THE FRONT ROW with MARK NELKE: Idaho, ISU back as football rivals; as for Eastern ...

When Idaho returned to the Big Sky in 2018, the Vandals weren't always scheduled to play Idaho State in football, which seemed kinda silly.

But in a 13-team league and only eight league games, you obviously can't play everybody every year.

So the Big Sky came up with a concept called "protected rivalries" — two teams you were guaranteed to play every year.

Idaho's were Montana and Eastern Washington, which are the two closest conference schools to Moscow, so it sort of made sense.

With Southern Utah leaving the Big Sky for the Western Athletic Conference after this season, the conference re-did its schedules — including its protected rivals.

Idaho's new protected rivals, at least for the 2022-24 football seasons, are Idaho State and Eastern Washington.

"You want to play your instate team every year, and you want to play a team that’s right up the road every year," Idaho coach Paul Petrino said at last month's Big Sky Football Kickoff in Spokane.

IDAHO STATE coach Rob Phenicie agreed.

"I know in a lot of our meetings, their head coach (Petrino) would say, 'We need to play each other,' and I would second it any time … I think it’s awesome," Phenicie said.

"I think the Big Sky Conference made a great decision by placing Idaho and Idaho State at the end of the year," he added.

Idaho and ISU will meet in the season finale in 2022, ’23 and ’24.

They meet this year as well on Nov. 20, in the season finale in Pocatello.

They originally weren't supposed to play this season, but when COVID-19 wiped out the fall 2020 Big Sky schedule, league officials pushed the 2020 schedule to 2021.

"The league did the right thing," Phenicie said. "I was disappointed, looking at a future schedule and seeing that they weren’t on it. And I didn’t think that was right."

EASTERN WASHINGTON's protected rivals were Idaho and Portland State. Beginning in 2022, they'll be Idaho and Montana State.

Eastern Washington-Montana is about as natural a rivalry as it gets in the league, but I guess you can't please everybody.

Idaho and Eastern have split their four meetings since Idaho rejoined the Sky, each team winning twice on its home field — EWU won in 2018, Idaho in ’19 at the Kibbie Dome, then in spring ’21 in the first of two meetings this past season.

EWU coach Aaron Best said the Eastern-Idaho rivalry is "not there yet."

"I think it’s on its way," he said. "If and when we talk eight or 10 years from now ... I’m not going to force the rivalry. We’re not going to make it a rivalry because they’re closest in proximity to Eastern. Two great teams that go back and forth, that maybe don’t like each other a ton, but respect each other, that to me is a rivalry. Portland State is someone we’ve played year in and year out, we’ve played for the Dam Cup … it’s got to have some tentacles of competitive nature, two great teams, sustainability.

"But let’s not just call it a rivalry just to have a rivalry. It got to a point where there was a lot of bad blood in the ’90s … it’ll get there. Coach Petrino’s done a good job; they’ve had our number a couple of times. Give it a few more tries."

Petrino sees it differently.

"There’s a rivalry now, there’s no question at all," Petrino said. "I think it was back two years ago. Our guys see them a lot … they know each other. There’s definitely a rivalry there. We beat ’em two games in a row at our place … I think that helped."

BIG SKY commissioner Tom Wistrcill said the eventual move of Texas and Oklahoma to the SEC wouldn't have a direct trickle-down effect on the Big Sky.

Of bigger concern to him is the scheduling alliance between the Atlantic Sun and the Western Athletic Conference, which will result in one automatic berth to the FCS playoffs. Next year, Wistrcill said, both will be full conferences and each get an automatic berth.

"What I’m concerned about is, we’re one of the power conferences, we want at-large bids," he said. "So any time there’s an extra AQ, that takes away at-large bids from a conference like ours. That’s the direct impact on our league."

In 2019 for example, three Big Sky teams got at-large berths to the 24-team playoffs.

"What Texas and Oklahoma do probably doesn’t have any direct impact on the Big Sky," Wistrcill said. "Probably the next big impact from that group is when they expand the College Football Playoff; they’ve been generous enough to give us (the FCS) a pretty nice slice of that pie … that could increase.

"For us, it’s more about what’s happening with the A-Sun and the WAC — and the Southland might add some schools there."

He said one benefit to having the WAC as an FCS league is scheduling — another league in the West to play.

"We want to schedule as many FCS home games as we can," Wistrcill said. "We have a hard time getting those teams in the east to come out and play."

ESPN's DEAL with the Big Sky, which begins this year, is worth roughly $1 million per year, Wistrcill said.

"It’s 3-4 times what we were getting before," he said. "The money, we’re investing back into the schools for equipment, cameras, personnel (so all conference games can be streamed on ESPN+)."

ESPN+ had 5 1/2 hours of coverage of the Big Sky Football Kickoff, and that kind of exposure is priceless, Wistrcill said.

"It’s not always about the money; we had other suitors offering more money," he said. "It was about our brand and what we’re trying to do."

Predictably, he declined to mention who those other media suitors were, but said a new media rights deal has been in the plans for a long time.

"Almost for two years," Wistrcill said. "When I interviewed for the (commissioner's) job, I said this is something we’ve got to fix. I personally worked on this 4 out of 5 days a week since I got here."

Mark Nelke is sports editor of The Press. He can be reached at 664-8176, Ext. 2019, or via email at mnelke@cdapress.com. Follow him on Twitter @CdAPressSports.