2024 Schedule

[Montanabob]

It's interesting that the schedule as reflected on the MSU website does mot list a location for the game against Maine. All other home games have Bozeman as the location. Could this game be played in a neutral site possibly?

Pretty certain it's just an oversight by whoever did the schedule. If MSU were going to play a neutral site game they'd have announced it by now for fans who plan early for upcoming seasons.

Yeah, I don't think there is any chance of MSU only doing 5 home games in a season. Given the 12 game season if we already had 6 home games then I could see maybe a thought of a neutral site but I can't really see how MSU makes the books balance if they were to lose the home game revenue to a neutral site.

IMHO, a neutral site for an OoC FCS game doesn't make sense.......each team has travel costs but neither team has significant revenue.

I'm a little surprised that we don't have 7 home games in a 12 game season.....unfortunately the community college to the west does. You'd think that selling out an ~22k seat stadium we'd be able to to that.....

I believe in years past MSU uses the 12 game seasons to get an extra road trip in to make it easier to get six home games during an 11 game schedule.

And also get a payout game against New Mexico.
Have we heard how much the Cats are getting paid to play New Mexico? I'm curious about the minimum payout the Cats accept. One would assume that the revenue from home games is substantial, and there must be a cost associated with the risk of the Cats losing in a high-stakes game.

Some VERY rough math I would bet its probably over $500K net if you pay a Stetson $200K to come play. So that's probably the starting point of negotiations. Its also why the Montana schools don't play G5 and even PAC 12 schools very often. MWC schools can pay ISU, PSU or UNC $300K and get a D1 cupcake or you can pay $600K for a game you might lose.

nope. $360k. scheduled in 2020. I will be there.

https://www.abqjournal.com/sports/colle ... 03d67.html

Nice find!

This New Mexico could be a winnable game for our Cats.

yup. and some player and coaching issues for UNM.

[Montanabob]

It's interesting that the schedule as reflected on the MSU website does mot list a location for the game against Maine. All other home games have Bozeman as the location. Could this game be played in a neutral site possibly?

Pretty certain it's just an oversight by whoever did the schedule. If MSU were going to play a neutral site game they'd have announced it by now for fans who plan early for upcoming seasons.

Yeah, I don't think there is any chance of MSU only doing 5 home games in a season. Given the 12 game season if we already had 6 home games then I could see maybe a thought of a neutral site but I can't really see how MSU makes the books balance if they were to lose the home game revenue to a neutral site.

IMHO, a neutral site for an OoC FCS game doesn't make sense.......each team has travel costs but neither team has significant revenue.

I'm a little surprised that we don't have 7 home games in a 12 game season.....unfortunately the community college to the west does. You'd think that selling out an ~22k seat stadium we'd be able to to that.....

I believe in years past MSU uses the 12 game seasons to get an extra road trip in to make it easier to get six home games during an 11 game schedule.

And also get a payout game against New Mexico.
Have we heard how much the Cats are getting paid to play New Mexico? I'm curious about the minimum payout the Cats accept. One would assume that the revenue from home games is substantial, and there must be a cost associated with the risk of the Cats losing in a high-stakes game.

Some VERY rough math I would bet its probably over $500K net if you pay a Stetson $200K to come play. So that's probably the starting point of negotiations. Its also why the Montana schools don't play G5 and even PAC 12 schools very often. MWC schools can pay ISU, PSU or UNC $300K and get a D1 cupcake or you can pay $600K for a game you might lose.

nope. $360k. scheduled in 2020. I will be there.

https://www.abqjournal.com/sports/colle ... 03d67.html

Nice find!

This New Mexico could be a winnable game for our Cats.

yup. and some player and coaching issues for UNM.

and UNM coach is gone
https://www.abqjournal.com/sports/unm-f ... 1243c.html

[MTCowpoke22]

I know the Big Sky "reset" their scheduling rotation so it won't be an issue in the future, but goddamn I am sick of playing @ EWU almost every season

Eastern is one of our protected rivals, the griz are the other. So we will play both every year regardless of the Big Sky rotation, unless they change it in the future.

