The high school football playoffs are underway in the state of Montana. A second-round matchup between Sidney and Columbia Falls will require the visitors to travel more than 1,000 miles in less than 24 hours.
It is not even the longest drive of the 2026 postseason!
Because Montana is such a big state with such a small population, some of the high school football teams in the same class size are located on opposite ends of the state. Road trips for the playoffs can sometimes last an entire day.
Columbia Falls will drive more than 1,000 miles in 18 hours to play at Sidney.
Columbia Falls is a public high school located located in the northwest corner of Montana near Kalispell and Whitefish, between the Kootenai National Forest and the Flathead National Forest. It enrolls 614 students in Grades 9-12 for the 2026-2027 school year, which is a sharp decline from the 700 students reported at the start of the 2025-2026 school year.
Sidney is a public high school located in the northeastern corner of Montana, just a few miles from the North Dakota border. It enrolls only 355 students in Grades 9-12.
These two high school football programs both compete in Class A of the MHSA. The Wildcats finished the regular season at 7-1 to earn the No. 1 seed in the Northwest division. The Eagles finished undefeated to earn the No. 1 seed in the East division.
Both teams earned a bye in the first round of the playoffs. Both teams won their second round matchups to advance to the quarterfinals.
As per the Class A bracket, Columbia Falls will travel to Sidney on Friday, Nov. 13. Kickoff is scheduled for 7:00 p.m.
I don’t know whether the Wildcats are planning to leave on Thursday night or on early Friday morning but they are in for quite the road trip. They will travel ~1,100 miles round trip to play the Eagles. It is a nine-hour drive— one way.
The bus ride home will be electric if Columbia Falls can pull the upset. It will be miserable after a loss.
The Montana high school football playoffs require teams to cover a lot of distance.
Believe it or not, this second-round matchup at Sidney is not the longest drive of the postseason! The state of Montana covers a total area of 147,040 miles as the fourth-largest state in the United States behind California, Alaska, and Texas.
As a result, high school football teams are forced to travel a long way for the playoffs. Especially for 8-man football.
Sheridan traveled to Scobey during the first round of the postseason, which was a ~1,200-mile round-trip. Some of the first round games required an even longer drive.
- Cut Bank @ Huntley Project — 688 miles
- Eureka @ Manhattan — 674 miles
- Glasgow @ Red Lodge — 680 miles
- Columbus to Florence — 626 miles
- Baker @ Malta — 584 miles
- Shepherd @ Fairfield — 512 miles
- Boulder @ Thompson Falls — 488 miles
Lets also go back to Sidney in Class A. Its second round opponent, Frenchtown, drove 628 miles to play the game, lost, and drove 628 miles back home. Will Columbia Falls suffer a similar fate? We’ll find out this weekend.