Montana and Idaho didn't exactly set the world on fire in the PCC. Actually, the Griz didn't leave the Mountain States Conference (Skyline). A group of schools led by BYU, who at that time had argueably the worst facilties and winning tradition of any school in that league, split from the Skyline Conference to form the Western Athletic Conference with Arizona and Arizona State from the Border Conference joined by fellow Skyline members Utah, Wyoming, New Mexico. Leaving Colorado State, Montana, Denver, and league co-champ Utah State without a conference home. Colorado State was added a couple years later, Denver dropped football, Utah State did pretty well for a while as an independent until the early 80s. Montana formed the Big Sky Conference in 1963 with Montana State, Idaho, Idaho State, Gonzaga, and Weber State.TomCat88 wrote:As fas as I can tell UM and MSU have only been in the same conference since the Big Sky was created.
From 1924 to 1949 UM was in the PCC, which later became the PAC-8, then PAC-10. When UM joined the PCC it consisted of USC, Cal, OSU, UO, WSU, UW, Stanford, and Idaho. UM left in 1949 and was an Independent for one year (1950).
In 1951 UM joined the Mtn States Conference. When UM joined it consisted of BYU, Utah, Utah St, CSU, Denver, New Mexico and Wyoming. They were in that conference through 1962 when they left and joined the newly created Big Sky.
MSU was in the Rocky Mtn. Athletic Conf. from 1917-59. Through 1938 Colorado, Utah, BYU,Utah State and Colorado State were in this conference.
In '39 a major shakeup occurred and only Utah State, MSU, Western St. and No. Colorado remained, while several others were brought in causing the conference to re-invent itself as, I believe, a NAIA league at least until 1956. At some point the league became a NCAA Division II conference (I'm pretty sure this happened in 1958). MSU earned a share of the NAIA championship in 1956 when it tied St. Joseph's 0-0.
Can't find a reference to what conference, if any, that UM was in prior to 1924 or MSU was in prior to 1917. From the above you can deduce that they weren't in the same conference from 1917 until 1962 (46 seasons). WWI and WWII caused the cancellation of five games and another game was cancelled in 1924. UM was 30-8-2 in those games.
From 1897 to 1916 (the 20 unknown conference years) UM holds a 12-7-3 (some years had two games) edge.
Since 1963 the series is 26-20-0 in UM's favor. This comprises the 46 games while each team was in the BSC. Since 1963 MSU has won one Division II Regional Championship (Camelia Bowl '64, which was as far as the season went/no National titel game), one Division II National Championship (76) and one I-AA National Championship (84). UM has won two I-AA National Championships (95 and 01). MSU has won 11 BSC titles, UM has won 17.
I don't know what you can take from all the seasons prior to 1963 other than they played the games and UM won most of them. Just like a national championship was awarded in 1956 and MSU got a share of it. Did UM have more prestige or was it given more scholarships (did football scholarships exist?), which caused such a big disparity in wins or were UM and MSU comparable in those areas? If you look at the season records for both schools neither one was very impressive and winning seasons were rare prior to 1962.
Utah State was never NAIA. USU has always played at the highest classification of college football.
You can find many answers in regards to all time records and conference affiliation from pretty much all teams at this site.
http://collegefootball.about.com/gi/dyn ... house.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
For Montana:
http://collegefootball.about.com/gi/dyn ... house.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
For Montana State:
http://collegefootball.about.com/gi/dyn ... house.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
