How conference realignment made Big Sky the 'standard for FCS football,' and what changes are coming this season

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Jul. 30—The Big Sky Conference made official its additions of Southern Utah and Utah Tech this month, in time for the two universities' football programs to take part in the league's annual football kickoff weekend at Northern Quest Resort and Casino in Airway Heights.

Coaches at both programs articulated the various benefits that the Thunderbirds and Trailblazers expect to reap, while coaches and officials from across the Big Sky described the move as a fortification of the league's status as the best in the FCS.

Having 13 teams isn't new to the Big Sky; it carried that many from 2012 to 2021, albeit not these same 13 teams. And Eastern Washington and Idaho are minimally impacted by the specific addition of Southern Utah and Utah Tech.

But by swelling to 13, the Big Sky has swallowed up every remaining scholarship FCS program within its geographic footprint, and the effect of that will ripple through its other, more tenured 11 programs.

"I thought it would be a great move for our entire athletic department, and it has been," Utah Tech head football coach Lance Anderson said. "… I just think this is a much better geographic fit for us."

Utah Tech, known until 2022 as Dixie State, has only been playing Division I college football since 2020. It played that season, in the spring of 2021, as an independent program and then joined the Western Athletic Conference in 2021. That league merged with the United Athletic Conference in 2023.

But the teams from the UAC didn't do much for the Utah Tech fanbase, Anderson said.

"We're going to be playing Southern Utah and Weber State every year. (There is also) Idaho State, the Montana schools," Anderson said. "I think a lot of our fanbase can relate to a lot of the schools in the Big Sky, maybe more so than they could a West Georgia, or an Austin Peay or a Central Arkansas."

Utah Tech — which will host Eastern Washington on Nov. 14 — wasn't particularly competitive in either of its previous conferences. Its best year came in 2022 in the WAC, when Utah Tech went 4-7 overall and 2-2 in league play. It went 2-10 last year, 1-7 in the UAC.

"I understand we've got a lot of work to do to get caught up with some of the programs in the league," Anderson said, "but this is really the standard for FCS football, the Big Sky."

Southern Utah has a history of success not just at the FCS level but as a Big Sky member from 2012 to 2021. It won the league in 2017 and 2015, and it reached the playoffs in 2013.

Ed Lamb, now Northern Colorado's head coach, was Southern Utah's head coach in two of those playoff seasons during his eight-year run with the Thunderbirds from 2008 to 2015. He said he still has a home in Cedar City.

"I think it's huge for the conference," Lamb said on Monday. "Both of those schools have a long runway and a lot of upside. Southern Utah has established themselves at this level of football and have shown to be a strong program. They're in the hunt for the playoffs every year. Utah Tech is brand new to the game, so they're building, but I think they've got a lot of potential."

Southern Utah finished 7-5 overall last year and 6-2 in the UAC, but after a third-place finish in that conference, it wasn't selected for the 32-team FCS playoff field.

The third-place team in the Big Sky, on the other hand, has reached the playoffs in every non-COVID season since 2011.

Not only is the league's pedigree a boost to Southern Utah's postseason chances, the move is financially advantageous, Thunderbirds head coach DeLane Fitzgerald said.

"Here's a big difference for us: We were only able to drive to Utah Tech the last several years," Fitzgerald said. "Now we can drive to Northern Arizona, drive to Weber (State), drive to Idaho State. So the teams did get a lot closer, and it's going to be a little more cost effective for us."

'Some oddity' in the math

Adding two teams to replace one — Sacramento State, which left to join the FBS Mid-American Conference — does get tricky, though, in scheduling.

After only allowing FCS teams to play 12-game schedules in certain years where the weekends fell right within the calendar, approximately twice in every seven seasons, the NCAA is now allowing 12-game schedules every season. The Big Sky's response to that was to add a ninth conference game and to play that game in what's called "Week 0" on Aug. 28 or 29.

Back when it previously had 13 teams, the Big Sky played only eight conference games, which made ties atop the standings — such as in 2016 when Eastern Washington and North Dakota both finished 8-0 — mathematically more likely. Playing nine conference games makes ties less so. It also makes it so that Big Sky teams need to schedule three nonconference games, just as they did in an 11-game schedule.

But playing an odd number of games between an odd number of teams is impossible to do equally, so Utah Tech and Southern Utah's membership in the Big Sky comes with a caveat: Each season, one of the two will only play eight league games.

"Naturally, that's going to create some oddity," said Big Sky Deputy Commissioner Dan Satter, who is in charge of the league's scheduling.

Another challenge Satter faced was that Utah Tech and Southern Utah had close to 40 games already scheduled, as nonconference games, against Big Sky schools.

One advantage of those programs previously not being in the Big Sky was that they were easy candidates for nonleague games. Utah Tech, for example, played three Big Sky teams each of the last four seasons.

So, while the new Utah schools make for more bus rides on the schedules of Weber State and Northern Arizona, now those teams will need to look farther afield for nonleague games.

"It's a little bit of a double-edged sword," NAU head coach Brian Wright said. "It was nice because we had a couple teams right down the road that we were going to use to fill that nonconference schedule. But obviously when you can make your conference better, I think it's good. This is the top conference in the country and we continue to improve on that."

Satter said the league is honoring the first game of any long-term series that Big Sky programs had scheduled with SUU or UT. So, this year Montana will host Utah Tech on Sept. 12 and NAU will play at Utah Tech on Sept. 19 as nonleague games; similarly, Weber State will host Southern Utah on Sept. 5.

"We were really intentional about who played who in the conference season to allow those games to exist as a nonconference game just the first time," Satter said.

What Satter and the league are still figuring out is what the league's schedules will look like over the next five seasons. Each team will have three annual opponents, Satter said, which have not yet been announced. Its other six games will cycle through the other nine teams in the league.

Eastern and Idaho are unlikely to be annual opponents with either Southern Utah or Utah Tech, given their geographic distance. It's likely, then, that the Eagles and Vandals would make one trip to each of those schools within a three-year cycle.

Each team will also alternate between five and four home conference games, something Satter said has been communicated to teams through 2031 so they can fill their nonleague schedules accordingly.

Bye weeks are still tricky, as one Big Sky team will need to either play a nonconference opponent or no one at all during each week of the season. Eastern's bye week this year falls on Oct. 24. Idaho's is on Sept. 26.

But Cal Poly's, for example, is on Nov. 14, the second-to-last of the season, and Southern Utah is playing Chicago State on Nov. 21 and taking its bye on Oct. 10.

Yet for players like Utah Tech junior running back Ace Chatman, the move has huge competitive upside. Rather than seeing them only on occasion, the Trailblazers' opponents this year will become more and more familiar to players, coaches and those who follow Utah Tech, and the rest of the league's teams will get to know the newcomers as well.

"We have to play nine of these teams every single year now instead of playing three or four, and (we don't have to) travel to Texas to play teams in the UAC," Chatman said. "It'll be more localized, it's going to be more competitive, and it's a way better environment knowing that the Big Sky is a great conference."

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