Lights announce 2024 football schedule

The Montana State University-Northern football team willl have a familiar schedule in 2024, though games will be flipped some.

The Frontier Conference announced its football slate recently, where 2024 will be the final season before Dickinson State rejoins the league, so this fall, there will still be eight conference games, with several teams stilll playing each other twice.

Before Northern gets to its league slate, head coach Jerome Souers' team will open the new year at Mayville State. The season-opener will be in Mayville, North Dakota, Aug. 29. The Lights beat Mayville last season in Havre, and beat them the last time they played them on the road as well.

Northern will also play a non-conference game against Rocky Mountain College for the second straight season. The Lights will travel to Billings to play the Battlin' Bears Sept. 7. MSU-N played Rocky in a non-conference tilt a year ago.

The Lights' home-opener and Frontier opener will be against Arizona Christian, Sept. 21. That game follows the first of two bye weeks for the Lights. The second bye will come on Sept. 28.

October begins with back-to-back road games for Northern. On Oct. 5, MSU-N visits Carroll College, then travels to LaGrande, Oregon to play at Eastern Oregon Oct. 12. MSU-n returns home to host College of Idaho Oct. 19, but heads right back on the road to play at Southern Oregon Oct. 26.

In a different scenario than seasons past, the Lights will also play three times in November. They host Montana Western Nov. 2, travel to Montana Tech Nov. 9 and finish the season at home against RMC Nov. 16.

The Lights were 1-9 a year ago and 0-8 in the Frontier. MSU-N will begin its third spring under Souers next month.