Block U, a Utah Utes community

They are fully committed to the Big Sky...for now. This make it more probable for North Dakota to move to the Summit league with the rest of the Dakota schools.

After North Dakota joined the Big Sky Conference most assumed their border rival South Dakota would follow, however the Coyotes have declined the Big Sky's invitation. Like SDST and NDST, South Dakota will join the Missouri Valley Football Conference and elect to stay in the Summit League in all other sports. This move leaves the Big Sky with 11 all-sport members and 13 football members. The Summit League will remain stable with its 9 members, while the MVC will now be at 10. North Dakota may have a case of buyer's remorse after signing on with the Big Sky, and could be looking into joining the other 3 Dakotas in Summit league/MVC to reduce their travel costs and maintain its rivalries. The WAC's expansion plan seems to have settled on just adding UTSA, Texas St, and (non football school) Denver in order to hold open another spot in case Montana decides to upgrade. The only school left out of of this expansion shuffle for now is Seattle University, a non-football school, who may be targeted to join the WCC with the new addition of BYU or they could be invited to join Big Sky Conference as a 12th member in an attempt to even out the basketball schedule.

Next year's schedule of death (which is even worse than this year's schedule of death) underwent a change at the top today: the Vols will no longer open against North Texas in Knoxville, but will instead host Montana of FCS fame. Tennessee-Martin these guys are not: the Grizzlies beat Appy State before losing to Villanova in the FCS Championship Game last year, their only loss. They'll open a slate that follows with Cincinnati, at Florida, at North Carolina, LSU, Georgia, at Alabama. Good times.

It's always a gamble when choosing an FCS coach and a good portion of the time, it doesn't work out. The last time a Mountain West team hired a successful Montana coach, he failed (Joe Glenn & Montana) and we all remember Mick Dennehy at Utah State (also a successful coach at Montana). With that said, it is a hire with coaching experience and I think that is important. This is something lacking with Mike Sanford and it obviously came out he wasn't head coaching material. Now we'll see if Hauck is D1-A material.