Get ready for a battle of western heavyweights. Well, sort of. The Montana Grizzlies of the FCS Big Sky Conference have added some future Pac-12 opponents to the schedule. Montana will play Oregon in 2019 and Washington in 2017 and 2021.
Oregon will host Montana on September 14, 2019. Oregon holds a 7-0-1 edge in the all-time series, with the most recent victory coming in 2005. Washington will host Montana on September 9, 2017 and again on September 4, 2021. Washington owns a 16-1-1 lead in the series, which has not been played since 1951.
“I think it’s exciting for our kids,” Montana head coach Bob Stitt said in a released statement. “As much as we recruit the West Coast, especially Washington and Oregon, I think our players are going to be fired up to go out there and play, number one, against a Pac-12 opponent, but the big dogs in their home state. So it should be very exciting for us.”
Oregon, Washington and Montana used to share a conference home. Before the early days of the Pac-8 Conference (which has since grown to be the Pac-12), the Pacific Coast Conference was the big west coast conference. Oregon and Washington were charter members of the PCC in 1915, along with California and Oregon State. Montana joined the conference in 1924, at which time Washington State, Stanford, Idaho, and USC were already members. UCLA joined the conference four years later. Montana actually left the conference a year before scandal started to crumble the conference. Montana’s board of education voted to de-emphasize sports, forcing the university to cut back on athletics spending which held it back from competing with the likes of its PCC rivals. Montana then joined the Mountain States Conference in 1951 and later joined the Big Sky Conference in 1963.
Helmet sticker to FBSchedules.com.