Former Davis TE Josh Gale is in the Sac State presser for the Griz this week:

I hate doing this but nothing else going on:

Montana 45 Sac State 35 Closer than expected
Weber 24 EWU 17 Who cares
Idaho 28 Portland State 10 Vandals are reeling
Idaho State 35 NAU 31 Probably the most entertaining of the matchups aside from the Cirque de Sacramento game
Montana State 42 Cal Poly 24 Mustangs will need to open it up and roll the dice to get this close

Aggies 42 Northern Colorado 21 Expect a heavy dose of Fisher and Vargas with CP taking shots down and across the field. The Defense will handle the Bears with a day out of the pass rushers and the DBs locking down.

I got Sac State with the slim upset 35-32

Bold, I won't be surprised if you're right. Too bad there won't be any students there, they could re-create the Lil' Yachty debacle in celebrating to dub

Sac is a 3.5 point underdog according to Sports Bet Montana.
Montana hasn’t impressed with their 219th ranked schedule according to Sagarin.
Sagarin’s models give Montana a 61% chance of winning or less, they have varying formulas but all project a narrow favorite. The home field advantage counts for more in Sagarin this year.

no students there?…Montana has kept things close the last few weeks and I think Sac State is too talented to let hang around. Away game also with a shortened week (think Thursday night football in NFL) anything can happen!

Does Montana typically schedule weak competition?

I absolutely agree that anything can happen in that game. Friday night games are weird for college football, but the Griz will come into that thing with a chip on their shoulder. Montana pays FBS teams to go to Missoula. They did beat the Huskies in Seattle a while ago, but the last four years they tend to play two tougher (Dakota schools primarily) FCS games and two FCS creampuffs.

according to AI:

Over the past decade (2015–2025), the University of Montana Grizzlies have consistently ranked in the upper-middle to top quartile of FCS teams in strength of schedule, primarily due to the competitiveness of the Big Sky Conference and frequent matchups with ranked opponents such as Montana State, Eastern Washington, and UC Davis.

Historical Strength of Schedule Overview
Using data from Jeff Sagarin and Massey Ratings, Montana’s strength of schedule (SoS) usually ranged from **#30 to #70 out of approximately 130–135 FCS programs placing them between the 25th and 50th percentile nationally in most seasons.

what Sagarin may not consider is that Big Sky officiating squads have long offered some sort of extra courtesy to Montana, and consciously or not, are probably less inclined to do any homecooking for Sac. Historically, playing clean is not the Hornet way, and key penalties or spots can have an outsized impact on an otherwise close game.

Compared to its fellow conference members Montana consistently has a easy out of conference schedule.
How many FBS teams has Montana played in the most recent five seasons? One, five years ago.
How many D2 teams has Montana played in the most recent five seasons? Two
How.many FBS teams has Davis played in the last five seasons? Five
How many D2 teams has Davis played in last five years? Zero

Hate to say it, but rooting for SAC ST this weekend. If we can't play Montana, maybe we can beat them via transitive properties

huh? Busing students from others schools from hours away? How much does this cost?

These students are coming to see Quavo concert, not a football game. This attendance spike is not real or sustainable if its being used as an argument to going FBS. This is crazy.

Do they actually do this stuff on the turf field itself? They're going to ruin that field with all of the extra wear and tear on the surface. They're not cheap to replace either.

In Fantasyland, who cares about the turf because they will be playing in front of 40,000 at Cal Expo momentarily. If they get any games scheduled that is.

At least All Cal (?) Day in the 40s and 50s made sense. It was Davis vs SB and Cal vs UCLA something like that in a doubleheader. Why should any of those other students care?

President Wood now has someone else to blame.

The Griz will be looking to make a statement tonight. If we can keep winning, the Montana brawl game should help settle the top 5 so I’ve got to root for Montana tonight.

As much as it pains me, I will take the lesser of two pains - Go Griz!

Here's to the Griz embarrassing them further

Although I occasionally point out Sacramento State's hypocrisy or outrageousness, I never really have any ill will towards them. On the other hand, I do enjoy seeing higher ranked teams lose. Therefore, I'm rooting for Sacramento State over the Griz.

I’ll back the Griz just cuz we’re more likely to be battling Sac than Montana for a playoff spot.

I agree. If it's close between us and Sac, they get in as a result of beating the Ags or Montana and their PR machine. We lost out to Sac despite beating them.

Montana wins = best chance of any playoff spot, but Sac wins = highest reasonable ceiling for a good seed I think, from our perspective.

Not that I'd bet a 2-loss UM team is going to be reasonably seeded lower than a 2-loss UCD team, but at least it's theoretically possible if the committee decided to randomly be reasonable about the Griz schedule

J street has some play makers. 7-0 slak

7-7