BUTTE — As Montana Tech's football team hits the road for a nearly 800-mile road trip to Valley City State (N.D.) for its regular season finale, the Orediggers know that they can check off a lot of boxes if they prevail against the Vikings.
A victory Saturday would give No. 5 Tech three things: A perfect league record and outright Frontier Conference title, a first-round playoff bye, and a second-round home playoff game. The Orediggers accomplished all of that during the 2025 campaign.
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"We want to be playing our best football going into the playoffs," said Tech coach Kyle Samson. "And I really believe we've been doing that the last couple weeks. I think that we've really been playing our best football the last two weeks against Rocky (Mountain College) and Dickinson (State).
"We've had an edge to ourselves. Our coaches have done a great job getting our guys prepared. And just really excited for the opportunity to continue to get better. And that's our goal, keep improving every single week so that we're playing our best when we get to those playoffs."
The Orediggers will carry a 9-1 overall record a 5- 0 Frontier Conference East division record into their game against VCSU. Tech's lone loss this season came against now-No. 1 College of Idaho on the road in the final non-divisional game. All five of Tech's division wins have been double-digit victories. Their closest games were road victories against Dakota State (S.D.) and Mayville State (N.D.), which the Orediggers won 33-21 and 34-20.
"We haven't traveled the best this year," said senior linebacker Kellan Beller. "So I think that traveling this week and putting on a really dominant performance on the road is gonna be good for us and our confidence going into the playoffs."
If Tech takes care of business against Valley City State (2-7, 1-4), they'll host a second-round playoff game the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Wanting to play at least one more game on their home field should provide plenty of motivation for this team as it looks to secure an outright conference crown.
"That's another one of our goal is we want to play as many playoff games as we can here at Bob Green (Field)," said sophomore wide receiver Manu Melo. "It's a big advantage to us playing on our home field turf, so we're gonna do everything we can to get that."
