Five stories to watch in Frontier football

The Montana State University-Northern football team is just a little over a week away from playing its season-opening game at Arizona Christian.

In fact, that's the case for many of the teams around the Frontier Conference.

And while the league is always entertaining, always tough, always physical and generally always really good, it's going to be an interesting fall around the conference.

For starters, the Hall of Fame Carroll College coach isn't on the sidelines anymore. That alone makes things interesting. But, there's a slew of reasons why the next three months will be exciting, and a whole lot of fun.

Here's five story lines for Frontier fans to keep an eye on this season.

More playoff teams, less bloodshed?

For years now, the Frontier has been one of the toughest conferences in the NAIA. But when November comes, the league generally has been too good for its own good.

In only two of the last five seasons has the league sent two teams to playoffs, and it hasn't gotten three teams in even longer. That's because the Frontier literally beats up on itself, and there's just too many three and four-loss teams in the final conference standings.

Of course, many of those teams would still win playoff games, but in order for the league to get more teams into the field of 16, as it stands now anyway, there needs to be a runaway conference champion, and one or two two-loss teams — something that just hasn't happened much lately.

Are the Yotes ready?

College of Idaho is picked to win the Frontier this season. The Yotes have plenty of firepower, but they haven't put it all together quite yet. The Yotes have been picked in the upper half of the preseason poll three years running now, but this is their first time being picked to win it all in their short, six-year existence. So, it will be interesting to see just where C of I is come the second Sunday in November.

New beginnings at Carroll

Troy Purcell is no stranger to Carroll College, Helena or football in Montana. But he is following in the footsteps of Van Diest, and that's not something that can be easy. Add to that Carroll is coming off its third straight losing season, so the task at hand for Purcell is a big one. It will be interesting to watch how the Saints look and play under their first head coach not named MVD in almost 20 years.

Running wild

The league is always known for its great running backs, and the Frontier is loaded with them this season. Jed Fike at Montana Tech, Major Ali at Carroll and Victor Dias at Eastern Oregon are the headliners, but every single team in the conference has a stout back, so it's conceivable that we could see more 1,000-yard rushers in the Frontier this year than in any season in its history.

Surprise, Surprise

Every season, a team does things no one thought it could do. So who will it be this year? Will Andrew Rolin turn the Lights into that team? Or will Carroll or Montana Tech re-rise to the throne they once held? Time will tell.