[VimSince03]

11-1 and everyone still freaks out about Vigen's "lack of fire on the sidelines".

[coloradocat]

Could be a rough November but I don't see a loss before then and we have a bye week before that stretch run.

[AFCAT]

11-1 and everyone still freaks out about Vigen's "lack of fire on the sidelines".

What's the one loss?

[Montanabob]

Well this didn't help us.
https://www.krqe.com/sports/local-sport ... r-reports/

[BleedingBLue]

Well this didn't help us.
https://www.krqe.com/sports/local-sport ... r-reports/

Meh, they won't get exponentially better by August.

[damnyoutuesday]

Well this didn't help us.
https://www.krqe.com/sports/local-sport ... r-reports/

While Bronco is a good coach, he won't magically turn that team around by the beginning of the season

[AFCAT]

The portal can help teams get better faster, but they’ve had something like 9 winning season the past 40 years. History hasn’t been kind to that program.

[damnyoutuesday]

The portal can help teams get better faster, but they’ve had something like 9 winning season the past 40 years. History hasn’t been kind to that program.

History hasn't been kind to either of the programs in New Mexico to be fair

[catatac]

Bumping this, with my way too early predictions:

Aug 24 at New Mexico - Yes they're FBS, No they're not that good. IF we do lose this one, it won't "count" against us, but I don't think we lose it. Win.
Aug 31 at Utah Tech - Utah Tech is not very good, Win.
Sep 7 vs Maine - Gold Rush, Cat's roll. Win.
Sep 14 vs Stephen F. Austin - SFA is not very good and we're at home. Win.
Sep 21 -BYE-
Sep 28 at Idaho State - Might be our toughest game to date, but it's Idaho State. Win.
Oct 5 vs Northern Colorado - Win.
Oct 12 vs Idaho - We get em at home this time, plus they are losing most of their studs to the portal... ouch. Win.
Oct 19 at Portland State - I don't think Barney will have a team that can compete with the Cats. Win.
Oct 26 -BYE-
Nov 2 at Eastern Washington - Will EWU be back? I doubt it. Win.
Nov 9 vs Sacramento State - I think Sac will be pretty good, but we get them at home. Win.
Nov 16 at UC Davis - If we're going to lose a league game, I think this one would be most likely... but we're not. Win.
Nov 23 vs Montana - Of course I'm going to pick the Cats to protect our home turf and smoke the Griz. Win.

There you have it. Ya, going undefeated for an entire season is tough, but SDSU just did it, and the Griz damn near did it. I think we're going to have a damn good team and a schedule that allows this to happen. GO CATS!

[thefrank1]

Couldn't have said it any better. Right on.

[AFCAT]

I know this doesn't have anything to do with 2024, but scheduling a home and home with South Dakota State in '23 and '25 probably wasn't the wisest move to be made by Leon. He has been amazing other than that. I think playing that emotional and physical of a game so early in the '23 season didn't really help the Cats. Having SDSU come to Bozeman in '25 during what will be a bit of a re-building year for the Cats also isn't helpful. Hind sight is 20/20 though. Before I get flamed, relax, it's just my opinion.

[MSU01]

I know this doesn't have anything to do with 2024, but scheduling a home and home with South Dakota State in '23 and '25 probably wasn't the wisest move to be made by Leon. He has been amazing other than that. I think playing that emotional and physical of a game so early in the '23 season didn't really help the Cats. Having SDSU come to Bozeman in '25 during what will be a bit of a re-building year for the Cats also isn't helpful. Hind sight is 20/20 though. Before I get flamed, relax, it's just my opinion.

So would you suggest that MSU schedule nothing but perennial FCS doormats for the non conference schedule to bank their 3 easy wins and move on to conference play? It's not the worst idea on paper but damn was that Stetson game a bore to sit through this year.

