League play begins this week with a bang as No. 10 Weber State hosts No. 3 Montana State, while No. 4 Sacramento State travels to No. 7 Idaho.

Some Big Sky teams have proven quite a bit — good and bad — while some teams are still fairly unknown.

Here’s a look at where things stand, ordered by my evaluation of each team’s resume, record and top wins.

12. NORTHERN COLORADO (0-3)

It wasn’t a secret the Bears would have a climb to get back to competitiveness in the Big Sky under Ed Lamb. So far, the Bears haven’t been competitive in nonconference play. UNCo trailed Abilene Christian 31-3 before a fourth-quarter score, Incarnate Word 42-0 before a fourth-quarter score, and trailed Washington State 43-7 at halftime. The Bears get a separator to open league play with Idaho State.

T11. NORTHERN ARIZONA (0-3)

Normally such a list would put four teams tied at this position as “T8” but right now, it’s more on each of these next four teams to prove they aren’t cellar-dwellers.

First is Northern Arizona, who gets less competitive each week. A 38-3 loss to Arizona is neither here nor there. A 37-22 loss at North Dakota is fine, though it was 30-9 after three quarters. Then the Lumberjacks got buried at home against Utah Tech 50-36 (it was 47-15 after three quarters). The ‘Jacks have work to do and open league play hosting Montana.

T11. PORTLAND STATE (1-2)

Portland State technically has a win, though it doesn’t count in regard to these rankings. A 91-0 win over North American College, a fledgling NAIA program, is an embarrassing bit of scheduling. I know PSU’s plight is not good, but woof. The Vikings played admirably at Wyoming (31-17) after losing 81-7 at Oregon in a bit of scheduling whiplash. PSU opens hosting a separator against Cal Poly.

T11. IDAHO STATE (0-3)

Idaho State looked promising with a 36-28 loss at San Diego State, then got demolished in consecutive weeks at Utah State (78-28) and hosting Northern Iowa (41-17). The UNI game was 27-3 at halftime and was never in doubt. (The USU game was 51-14 at halftime. Yikes).

So Cody Hawkins has as tough of a job as it felt like he’d have. The Bengals next play Northern Colorado.

T11. CAL POLY (2-1)

Cal Poly does have two wins to open the Paul Wulff era, yes. But one is a 27-10 score over a winless, non-scholarship San Diego (USD has since lost to Princeton and D2 Colorado Mesa). The other is a 41-20 win over new-ish D2 program Lincoln University (California); Lincoln (0-4) led that game 20-7 in the second quarter. The Mustangs also took a 59-3 loss to San Jose State, whose merits are usually questionable even as an FBS team.

Cal Poly is next at Portland State.

7. EASTERN WASHINGTON (1-2)

Eastern is a mixed bag of uncertainty right now but Kekoa Visperas appears to have proven he’s the guy EWU needs at quarterback. By my estimation, the Eagles lost by less than I expected (35-10) to North Dakota State in a game played in Minneapolis. Then came a double-overtime loss at Fresno State in which Eastern looked every bit as good as any MWC team might.

It’s hard to know what to think of last week. Eastern beat Southeastern Louisiana 40-29 but trailed 29-26 until the final two minutes. SELA is winless but also played at Mississippi State and fared somewhat well against an FBS South Alabama team that just annihilated Oklahoma State.

As it looks now, EWU is poised to at least challenge for playoff contention. They certainly won’t be a team anyone enjoys seeing on the schedule.

6. UC DAVIS (2-1)

For the purposes of this list, UC Davis would get credit for better scheduling than Montana, but can’t climb higher due to results just yet. The Aggies blasted Texas A&M Commerce (by 10 points better than Sacramento State did), got hammered by FBS-ranked Oregon State 55-7, then squeaked by Southern Utah 23-21.

That SUU game is difficult to evaluate. UC Davis led 13-0 late in the third quarter and SUU scored with 45 seconds left for the final score. SUU is 0-3 but nearly grabbed an upset win at Arizona State, then made BYU figure out how to win (in a blowout) without gaining many yards.

Like the potential cellar-dwellars facing off this week, this list gets some clarification in the middle when UC Davis hosts Eastern Washington on Saturday.

5. MONTANA (3-0)

It’s hard to definitively say anything about the Griz except they won three games they should have won in one of the wimpiest displays of scheduling you’ll see from an expected FCS power. The Griz struggled to put away non-scholarship FCS Butler 35-20 (it was 21-20 late in the third quarter and Butler has since won two games against non-DI teams), went to Utah Tech (credit for a road game) and at least buried the Trailblazers 43-13 before squeaking by Ferris State 17-10 at home.

Sure, Ferris State is the defending D2 national champion, but I watched as the Bulldogs left multiple plays unfinished that would have delivered them a victory. To Montana’s credit, they made the plays and the stops necessary to win. But — after the Griz play NAU and Idaho State to open Big Sky play — we may not know a thing about this team until it plays UC Davis, Idaho, Sacramento State and Montana State in its final stretch. We’ll see if either quarterback (Sam Vidlak or Clifton McDowell) has taken full control of the offense by then.

4. WEBER STATE (2-1)

Perhaps only Portland State (Oregon) has an FBS opponent of similar caliber as Weber State’s nonconference finale at Utah (PSU lost 81-7, Weber a mere 50 points better at 31-7). The Utes are a defensive juggernaut.

So far, Weber State has outscored opponents 38-14 in the second half and its defense has allowed only one score — 21-0 against Central Washington, 17-0 against Northern Iowa and 0-14 at Utah.

It’s the Northern Iowa win that, so far, lands WSU this high. The Wildcats handled the Panthers after halftime and UNI has since dispatched Idaho State 41-17 like a good Big Sky team would also do.

WSU gets a clear barometer this week hosting Montana State.

3. MONTANA STATE (2-1)

Montana State gets immense credit for scheduling a road game at South Dakota State and, if not for a couple inches on a last-second near-touchdown, almost winning. SDSU has the longest winning streak in FCS at 17 games.

But the Bobcats have also played Utah Tech (63-20) and Stetson (57-20) in games that tell us next to nothing about MSU except the Bobcats can bury bad teams at home, where it has won 22 straight games.

But the offense is formidable again and, until proven otherwise, MSU and Sacramento State are the teams to beat this season.

T1. IDAHO (2-1)

If MSU is a team to beat, why is Idaho ahead of them in this list? Easy: the Vandals scheduled two FBS games and won one of them — convincingly, too, in a 33-6 drubbing of Nevada. Idaho also led Cal 17-0 last week before the Bears opened the gates and grabbed a 31-17 win.

Idaho’s other win is at Lamar, a 42-17 victory. Gevani McCoy and Hayden Hatten must be reckoned with. The Vandals have yet to play at home and appear to, so far, be living up to high expectations.

T1. SACRAMENTO STATE (3-0)

All Sacramento State does is win football games. They’ve won an FCS-best 22 consecutive regular-season games and the Hornets take their FCS-best 12-game road winning streak to Idaho this week.

The Hornets just won 30-23 at Stanford, taking down old head coach Troy Taylor in the process. They’d hold the top spot alone due to that, but Idaho has played two FBS teams while Sac State has a modest win over Nicholls (38-24) and beat up Texas A&M Commerce (like UC Davis did) 34-6.

Sac State has dispensed of last season’s two-quarterback system because they have one guy to do it both: Kaiden Bennett, who has thrown for 676 yards and four touchdowns, and rushed for 239 yards and four touchdowns, in three games this season.

Sac State at Idaho should be a really fun one.