The Big Sky Conference and the Missouri Valley Football Conference have announced a Challenge Series that will take place between the two conferences.

The two leagues happen to be two of the top FCS conferences and the Challenge Series was developed with hopes of publicizing current matchups and promote future non-conference scheduling. North Dakota State University in the MVFC and the University of North Dakota in the Big Sky just happen to be two of the premier teams in each league.

Schools in the conferences will battle each other eight times this season, with six of those being home games for Big Sky teams. In the previous four seasons, the two conferences played each other a total of 35 times.

In the STATS FCS Top 25 Preseason Rankings, there are a total of nine teams from the two conferences. The Challenge Series for 2017 includes at least one ranked team from that preseason poll and two of the eight games will be a matchup of two of those ranked teams.

The full listing of each matchup is below, including the date, the matchup, and how to watch each game of 2017's Challenge Series.

Sept. 9 -- #2 North Dakota State at #5 Eastern Washington, 4 pm ET (SWX/NBC ND/ESPN3)
Sept. 9 -- #23 Cal Poly at #18 UNI, 5 pm ET (Panther Sports Network/ESPN3)
Sept. 9 -- #4 South Dakota State at Montana State, 8 pm ET (SWX/Pluto TV/Altitude 2)
Sept. 9 -- #25 Western Illinois at Northern Arizona, Time TBD (NAU-TV AZ/Pluto TV)
Sept. 9 -- Missouri State at #8 North Dakota, 5 pm ET (Midco Sports Network/Pluto TV)
Sept. 16 -- #8 North Dakota at South Dakota, 3 pm ET (Midco Sports Network/ESPN3)
Sept. 16 -- #18 UNI at Southern Utah, 8 pm ET (Pluto TV)
Oct. 7 -- #20 Illinois State at Northern Arizona, Time TBD (NAU-TV AZ/Pluto TV)

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