College Football Schedule Week 12: Under the Radar Games to Watch

FCS: Montana State at Montana

1:00 PM CT on ESPN+

I haven’t featured nearly enough FCS matchups this season, but I absolutely could not leave this one out. We’ve got one of the fiercest rivalries in all of college football featuring a pair of top-5 teams with a conference title and crucial playoff seeding on the line in front of one of the most beautiful backdrops in the sport.

Montana – Montana State is truly one of the great rivalries in the sport. The teams have played since 1897, with the Montana leading the series 73-42-5. The series has long been referred to as the “Cat-Griz Game”, though perhaps more famously it’s taken on the name “Brawl of the Wild” You cannot convince me that there is a better rivalry name in any sport than that.

Of course a rivalry of such magnitude needs an impressive trophy, and they went for a mountainous one. No, I literally mean mountainous. The Great Divide Trophy, named for the mountains of the Continental Divide that separates the two schools, is a three foot tall, 306 pound bronze behemoth sculpted in the shape of a mountain and depicts a grizzly and a bobcat fighting to reach the summit.

Heck yes.

Cat-Griz is always intense, but this year the hype is through the roof. The Grizzles of Montana are ranked fourth in the country. The Montana State Bobcats are fourth. The teams are tied atop the Big Sky Conference standings. The winner of this game will clinch the Big Sky championship and lock up a high seed in the FCS playoffs. It’s possible this is the highest stakes have ever been in the game.

If you need an introduction to FCS football, watch the Brawl of the Wild. You won’t regret it.