SPOKANE, Wash. — Big Sky Conference commissioner Tom Wistrcill held court throughout the Big Sky Kickoff weekend at the Northern Quest Resort & Casino.
In addition to talking with the conference’s athletic directors and football coaches, Wistrcill met with the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee, football officials and media. His message to all was consistent and clear.
Related: Media day wraps up at Big Sky Kickoff as anticipation for 2025 season builds
“We know who we are,” Wistrcill said. “We have very specific goals as a conference, and that’s to win an FCS championship and participate at a really high level in Division I athletics in all other sports. Those aren’t going to change.”
It’s a message Wistrcill, who recently signed a five-year extension as the Big Sky’s commissioner, spreads any opportunity he gets. He, uncharacteristically for someone in his position, is active on social media and regularly makes him accessible to media outlets around the country.
“I’m really proud to be part of the Big Sky,” Wistrcill said. “We have a great thing going, and there’s a lot of schools and conferences like us in the country. So when I see an opportunity to talk about all the great things that we do and the fact that we’re the true college athletics, then I’m going to do it.”
The college athletics landscape has been in a constant state of flux over the past half-decade, and perhaps the biggest domino fell earlier this summer with the approval of the NCAA’s House settlement and the start of the revenue-sharing era of college athletics.
While much is still to be determined on what the future looks like, Wistrcill is confident the conference is in a good place. The Big Sky already navigated its first significant hurdle when Sacramento State finally officially announced its intentions to leave the league. This will be the Hornets’ final academic year as a Big Sky member.
In their place in 2026 will be two programs: Southern Utah, which previously competed in the Big Sky from 2012 until 2022, and Utah Tech, a newcomer located in rapidly growing St. George, Utah.
Compared to the region’s wholesale changes of the Pac-12, Mountain West and Western Athletic conferences, the Big Sky’s one-school-for-two swap is a minor alteration in the big picture.
“Geography matters in our league, even though we're spread out,” Wistrcill said. “To have two schools in Utah that really wanted to come in (is a benefit), and they've talked to us for years about wanting to come in the Big Sky Conference.
“I credit our presidents on making a (quick decision). I came to them with a really quick decision and said, hey, I think we can act on this and it's in our best interest, and they acted quickly. But the good news was ... we'd been talking about this for nine to 12 months, so while the decision happened quickly, the discussion had been going on for a long time.”
The addition of Southern Utah and Utah Tech will help the Big Sky retain its status as an automatic qualifier for NCAA championships in softball and men’s golf, two sports that are important to Wistrcill and the Big Sky office.
But football is still the conference’s flagship sport, and the Big Sky boasts that it’s the deepest FCS conference in the country. Their evidence: An FCS-best five teams qualified for the national playoffs last year. Six teams were ranked in this year's HERO Sports FCS Preseason Top 25.
The next step, then, is to go from playoff contender to national champion.
Teams from the Big Sky have played in three of the past four FCS championship games — Montana State in 2021 and 2024 and Montana in 2023. The Montana schools are 0-3 in those games and were only particularly competitive in the most recent game, a 35-32 North Dakota State win in Frisco, Texas, in January.
NDSU, which has won 10 national titles since 2011, resides in the Missouri Valley Football Conference. So does South Dakota State, the 2022 and 2023 national champion. All told, the MVFC won 12 of the 15 championship games played in Frisco. Sam Houston (2020), James Madison (2016) — which have both since moved up to the FBS — and Eastern Washington (2010) were the others.
This year’s title game will be played in Nashville while Frisco’s Toyota Stadium is undergoing renovations.
“The margin of error at the championship level is so narrow,” Wistrcill said, referencing the Bobcats’ slim loss in January. “... I think we have a great chance this year. I think the FCS is wide open this year, just like the Big Sky’s wide open. The returners at quarterback aren’t real deep in our league, right? So now some stars are going to emerge that maybe we’re not thinking of, and hopefully we get a chance in Nashville to find a way to win.”
