By ERIC TABER
The Montana Grizzlies have agreed to a future home-and-home football series with the South Dakota Coyotes of the Missouri Valley Football Conference beginning in 2019 and concluding in 2022.
Montana opens the 2019 season on August 31 in Vermillion, South Dakota, against the Coyotes inside the DakotaDome (10,000). USD will travel to Missoula to complete the series in 2022. The exact date of the return game in 2022 will be determined at a later date.
“This matchup continues our plan to schedule high-quality FCS opponents,” said Montana director of athletics Kent Haslam.
“It is always exciting to play against regional competition from the Missouri Valley Football Conference.”
The 2019 matchup between the Griz and Coyotes on Aug. 31 replaces the game originally scheduled with Western Illinois. That game, which opens a home-and-home series with the Leathernecks, is now set for September 15, 2018.
Montana opens the 2018 season at home against Northern Iowa, giving the Grizzlies two nonconference matchups against teams from the Missouri Valley Football Conference that year.
Montana is 12-6 all-time against the Coyotes, dating back to the first meeting between the two schools in 1915, a 10-7 loss for the Griz in Vermilion.
Since then, UM has gone undefeated at home against the Coyotes at 7-0 and is 9-1 all-time against USD in games played in the state of Montana. Montana and South Dakota played each other three times in Billings in 1949, 1965 and 1967. It wasn’t until 1969 that the Coyotes traveled to Missoula to face the Griz, a 31-20 win for UM.
Overall, Montana is 7-0 at home, 3-5 on the road and 2-1 in a neutral location against the ‘Yotes.
The last meeting between the two schools came in 2014 when the Coyotes traveled to Missoula under the tutelage of former UM head coach Joe Glenn, who won a National Championship with the Griz in 2001.
Running back Jordan Canada rushed 16 times for 114 yards, and quarterback Jordan Johnson threw for a pair of touchdowns as the Griz defeated the ‘Yotes 28-20 in front of a sold-out crowd under the lights at Washington-Grizzly Stadium.
Montana finished the 2016 season ranked No. 25 in the final FCS Coaches’ Poll with a 6-5 overall record. South Dakota went 4-7 in 2016, with wins over Weber State and Northern Iowa in its first season under head coach Bob Nielson.
Montana will open fall camp in its third season under head coach Bob Stitt in early August.
Future Montana Football Schedules
2018 vs N. Iowa – 9/1
vs Drake – 9/8
@ W. Illinois – 9/15*
2019 @ S. Dakota – 8/31
vs N. Alabama – 9/7
@ Oregon – 9/14
2020 @ Missouri St. – 9/12
vs Morehead St. – 9/19
2021 @ Washington – 9/4
vs W. Illinois – 9/11
vs Missouri St. – 9/18
2022 vs. S. Dakota – Date TBD
* Moved from 2019 to 2018