Northwest Notes Jan. 22, 2021

Northern Colorado latest Big Sky team to opt out of spring football schedule

GREELEY, Colo. – The University of Northern Colorado football program will not participate in the Big Sky Conference and FCS spring championship season, the school announced.

Instead, the Bears will pursue a modified non-conference schedule in late spring.

The health and safety of student-athletes and coaches, in conjunction with staffing and facility challenges associated with multiple sports competing simultaneously, necessitated the difficult decision, the school said.

Northern Colorado is one of five Big Sky programs to either opt-out of or pursue a modified spring schedule, joining Montana, Montana State, Portland State and Sacramento State.

Idaho was scheduled to open its season vs. Northern Colorado at home on Feb. 27.

Frontier Conference shortens spring football schedule from seven games to four

WHITEFISH, Mont. — The Frontier Conference has announced that it has once again amended the 2020 football schedule that will be played this spring. The newly updated schedule was approved by the Council of Presidents in a Thursday afternoon conference call.

The modified schedule still remains a conference-only one, but this time the league will be split into two pods and feature just four games for each of the eight teams. This new schedule reduces the conference game schedule for every Frontier Conference football squad from seven to four. The new format addresses the following issues the conference is still facing with the COVID-19 pandemic:

Each team does have the option to play additional non-conference games barring any state restrictions, respectively. The conference-only portion of the schedule will now begin on March 20 and run until April 10. The NAIA national playoffs begin the following weekend on April 17. Any non-conference games that teams wish to play must take place before March 20.

Each team will be guaranteed two home games in the modified setup. The Mountaineers are grouped in POD 1 with Montana State-Northern, Montana Western, and Montana Tech. POD 2 has Southern Oregon, Carroll College, College of Idaho, and Rocky Mountain College grouped together.

The NAIA football playoffs are scheduled for April 17 and 24, and May 1 with the national championship game scheduled for May 10 at Eddie Robinson Stadium in Grambling, La.