Bobcats 'Gold Rush' Game Cancelled to Start Season

The Montana State Bobcats were set to open up the 2020 football season with Long Island University on September 5th, but that game has now been cancelled. The Northeast Conference in which Long Island plays announced on Wednesday that due to COVID-19 they are postponing all fall sports.

For the Bobcats, this is the second game on the schedule that has been cancelled. Their September 12th game at Utah was also taken off the schedule when the Pac-12 Conference cancelled all their non-conference football games. That was a blow to Montana State as they were to make nearly $700,000 for that game.

We were expecting an announcement from the Big Sky Conference by the end of July as to whether or not it was going to officially play the 2020 football season, but, so far, the conference has not made a decision.

Big Sky Conference Commissioner Tom Wistrcill said earlier this month he believed it was a "50-50" chance that the football season would happen.

The conference announced last week that it was pushing back the start of volleyball, men's and women's cross-country and non-championship seasons for men's and women's tennis. Golf can begin on Sept 14th.

If the football season does happen for the Bobcats, here is there current schedule as of today:

Saturday, Sep 19. Dixie State. Time TBA ET | TV TBA. ...
Saturday, Sep 26. at Portland State. Time TBA ET | TV TBA. ...
Saturday, Oct 3. Northern Colorado. ...
Saturday, Oct 10. Cal Poly. ...
Saturday, Oct 17. at Weber State. ...
Saturday, Oct 24. Idaho State. ...
Saturday, Nov 7. at Eastern Washington.
Saturday, Oct 24. Idaho State. ...
Saturday, Nov 7. at Eastern Washington.
Saturday, Nov 21. at Montana

Montana State Athletic Director Leon Costello said in a press release from the university that the work of rebuilding the Bobcats’ schedule is and has been underway.
“We’re in discussions with other schools in the same situation to fill our schedule” Costello said. “Every conference and institution is working through this process. We’re exploring all of our options.”