trophy that mean little or nothing. If we stay, we have hope every year to finally win another national championship.
That said, back when we were being courted by the dying old WAC before they mostly bailed to the MWC, I had an idea along these lines if we wanted to move up, but it's pretty far-fetched, but not unprecedented. It involved taking the core of six teams I mentioned in my previous post and joining up with the Dakota schools. They all wanted to be in the same conference, and we voted for the Dakota States to join, while the rest of the league said no (if you're scared, say you're scared) because it was too hard to travel there, then a few years later the same people asked the other two to join and only North Dakota did, briefly.
This would require all the teams to meet the requirements to move up, which I doubt they all would, but I suggest we move up as one unit like the MAC did. Now that was 1983 when they did and there are a lot more teams in FBS in 2025, but we'd be stronger than them top to bottom I believe right away. The other issue is that NDSU has long had this idea that the Big Ten will take them and they are waiting for that phone to ring. That's even worse than Sac thinking they are getting into a power conference when they get to the PAC.
I'm good right where we are, and if we move up, as some on here are so fond of saying, it wouldn't move us off the "junior varsity."
And for FCS teams, there is no more "week 0." The season starts 13 weeks before the FCS championship selections date.

 

[EverettGriz]

Once again, the bsc takes an action which harms its best programs.

This league would find a way to fuck up a game of tic-tac-toe.

UM simply has to find a way to get to the FBS level.

 

[griz4life]

This is why the Big Sky Conference is such a dud. The teams with few fans and stronger institutional support do not have the same interests as the Montana schools when it comes to athletics. And we cave to them all the time, including making exceptions when the west coasters cry about the cost of traveling to Montana to play.
The Big Sky is an empty parking lot that low-budget teams circle as they look for a spot at the curb. And when they do decide to spend more on athletics, like Sac State, they leave because if they're going to spend money, it isn't going to be in the Big Sky Conference.