[BleedingBLue]

I know this doesn't have anything to do with 2024, but scheduling a home and home with South Dakota State in '23 and '25 probably wasn't the wisest move to be made by Leon. He has been amazing other than that. I think playing that emotional and physical of a game so early in the '23 season didn't really help the Cats. Having SDSU come to Bozeman in '25 during what will be a bit of a re-building year for the Cats also isn't helpful. Hind sight is 20/20 though. Before I get flamed, relax, it's just my opinion.

So would you suggest that MSU schedule nothing but perennial FCS doormats for the non conference schedule to bank their 3 easy wins and move on to conference play? It's not the worst idea on paper but damn was that Stetson game a bore to sit through this year.

Unfortunately, yes. It's pretty clear scheduling non cupcakes isn't super beneficial for the top FCS teams. The gauntlet of the BSC and MVFC schedule is enough to gain a high seed.

[MSU01]

I know this doesn't have anything to do with 2024, but scheduling a home and home with South Dakota State in '23 and '25 probably wasn't the wisest move to be made by Leon. He has been amazing other than that. I think playing that emotional and physical of a game so early in the '23 season didn't really help the Cats. Having SDSU come to Bozeman in '25 during what will be a bit of a re-building year for the Cats also isn't helpful. Hind sight is 20/20 though. Before I get flamed, relax, it's just my opinion.

So would you suggest that MSU schedule nothing but perennial FCS doormats for the non conference schedule to bank their 3 easy wins and move on to conference play? It's not the worst idea on paper but damn was that Stetson game a bore to sit through this year.

Unfortunately, yes. It's pretty clear scheduling non cupcakes isn't super beneficial for the top FCS teams. The gauntlet of the BSC and MVFC schedule is enough to gain a high seed.

Fair enough and I can't say I entirely disagree. MSU is in a pretty great spot right now being able to sell out the stadium week after week for any opponent, so there's no need to worry about a drop in ticket sales by playing San Diego instead of South Dakota. However, I also think it's a very large stretch to suggest that the SDSU game had anything to do with the late season losses that ultimately bumped them down to the 6th seed and the hardest possible 2nd round playoff opponent. The 1-16 seeding change can't come soon enough!

[KIX]

I know this doesn't have anything to do with 2024, but scheduling a home and home with South Dakota State in '23 and '25 probably wasn't the wisest move to be made by Leon. He has been amazing other than that. I think playing that emotional and physical of a game so early in the '23 season didn't really help the Cats. Having SDSU come to Bozeman in '25 during what will be a bit of a re-building year for the Cats also isn't helpful. Hind sight is 20/20 though. Before I get flamed, relax, it's just my opinion.

So would you suggest that MSU schedule nothing but perennial FCS doormats for the non conference schedule to bank their 3 easy wins and move on to conference play? It's not the worst idea on paper but damn was that Stetson game a bore to sit through this year.

Worked for the Friz this year...

[Utcatsfan]

New Mexico lost at Nevada this year. Nevada got routed by Idaho. At New Mexico will be very winnable.

Bronco Mendenhall is at New Mexico now and with how the transfer portal works now garuntee it won't be the same New Mexico team that played this season, G5 schools are getting hit hard.

[jgrilley406]

I know this doesn't have anything to do with 2024, but scheduling a home and home with South Dakota State in '23 and '25 probably wasn't the wisest move to be made by Leon. He has been amazing other than that. I think playing that emotional and physical of a game so early in the '23 season didn't really help the Cats. Having SDSU come to Bozeman in '25 during what will be a bit of a re-building year for the Cats also isn't helpful. Hind sight is 20/20 though. Before I get flamed, relax, it's just my opinion.

Playing SDSU closer than NDSU did, ultimately is probably what gave the cats a seed and not them. Even though game one or two of a season is not where you’ll be at the end of a season, it does benefit both teams especially if the game is close as it was this year.