The first thing you’ll notice when you look at Idaho State’s 2026 football schedule released by the school and the Big Sky Conference Tuesday is this − seven home games.

That’s not a misprint, seven home games for the first time since 1990.

And four of the five road games are in the state of Utah, which will save the program a lot of money regarding travel expenses.

This is something that schools like Montana and Montana State have been doing for years, buying home games to increase their chances for getting wins and potentially making the FCS playoffs.

Bengal head coach Cody Hawkins sounded thrilled with the opportunity that having seven home games is going to present for his program and for the community.

“This is a big change,” he said when reached Tuesday night. “I’m really excited and appreciate all the leg work that our administration has done to do this. Pauline (Thiros) spent a lot of time making this happen. We were supposed to play at San Diego next year for example, but she was able to get that flipped.”

“I’m not saying this is going to be the standard moving forward, but this does give us a special opportunity,” Hawkins added. “And it will bring dividends for the community. Families will have more chances to go to the game, our players in the area will be able to play more games in front of their parents and it will help our chances to get to the FCS playoffs. You aren’t going to have a lot of chances to make them playing only five home games or two money games.”

The schedule next year only has one money game on it and that is a short trip to play at Utah State. That’s a lot better than having to fly across the country and play power schools like Georgia, Oklahoma, Arizona State and Nebraska, which the Bengals have had to do in the past. It always results in a nice check, but a huge loss on the scoreboard and a lot of guys banged up, which impacts the following games.

And the days of having to play a pair of money games like this year at UNLV and at New Mexico, apparently are also a thing of the past according to Hawkins.

“We’ve got it in place until at least 2031, that we are only going to have to play a single money game every year, that’s because of the money the ICCU Credit Union provided us.,” Hawkins said. “We really appreciate that. I think Idaho one year played two money games and made the playoffs, but that’s not usually going to happen.”

And playing more home games has another benefit that often goes unnoticed by the fan base, namely being able to rehab injuries as Hawkins explained.

“It was nice playing at UNLV and all,” he said. “But that hurt us the next week at Southern Utah. It’s not like you can rehab and ice guys on the bus. Playing at home gives us more time to get guys ready. And they can sleep in their own beds.”

The schedule starts next year with a really interesting opponent as VMI (Virginia Military Institute) makes a cross-country flight to take on ISU on Aug. 29. It’ll be the first ever meeting between the two schools. VMI is out of the Southern Conference.

Southern Utah and Utah Tech join the league next year and the Bengals get them both on the road, the Thunderbirds on Sept. 26 and the Trailblazers on Halloween Oct. 31.

The end of the schedule is probably the toughest stretch for Idaho State as they close with Montana State at home, Montana on the road and Idaho at home to end things on Nov. 21.

With the Big Sky moving to nine conference games next year, ISU’s permanent opponents will be Idaho, Montana State and Weber State whom they’ll play every season.

ISU Athletic Director Pauline Thiros also weighed in on the schedule.

“We have been working hard to build schedules that position Bengal football for success and for playoff opportunities. We want to play at home, we want to limit FBS guarantee games to only one annually, and we want to keep those games in our region,” she said. “We also want to avoid playing non-Division I games whenever possible, in spite of the difficulty getting home FCS games presents. We are really pleased with 2026, and we are having success with that strategy going forward.”

Game times and broadcast information will be released at a later date.

2026 Idaho State Football ScheduleAug. 29 — VMI (Virginia Military Institute)

Sept. 5 — at Utah State

Sept. 12 — San Diego

Sept. 19 — Open date

Sept. 26 — at Southern Utah

Oct. 3 — Northern Arizona

Oct. 10 — Cal Poly

Oct. 17 — at Weber State

Oct. 24 — Portland State

Oct. 31 — at Utah Tech

Nov. 7 — Montana State

Nov. 14 — at Montana

Nov. 21 — Idaho