Montana State enters the open week of its schedule on an absolute roll. That’s not just an opinion; the numbers don’t lie. The Bobcats either lead or are in the top three of almost every statistical category in the Big Sky Conference. If that isn’t convincing enough, the eye test is convincing, too. MSU has dominated its last five opponents at the line of scrimmage on nearly every snap.
The Bobcats have won five straight games, including their first three conference games. They’ve outscored their FCS opponents 214 to 51 during regulation play with an average margin of victory of 25.3 points per game. In their three conference games MSU has outscored opponents 139 to 27 or 46.3 to 9.0 per game.
The Bobcats, 5-2 and 3-0 Big Sky, haven’t been perfect. Their run game hadn’t gelled until its most recent game and the placekicking and punting aspect of the special teams has had miscues in nearly every game. Yet where MSU is strong, it’s overwhelmingly strong.
The top five things – be they good or bad, but mostly good – that have stood out are the play of quarterback Justin Lamson, the speed of the linebackers and secondary, the teams composure, the running game and the kicking game.
1) There’s a simple reason rock bands and comedians hire warmup acts that are not as good as they are. As the saying goes: that’s a tough act to follow. You don’t look as good when you’re coming up after the previous act brings down the house.
That’s exactly the situation Lamson found himself in when he accepted an offer to play at MSU. He would follow Walter Payton Award winner Tommy Mellott, who captured the imagination of the entire state when he burst onto the scene during the 2021 FCS playoffs. He would go on to lead the Bobcats to two national championship games and three semifinal appearances.
Lamson has been undaunted.
The junior went to venerable Autzen Stadium to face top ten Oregon in his first game at MSU and completed 23 of 31 passes and he hasn’t let up. His completion percentage of 73.5% is the best in the nation. He is second in the Big Sky in passer efficiency at 168.1 and has 12 touchdowns against just two interceptions. More importantly Lamson has shown the poise and character to not be overwhelmed by not only replacing Mellott but also leading a team with the expectation of winning a national championship.
Lamson has spread the ball all over the field to a talented group of receivers from all positions. Of his 12 touchdown passes. six have gone to wide receivers, four to tight ends and the other two to running backs. Seven different players have caught touchdown passes and eleven different players have been on the receiving end of passes from Lamson. He allows the offense to have multiple packages that include four wide receiver sets – a rarity in the past decade at MSU.
2) The MSU defensive line was being tabbed the best in the nation in 2025 as soon as the 2024 national title game was over. What no one saw coming was just how good the Bobcats would be at linebacker and in the secondary where the seven players that started the majority of games in 2024 are all gone. Caden Dowler was a starting safety to begin 2024 but was injured midway through the season. Neil Daily moved into a starting spot at linebacker due to a season-ending injury to Danny Uluilakepa.
One of the biggest reasons for the success of the back seven has been its speed, where MSU features numerous players that were standouts on the track during their prep careers. Cornerback Jhase McMillan runs an astonishing 10.3 seconds in the 100 meters, which would be a school record for the track and field team at MSU. That wasn’t even his best event as he took third at the Texas state meet in the 200 meters (MSU teammate and backup cornerback Kory Boyd, who runs 10.5 100 meters, took sixth in the same race). Cornerbacks Seth Johnson and Carson Williams, along with safeties, Bryant Meredith and Caden Dowler and Tayden Gray were all low 11-second 100-meter runners during their prep careers. The Bobcats are deep in the secondary with JJ Dolan and Colter Petre rotating with Dowler and Meredith, another low 11-second 100 meter guy who joined the team as a JC transfer in the off-season.
Linebackers Bryce Grebe and Neil Daily also excelled on the track. Grebe placed second in the 100 meters and ran consistently in the low 11’s, while Daily runs the same time in the 100 and ran the sixth fastest 200 meters at Missoula Sentinel since 2010 when he was just a sophomore. They’re complimented well by sophomore Cole Taylor and junior Ryan Krahe. Xavier Ahrens has been getting involved in the linebacker corps as well, giving MSU five players at its two linebacker spots as compared to two or three the past several years.
That unit has helped Montana State give up 27 total points in Big Sky play thus far.
