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CEDAR CITY, April 10 - Southern Utah's home football game against defending Big Sky Conference co-champion Montana State has been selected as one of 12 contests to be televised live on ROOT SPORTS in the 2012 season, DIRECTV and the Big Sky announced today.

The SUU-MSU contest, slated for Sept. 29 at 1:30 p.m. in Eccles Coliseum, will be televised live in high definition to the 8.7 million viewers in the 18-state ROOT SPORTS coverage area.

The game, which is also Southern Utah's Homecoming contest, will be produced and directed by DIRECTV Sports Networks, as will all 12 games in the Big Sky package. The first Big Sky Game of the Week will be Northern Arizona at Montana on Sept. 22.

"We are very excited to showcase high-definition telecasts of the Big Sky Conference football games to fans and alumni across the Big Sky communities, and also nationally," said Patrick Crumb, President of DIRECTV Sports Networks. "Big Sky football continues to grow in strength and popularity, and this schedule will enable Big Sky fans to enjoy great competition among these universities."

All 13 Big Sky schools will be featured on the ROOT SPORTS telecasts at least once, this season and telecasts will originate from nine of the conferences stadiums.

"We're looking forward to another highly-successful season of football in the Big Sky Conference, the first with 13 members,'' said Big Sky Conference Commissioner Doug Fullerton. "We are very excited to showcase our product on ROOT SPORTS. We believe fans and alumni of our institutions will be very pleased with the production quality and overall commitment to covering Big Sky Conference football games by ROOT SPORTS."

Big Sky Conference games will be distributed primarily on the Northwest and Rocky Mountain ROOT SPORTS networks, which are carried by all major distributors in those territories, including Comcast, DIRECTV, DISH Network, Cablevision (Optimum), Mid-Rivers Communications and several others. As the national television rights holder for Big Sky athletics, DIRECTV Sports Networks will have the ability to distribute Big Sky games to other regions to satisfy the growing interest in the conference's athletics and academics throughout the U.S.

Here is the inaugural 2012 Big Sky football schedule on ROOT SPORTS: