Big Sky Conference Big Announcement.

[SeattleBobcat]

A split in the conference North/South for football (like basketball) and or the a championship game played at Quest Field in Seattle?

The rumor was that the conference would split into an East/West or Pacific/Mountain divisions. That makes more sense, when you think about it, because a North/South split would be hugely inequitable as the North would feature the teams that are substantially better.

This would be my guess when it happens:

Eastern
Idaho
Portland State
Sac State
UC Davis
Cal Poly
Southern Utah (maybe NAU)

I can't see them splitting Idaho and Montana up

No way would the Big Sky split up Montana and Idaho... The rivalry used to be just as big, if not bigger if you ask certain fans, than Cat/Griz.

I would tend to agree, but logistically, they might have to. I don't see them splitting up Eastern and Idaho because they're separated by 70 miles. They are a natural rival and already travel partners in basketball. At the same time, I don't see them splitting up Montana and Montana State either. But as has been mentioned previously, I think if you split this conference up by North and South, it becomes way to lopsided. It will be interesting to see what happens come 2018. Personally, I think they need to cut the fat and go down to about 10 teams.

IF, they split the conference, UM, MSU, EWU, Idaho and Weber would all be placed in the same conference no matter what.

 

[LDopaPDX]

When this was explored earlier, the Pacific / Mountain split was discussed. The thought was that teams would play six games within their division and have one "rivalry" game from the other division on the schedule every year. I'd strongly suspect Eastern's rivalry game would be Montana (if the aforementioned split happens) as EWU has a lot more leverage than Idaho at the moment with them being a new member. Teams would also play one or two other teams from the other division each season, similar to how the SEC works, but those games would be rotational.

For travel reasons, a North / South split might be easier, but you'd have no parity as the North has so much more historical success.

Also, I think a Pacific / Mountain split might be beneficial to Eastern, as we draw a handful of players from California and Oregon and it would allow us more visibility in both states.

 

[EWURanger]

Trying to break the conference down into Divisions is not an easy proposition. You basically have the schools that fall within the historical footprint of the old Big Sky Conference (Montana, MSU, Idaho, ISU, EWU, Weber State...to a lesser extent PSU and SUU), and then you have the "outliers" in the California schools, UND, and UNC. The problem is that the outliers are on either side of the historical footprint of the conference. If you attempt to split the conference along geographical lines, you're not going to get around having to split up some of the original/older members.

 

[Seattle Eagle]

I'd rather the Big Sky not be this huge conglomeration of schools that's spread across three different time zones. But if this is going to continue to be the case, then Divisions makes sense.