Idaho State Athletic Director Pauline Thiros said her scheduling philosophy for football includes so-called “money games” with regional rivals that can be accomplished with a bus trip.

On Tuesday, she announced five such games that will accomplish that goal.

Probably the biggest announcement is that Idaho State will be playing Boise State and Brigham Young University once each over the next five years, with a combined payout of around $1 million.

The Bengals will face Boise State in BSU’s Albertsons Stadium on Sept. 9, 2030. The year prior, ISU will travel to Provo to face BYU in LaVell Edwards Stadium on Sept. 1, 2029. Thiros declined to give exact payout amounts for each game, but said those two contests will net ISU about $1 million.

Other ISU “money games” over the next several years include: Utah State on Sept. 5 next year; Nevada on Sept. 4, 2027; and Wyoming on Sept. 2, 2028. Each game will net between $450,000 and $600,000 for the Bengals. Thiros has also just recently signed another game with Wyoming for 2033.

“This has taken a long time to come together,” said Thiros. “We have been able to get guarantee games out here in the West. They are games we can drive to, games where we can put a team on the field in front of people in our footprint, where we recruit. Their (Bengal players) families can show up and have a good experience. And they are games where, if we have a good team, as we showed earlier this season, we can compete.”

The Boise State game in 2030 will be particularly engaging for the Bengals and their families, if their roster construction remains similar to this season’s. The Bengals have 10 players from the Boise area on this year’s team, and that’s not to mention several other players from Eastern Idaho whose families and friends would be able to make a trip to Boise without a great deal of stress.

“We are excited to take the Bengals to Boise and play for a huge number of our fans and alumni, the families and friends of the inevitably large number of players we have from the Treasure Valley, and see Coach (Cody) Hawkins in his home town,” Thiros said in a news release announcing the BSU game. “Games with our sister institutions in Idaho are good for everyone. They celebrate the rich history of great football in our state.”

Then referring back to a famous trick play that helped ISU beat the Broncos in 1992, Thiros said, “I’m asking Coach to shine up a new iteration of the Globe of Death and make a run for an upset.”

The last time ISU played the Broncos was in 2015, when the Broncos won 52-0 on their blue turf. The last time BSU played in Pocatello was 1995, when the Bengals won a thriller, 32-31, in what was then known as Holt Arena. Of course, BSU has moved up to become an FBS powerhouse over the years, playing in the national playoffs last year. They don’t travel to play at FCS schools.

In addition to allowing the Bengals’ families, friends and fans a better opportunity to come to the games, playing regional teams like Utah State, BYU and Boise and traveling by bus also saves ISU money. Chartering a plane to travel to away games costs in the neighborhood of $100,000, Thiros said.

Thiros said that with all of the conference realignment that has been taking place at the FBS level, particularly with the instability in the PAC-12 and Mountain West Conferences, it’s been difficult to get those regional schools to commit to long-term non-conference games.

“Teams have been reluctant to schedule games when they really didn’t know what the new league parameters would be, what their financial situation would be, what their schedules would look like,” said Thiros. “It’s been kind of tenuous − typically we try to schedule these games far in advance, but nobody was willing to ink a game for a long time. I’ve been like a fly at a picnic, bugging ADs (athletic directors), staying in front of them for the games we wanted. When things started to settle down, then we’ve been able to have these conversations.”

The Bengals’ schedule this year has been brutal. ISU had to fulfill a commitment to play New Mexico for a game that was cancelled by COVID, then the Bengals had to repay Southern Utah’s visit to Pocatello last year. The Bengals also had a contract with FBS UNLV to open the season, and then their Big Sky Conference schedule requires them to open with Montana, Montana State, Northern Arizona and Cal-Davis, all top quality teams.

Thiros was determined to get a more manageable slate for 2026, and she feels like she has accomplished that. ISU will pay $250,000 each to bring in FCS schools San Diego and VMI, their only “money game” is 70 miles down the road at Utah State, and with five Big Sky Conference home games next year, ISU will have seven home games for the first time since 1990.

“We’re getting as many FCS home games as we can,” Thiros said. “With our Big Sky schedule with either five or four home games, there is a little bit of room for home and homes. But my goal is no fewer than six home games. Some years we’ll have to buy two of them.”

This year the NCAA allowed FCS schools to go to a 12-game schedule every season, whereas in the past it was based on the calendar. The Big Sky, meanwhile, will be adding Southern Utah and Utah Tech beginning next season, and has decided to go to a nine-game conference schedule, with teams rotating between five and four home conference games each season. The conference has also designated Montana State, Idaho and Weber State as ISU’s guaranteed rivals, so the Bengals know they will be playing those three teams every year.

“We’ve got Big Sky meetings the 19th and 20th of this month, so I think we’ll see the conference schedule for next year then,” said Thiros, who knows ISU will have five conference home games next year. “But we’ve got 2026, 2027 and 2028 (nonconference schedules) done and I think we’ve achieved our goals in all those years. Now we’re bargaining hard to get through 2029-2031.”