It may not be much longer until Montana State University-Northern fans will be watching a new-look Frontier Conference.
    With the world of college athletics making major moves, the Frontier isn’t standing still either. Earlier this summer, the Frontier announced it was looking into a possible merger with the remaining Dakota Athletic Conference schools. But in recent weeks, the league has taken new steps towards making expansion a reality.
    The Frontier sent out applications to seven schools with the intent of finding out specifically what schools would be interested in joining the league and in what capacity.
    “We’ve been looking into an expansion for a long time, probably even three or four commissioners before me,” present Frontier commissioner Kent Paulson said. “It’s a situation where we are already a strong conference and we have the unique opportunity to get stronger.”
    The league has offered applications to remaining DAC schools Dickinson State, Jamestown College, Valley City State and Mayville State, as well as two schools in California, Azusa Pacific and Menlo College. Southern Oregon is the seventh school. The Frontier set a deadline of Oct. 29 for applying for membership, so beyond that date the picture of what a possible new Frontier could look like will become much clearer.
    “The ball really got rolling with the DAC schools last year because of the schools that bolted that league,” Paulson said. “What was left of the league looked at us and it made some geographical sense to look into a merger of some kind. But then we also realized we had an opportunity to look into a lot of other possibilities with some other schools.
    “We wanted to look at things like how to curb costs but expand and become a much stronger league in the NAIA at the same time,” he added. “So, recently, we decided, instead of trying to anticipate scenarios, we decided to send out applications to these schools and gauge their interest and then once we know that, go from there.”
    Azusa Pacific, an NAIA power in almost every sport it offers, has already announced it won’t seek admittance to the Frontier, even as a football-only school. And it's been reported Jamestown, Mayville and Valley City have all applied for membership to the Great Plains Conference. However, Dickinson and Southern Oregon have made intentions public that they both intend to apply for membership to the Frontier. Dickinson will apply for full membership, while SOU, an NAIA football independent, will likely apply for associate membership, as well Menlo. Both schools would likely compete in just football and wrestling in the Frontier.
    But as it stands, the Frontier, one of the strongest overall conference in all of the NAIA does not have to accept schools to the league if the plan doesn’t fit. The application process was a starting point according to Paulson, and schools were asked if they would want to join as a full member or as an associate member. Currently, Eastern Oregon is an associate member of the Frontier, competing in just football. The Mounties compete in the Cascade Conference in all other sports, along with SOU. Menlo and Azusa compete in the Golden State Athletic Conference in all other sports besides football.
    “As of now we have sent out no invites to our conference,” Paulson said. “The presidents of our current schools took this plan and did a great job of coming up with a way to look into ways to make an already strong conference stronger. I really commend all of the presidents in our league for the work they did and continue to do on this."
    Football is certainly the driving force behind the expansion, and Paulson said it would be ideal to have a 10-team football league with divisions set up to maintain current rivalries as well as cut down on travel costs. The Frontier is currently a six-team football league, while the University of Great Falls, Westminster College and Lewis-Clark State compete in all other Frontier sports.
    Adding even two more football schools would likely allow the league to in part, do away with its round-robin scheduling, although Paulson said getting rid of that type of schedule (teams playing each other home-and-home every season) won’t necessarily happen all together.
    In sports like basketball and volleyball, the addition of two full member schools would bump the league up to 11 teams adding four conference games to men’s and women’s basketball schedules and two more volleyball matches to each team’s schedule. That scenario, or even the possibility of more schools being added, would allow for easier and more cost-effective scheduling. Schools in the Frontier have long-since had a hard time finding adequate nonconference games, and more conference games would eliminate some of that, as well as having to travel farther to play those out of conference games. The same goes for football, where it is becoming increasingly harder to find out of conference games, especially when trying to schedule teams to come to Montana.
    “That’s one of the big things we are looking at right now,” Paulson said. “We envision scenarios where we can be an even stronger conference while helping these schools cut down on the amount of time scheduling and hopefully curbing some costs along the way. And the same goes for the schools we’re looking at adding. If we can present a schedule to these schools where they don’t have to make these long trips every year, and in the process strengthen this league, than of course, that’s an ideal scenario for us. It’s all about finding ways to be the best conference we can be, about strengthening our position in the NAIA.”
    And expansion would certainly make an already respected Frontier even stronger, especially when it comes to NAIA championship participation.
    A 10-team football league would give the Frontier two automatic bids to the NAIA playoffs, instead of the one the league has at present time. Added teams would also likely give the basketball leagues two automatic bids to the NAIA men’s and women’s national tournaments, as well as more automatic berths to the Western Regional volleyball qualifier.
    And that’s certainly appealing to schools like Dickinson, SOU and Menlo, who, because of their independent status, or the disbanding of the DAC, don’t presently have an auto bid to the football playoffs. Another scenario with those three aforementioned schools would allow the Frontier to form a wrestling conference of sorts. As it stands, only Northern and UGF have wrestling in the current Frontier, while SOU, DSU and Menlo also compete in wrestling. The five schools already compete together in the Western Region of the NAIA, but with a league formed, conference duals both home and away would happen with more frequency.
    And just like the NCAA, and all its shifting over the last year, the NAIA is changing too, mainly as a result of NAIA schools moving up to NCAA Division II, as was the case with the DAC. So now Paulson and the Frontier presidents are getting proactive and moving things forward in order to make sure the Frontier’s position in the NAIA not only stays on solid ground, but becomes even stronger.
    “We’re in a unique position with our league right now because things are already very good, and we’re one of the few, if not the only league in the NAIA that isn’t dealing with all of these defections to the NCAA,” Paulson said. “So what we’re doing is trying to strengthen what’s already very strong on the surface. We’ve got a good thing going and we want to make it better.
    “But we’ll also be very careful with what we do in the next few months,” he added. “These are big steps we’re taking and we want to make sure whatever we decide will be for the betterment of the schools we already have and for everyone involved. We will make the best decisions possible because we don’t want it to be five years from now and realize we’ve gone backwards. So we’re being open, innovative and creative, but at the same time, we’ll make sure whatever we do is in the best interests of everybody involved.”
    The Oct. 29 deadline is set for invited schools to specify whether they want admission to the Frontier. Paulson said the Frontier presidents and athletic directors will spend November considering any applications the conference receives. A meeting is planned for Billings on Dec. 6-7 where the Frontier administrators will vote on and announce which schools will be officially invited to join the Frontier. From there, it will be up to those schools to accept the invitation to join the league or not.
    Depending on the number of schools which will end up joining the Frontier, the league’s expansion could take place as quickly as the 2011-12 school year.