3) If the Bobcats have been rattled by the multiple difficult situations they’ve found themselves in throughout the season, it sure hasn’t shown up on the field. Their composure after a 0-2 start and working around injuries has been a hallmark since the season started. MSU went into the first game needing to shuffle its offensive line after then center, now guard Burke Mastel was injured the week of that game. It lost Daily and starting safety Taki Uluilakepa to injury in that game, then lost in heartbreaking fashion in the Gold Rush game to fellow perennial FCS power South Dakota State.
The Bobcats trailed Northern Arizona 7-0 midway through the second quarter in their always scary trip to Flagstaff. MSU has only won four times since 1981 at Walkup Skydome and has its worst road record against any team in the Big Sky there. They had been hit with seven penalties, including three personal fouls and two holding calls, during that same time span.
MSU bounced back by rattling off 34 straight points to put away any thoughts of a slip up against the then No. 13 team in the country. A week later the Bobcats were staring down the barrel of Idaho State gunslinger quarterback Jordan Cooke’s arm after he connected on a 69-yard bomb for the longest play of the season against MSU and a score that cut the Bobcat’ lead down to 20-14. The Bobcat’ defense would pitch a shutout from that point – the final 28:47 – and force three turnovers – their top mark of 2025 to date.
4) The Bobcats have prided themselves on their running game going back nearly a decade to 2016. Since head coach Brent Vigen arrived in 2021 that emotion has seemingly grown exponentially, picking up the motto “Run The Damn Ball” along the way. MSU has averaged close to 6.5 yards per carry for the past three seasons, so when those numbers dropped by nearly a yard through six games in 2025, it was seen as some kind of a travesty. Never mind that MSU was still the best running team in the conference and only second, statistically, due to playing Oregon and getting just 47 yards on 28 carries that day.
Vigen kept reminding everyone that the run game was still a work in progress as the offensive line worked through adjusting its lineup while waiting for Mastel to return. And when he did, there was still a bit of break in period for players moving to different positions. Running back Adam Jones entered the season with incredibly lofty expectations after the sophomore was named the preseason offensive player of the year at the summer Big Sky Conference meeting despite missing most of the off-season because of surgery.
That all came to a head this past Saturday when the Bobcats and Jones tore through an Idaho State rush defense that had allowed just 152 yards on the ground at a clip of just 2.5 yards per carry over its previous two games. MSU finished with 386 yards and averaged 7.6 a carry – those numbers would be 400 and 8.5 discounting sacks and taking a knee at the end of the game.
Jones ran for 173 yards after getting just running for just 242 over his first six games. MSU now trails Sacramento State by just nine yards per game and 0.2 yards per carry for the top marks in those Big Sky statistical categories. Jones, and the overall run game effort against ISU, was a big ‘I told ya so’ moment for Vigen, who following the game got to let the media know that his run game was just fine.
5) Easily the most disturbing issue for MSU is its kicking game, which started slow, understandably, when true freshman punter Colby Frokjer was bullied a bit by the Oregon Ducks special teams’ unit which blocked a pair of Frokjer’s punts. He had another blocked against SDSU that led to a key touchdown after the Jackrabbits took over on the MSU 21.
Frokjer has appeared to get his punting issue squared away, but at about that time, kicker Myles Sansted began to flounder. He missed a key field goal against SDSU but was perfect on extra points until missing one just before halftime against Eastern Washington, then missed his next extra point on MSU’s first score of the second half. Sansted misfired on another extra point the next week against NAU and missed another in the ISU game.
While Frokjer’s punting has smoothed out, his kickoffs began to awry against NAU when he followed an unsportsmanlike penalty with a kickoff out of bounds that gave the Lumberjacks the ball at the 50. He then launched two others out of bounds against Idaho State.
Overall, the Bobcats have done well with their special teams’ units in other areas. Taco Dowler returned a punt 90 yards for a touchdown against NAU and has had several other good returns. Frokjer, who holds for Sansted, also scored a touchdown on a fake field goal. The cover units haven’t allowed any significant returns. But they’ll have to shore up the ST mistakes if they want to make another deep playoff run.
The Bobcats have five games remaining and are back in action in two weeks when they face Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo on the road.
