I figured this deserved its own thread. The Big Sky hasn't officially released next year's schedule but I've pieced some the games together.
SJSU will probably be the first (9/1) week of the season. They head to Pullman on 9/8 and we wouldn't have a free week until 9/29, essentially conference play.
2018:
9/15 @ Stanford
9/22 Idaho
10/20 @ Cal Poly
10/27 @ Montana
11/10 @ EWU
11/17 Slac State (Guess based on calendar)
Per Idaho State's website (future schedules), the Aggies host them 10/13. Their first game is 9/1 and Davis is week 7. You could probably put placeholders for the weeks you haven't determined yet to make it easier to visualize if you wanted. You know there's at least 1 week before Stanford, 2 between Idaho and Idaho State, and 1 between Montana and EWU.
This kind of helps me with the baseball schedules:
9/1 TBA (@San Jose State? )
9/8 TBA (San Diego ?)
9/15 @Stanford
9/22 Idaho
9/29 TBA
10/6 TBA
10/13 Idaho State
10/20 @ Cal Poly
10/27 @Montana
11/3 TBA
11/10 @Eastern Washington
11/17 SAC STATE ?
According to this model you'd have 11 games. Most likely bye week would be the week of 11/3, but it might not be. 9/8 is probably not a bye and a logical landing spot for San Diego.
I looked over the schedules for the last six seasons (since UCD joined the Big Sky). The only teams that have played the Aggies each of those years are Cal Poly and SAC State. The hornets have been the last opponent each of those seasons. The teams that have played the fewest times (3- Montana and Idaho State) are on the schedule next year. The ones that have played the most (5- NAU and PSU) probably won't be. And we know one of the ones with 4 ((Weber State) isn't
They are constantly balancing and re- balancing so the most likely candidates to fill the remaining two conference slots are
Montana State, Northern Colorado, and Southern Utah. Since neither MSU nor NC played the Aggies this year and SUU has played each of the last 3, the Thunderbirds are the likely odd ones out.
This means we would play Montana State at home and Northern Colorado in Greeley (based on the last games played. So, 11 games..6 on the road.
Stanford excepted what game would we be a prohibitive underdog in? San Jose we should be favored. One of these days we’ll beat Montana E. Washington, but these are winnable games. Idaho is dropping down to the level they should be playing at and shedding scholarships. I wish we weren’t playing Stanford but that’s it.