HELENA — The 2025 football season will feature a new-look Frontier Conference.
The Frontier hosted the first of its two virtual football media days on Wednesday, introducing players and coaches from the seven teams in its new East division. The Frontier added five football newcomers ahead of this season — pushing its total number of teams from nine to 14 — and split itself into two divisions, East and West.
The East features four newcomers, all from the defunct North Star Athletic Association: Dakota State University, Dickinson State University, Valley City State University and Mayville State University. The fifth newcomer is Simpson University (Calif.), which will play in the West division.
“I’ll tell you, we’re looking forward to not having to play each other twice and playing a round-robin schedule and being able to see some different faces,” said Mayville State coach Rocky Larson. “I mean, obviously, (the Frontier is) the SEC of the NAIA. We’re getting to play the best every single week, and we had to up our recruiting. We had to up everything we do in how we operate.”
The Frontier isn’t just expanding, it's been redesigned with the two-division format. Of the Frontier’s five Montana teams, Carroll College and Montana Western will play in the West. Rocky Mountain, MSU-Northern and Montana Tech will play in the East.
“I think it’s exciting. We’ve got some different opponents to prepare for,” said MSU-Northern head coach Jerome Souers. “That’s always a challenge. And it can also be interesting how the playoffs will end up playing.”
Both the East and West will decide a regular-season champion following a six-game division schedule. Both division champs will earn automatic bids to the NAIA’s national playoffs.
“I think anytime that we can get two automatic bids is a big deal,” said Montana Tech coach Kyle Samson. “Because then I believe that hopefully that will turn into three or four of our teams going into the playoffs every year. And so I’m excited about it. I think it’s new. It’s going to be different, for sure.”
The Frontier will conduct a virtual media day on Thursday for the West division.
