Montana Grizzlies 2008 football schedule

The 2008 football schedule is out. As reported on here first, the Griz will open their season down San Luis Obispo against the Cal Poly Mustangs.

Here's the complete schedule:

Date ..... Opponent ..... Time
9.6 ..... at Cal Poly ..... TBA
9.13 ..... Southern Utah ..... 1:05 p.m.
9.20 ..... UC-Davis (Homecoming) ..... 1:05 p.m.
9.27 ..... Central Washington ..... 1:05 p.m.
10.4 ..... at Weber State * ..... TBA
10.11 ..... at Eastern Washington * ..... TBA
10.18 ..... Sacramento State * ..... 1:05 p.m.
10.25 ..... at Northern Colorado * ..... TBA
11.1 ..... Northern Arizona * ..... 12:05 p.m.
11.8 ..... at Portland State * ..... TBA
11.15 ..... Idaho State * ..... 12:05 p.m.
11.22 ..... Montana State * (108th meeting) ..... 12:05 p.m.

* Conference game

The OOC is alright. We probably shouldn't be playing a DII school but whatever. Here's O'Day's rationale on playing schools from a lower division. It's his response to playing Ft. Lewis last year but fits around the fact that we're playing Central Washington:

Last year, we played Fort Lewis (Don Read loved the Division II schools to let young kids get experience) and UM Athletics netted about $300,000 - not counting what the Adams Center received for ticket fees ($1 per ticket), or what dining services produced in sales, or the bookstore... not counting what the Missoula economy saw by another home game (estimated at between $5-$7 million per home weekend).  We admit that was a "money game," as do most teams at our level.   Still, it is no different than Oregon hosting Montana for $450,000 or Iowa hosting Montana for $650,000.  Their fans expected big wins at our expense, and they, too, need to produce funds to pay their bills.

After the non-conference slate, what should be two of our toughest BSC games are on the road: we have to go to Portland to play the Vikings and to the Cheney to play the Eagles. Those should be two very challenging games. Then we cap off the season with the Brawl in Missoula and hopefully another Big Sky Championship.