The Montana Grizzlies are favored to win the Big Sky Conference football championship this fall, a poll of conference coaches and the media suggests.
The Grizzlies, conference winners last season, received 63 points in the coaches poll, including seven of the eight possible first-place votes. Northern Arizona finished second with 52 points and no first-place votes.Eastern Washington got two first-place votes and finished third with 47 points, followed by Portland State and Montana State tied at fourth with 40 points each. Cal State Sacramento got 25 points, Weber State and Cal State Northridge 23 points each and Idaho State 11.
Montana got 20 of 23 first-place votes in the media poll, good for 204 points.
Northern Arizona captured two first-place votes and finished second with 151 points, followed by Eastern Washington with 146. Montana State received one first-place vote and finished with 129, in a fourth-place tie with Portland State. Cal State Sacramento had 89 points, Cal State Northridge 86, Weber State 70 and Idaho State 31.
The results were released Tuesday by the Big Sky Conference office in Ogden, Utah.