Montana State tops Big Sky preseason coaches poll again

Montana State opened the Big Sky preseason race the same way it finished the last one, on top. The Bobcats collected 11 first-place votes and 143 points to finish first in the 2026 coaches poll, with Montana again sitting right behind them in a split that already defines the league’s title chase and the early FCS playoff map.

The full coaches ballot covered all 13 Big Sky teams, and the top of the poll lined up Montana State, Montana, UC Davis, Northern Arizona and Idaho State. That grouping matters because it separates the league’s clearest playoff contenders from the programs that will have to force their way into the conversation once conference play starts. Montana State and Montana arrived as the headline duo, but UC Davis and Northern Arizona were close enough to the front to keep the race from becoming a two-team march.

The Bobcats also finished first in the media poll, where they drew 35 first-place votes. Montana State had already been picked No. 1 in the 2025 preseason football polls, so the new results gave the program a second straight year as the Big Sky favorite before the opening snap. Montana was second in both the coaches and media polls, reinforcing how firmly the league’s preseason traffic still runs through Bozeman and Missoula.

The preseason picture sharpens the stakes for the rest of the league. Eastern Washington was ranked eighth in a later preseason poll, a reminder that the Eagles begin deeper in the pack, while Idaho State’s placement in the top five keeps it in the first wave of teams chasing a postseason path. In the FCS, the Big Sky rarely sends one or two clean answers to December; the preseason vote is often the first public draft of who will have a case when at-large bids are handed out.

The schedules add an immediate layer to that picture. Montana State opens Aug. 29 at Utah Tech, then stays on the road for Butler on Sept. 5 and Nevada on Sept. 12. Montana begins the same day at home against Southern Utah at Washington-Grizzly Stadium in Missoula. By the time those early nonconference games are over, the league’s preseason hierarchy will already be under pressure to prove it was more than summer consensus.