The University of Idaho and Eastern Washington University have announced their new spring football schedules after several Big Sky teams pulled out of spring conference play.
The most interesting thing of note is that Idaho and Eastern Washington will play twice. The two teams will open their seasons against each other on Feb. 27 and finish their regular seasons against each other on April 10. The first game will be at Idaho while the second matchup will be at Eastern.
All teams in the conference are playing one regional opponent twice this season.
In between, Eastern will play Northern Arizona at home on Mar. 6, at Idaho State on Mar. 13, Cal Poly at home on Mar. 27, and at UC Davis on April 3.
The Cal Poly game is of interest due to the fact that former EWU head coach Beau Baldwin is now the Mustangs' head coach. One disappointing thing for Eastern is that none of the teams currently on their schedule were ranked in the FCS Top 25 when that was released in August. Eastern and Weber State are currently the only ranked Big Sky teams participating in conference play, and they will not face each other.
Idaho will host UC Davis on Mar. 6, travel to Northern Arizona on Mar. 13, play Southern Utah on Mar. 27, and go to Idaho State on April 3.
The conference has elected to leave Mar. 20 and the last week of the regular season, April 17, open for make-up games.
The Big Sky season was dealt a blow a few weeks ago when Montana, Montana State, and Portland State all opted to not play in conference play. Late last week, Northern Colorado also opted out of playing. That left only eight teams for a six game season. This move was especially crippling to Idaho and Eastern Washington since Montana, Montana State, and Portland State are all regional teams. Eastern was set to play all three schools on their original spring schedule, while Idaho was set to play two.
