Big Sky football: Montana State drops slightly in FCS rankings after loss to No. 6 Oregon
The most recent FCS Stats Perform Top 25 poll contains six Big Sky teams, the highest being Montana State.
Oregon defeated the Bobcats (0-1) 59-13 , ranked No. 6 in the AP poll, but that didn’t do much to Montana State’s standing among voters, who dropped MSU just one spot, to No. 3.
The South Dakota State Jackrabbits (1-0) hopped the Bobcats into the No. 2 spot, but any gray area concerning rankings will be settled on Saturday when the two football teams meet at Bobcat Stadium in Bozeman.
“Ultimately I do think our guys grew out of that (loss to Oregon), and we obviously look forward to this next opportunity to play another excellent opponent in South Dakota State,” MSU coach Brent Vigen said Monday during his weekly press conference. “We certainly have a history over the last four years.”
Their matchups in 2021 and 2022 came in the playoffs: MSU earned a victory in the 2021 semifinals in Bozeman to advance to the national title game, which it lost to North Dakota State. In 2022, SDSU hosted their semifinal rematch in Brookings and defeated the Bobcats, advancing to the championship game, which it won.
The 2023 regular-season game between the two in Brookings lacked the significance of a playoff game but lived up to the intensity. SDSU held on for a 20-16 victory.
Jimmy Rogers won a national title with the Jackrabbits in 2023 and then, after last season, became the head coach at Washington State. Vigen said this year’s team, which defeated Sacramento State last week, 20-3, may have some different players, but it retains much of the program’s character.
“With coach (Dan) Jackson coming in,” Vigen said, “even though they had this change, there is plenty of continuity in how they’ve done things, how they’ve positioned this program to be where it’s at, as a perennial championship contender.”
Saturday’s game, which kicks off at 5 p.m. and streams on ESPN+, is the first of four consecutive home games for the Bobcats, who will host Eastern Washington in both teams’ Big Sky openers on Sept. 27.
Montana set to host CWU
Montana head coach Bobby Hauck spent last Saturday at his daughter’s volleyball game, a circumstance made possible because the sixth-ranked Grizzlies (0-0) had a rare Week 1 bye.
“We’ve got an evening kick, so there will be teams who have completed their third game before we even kick it off,” Hauck said Monday during his weekly press conference.
The Grizzlies’ opponent this Saturday is Central Washington (1-0), a Division II program that will be the first of four Montana opponents to play at Washington-Grizzly Stadium in September. Montana doesn’t play a road game until Oct. 4.
Two years ago, Montana hosted Division II Ferris State and only won by a touchdown, 17-10.
“They were one of the best teams we played in that season, and we kind of expect the same out of Central Washington,” Hauck said. “They’ve got good history and played great football there for many, many years, so we expect this to be a hotly contested game, and hopefully we’ll be ready to go.”
Chris Fisk is in his seventh year as Central Washington’s head coach and has a 39-20 record there, including a 63-14 loss at Eastern Washington in 2021.
Big Sky gets seven shots at FBS teams
Starting on Friday, when Eastern Washington plays at Boise State, seven Big Sky teams are scheduled to face FBS opponents this weekend, hoping to extend the league’s four-year streak of earning victories over programs from the other Division I subdivision.
Among the matchups is No. 18 Sacramento State (0-1) playing at Nevada (0-1) in Reno, where Eastern Washington lost 49-16 last season. Weber State (0-1) plays at Arizona.
There’s also the game between No. 8 UC Davis and the Big Ten’s Washington Huskies, who are 1-0 after defeating Colorado State 38-21 last week.
“No matter where they tell me the conference they’re in, I still think UW is a powerhouse program, one of the true cathedrals of West Coast football in my opinion,” UC Davis head coach Tim Plough said during his Monday press conference. “The roster they’ve accumulated in all three phases is pretty staggering.”
This will be the fourth time in the last five seasons that the Huskies have hosted a Big Sky team. That includes comfortable victories over Portland State and Weber State, as well as a 13-7 loss to Montana in 2021.
Eastern Washington is scheduled to play at Washington on Sept. 19, 2026.