The Montana-based Frontier Conference is changing, doubling in size and growing beyond the state’s borders.
The 6 Montana schools—Carroll, MSU-Northern, Montana Tech, Montana Western, Providence and Rocky will welcome 6 new schools to the conference-- 4 from North Dakota, one from South Dakota and one from Nebraska.
Frontier Conference Commissioner Dr. Scott Crawford said the additional schools mean more opportunities for growth, longer team road trips and bigger travel budgets. He said bigger travel budgets were a qualm for school leadership.
“We knew this going in and when the presidents met and made decisions they knew that. Sure, there’s concern but people are working to come up with solutions. And I trust my schools to figure that out, said Crawford.
Commissioner Crawford said more conference matchups mean less room on a season schedule for non-conference competitions to places like Florida and Texas, helping balance travel budgets for conference contests.
A reward for a larger conference is an additional team with a bid to play for a post season. And more schools will expand the number of sports the conference will sponsor.
“We are now going to be a baseball and softball conference starting next year,” Crawford added. “We do not have any Montana schools playing baseball currently, But with the recent decision out from the MHSA sanctioning and sponsoring baseball, I envision we are going to have some school in Montana that will add baseball and take advantage of local recruiting and figure that out.”
Crawford hopes the conference will be able to expand men’s and women’s soccer and maybe one day offer men and women’s wrestling.
“And so we go from the traditional Frontier of football, basketball, volleyball, cross country, track and field and golf, to a conference that will probably be sponsoring at least 6 or 8 more sports. I’m very excited about what that means for our future,” Crawford said.
