Seiji Wood

Sports Editor

On Jan. 25, North Dakota (UND), ISU’s football opponent this Saturday, announced they would leave the Big Sky Conference and join the Summit League and Missouri Valley starting in the 2018-2019 season.

The Summit League doesn’t sponsor football, so school officials at UND then stated the football program would join the Missouri Valley Football Conference in 2020. Until then, the Fighting Hawks will be an FCS independent.

The Fighting Hawks, who are known for being a powerhouse in men’s hockey, made the move to Division I in 2008 and accepted an invitation into the Big Sky Conference in 2012.

Their time in the conference has been short-lived, however, UND continues to play a Big Sky Conference schedule this season but are no longer considered a full-time member of the conference.

This makes things within the conference interesting.

Since UND has a Big Sky Conference schedule, all teams who are full-time members of the conference and play UND will have that game count as a conference game. UND, however, won’t have those games count as conference games because they technically are no longer in the Big Sky.

What that means for the Bengals is that they will have their first conference game this weekend against the Fighting Hawks.

Last season, the Bengals went 2-6 in conference games and look to get off to a good start in conference play with UND on the road.

After the Fighting Hawks, ISU will host Northern Arizona on Homecoming Weekend and will host Idaho on Oct. 6.