I wasn’t paying attention to the media part
Conference games were definitely scheduled on Monday last year, especially between travel partners. That's needed to get 14 games played in seven weeks to allow time for bonus play. It's either that or play conference games earlier in December such as yesterday like the Belch did.
Konkol talked about it post game last night. He & the USM coach agreed it would help with the balance of the season. I'm thinking one thing he said was it pushed our bye week a lot later in the season where it would have been early in the season.
If that's true, that alone would make it worth the back-to-back play. Having a break close to bonus play could be important.
CUSA scheduling in all sports has been on the goofy side as long as we're been in the conference.