BOZEMAN, Montana — For a little less than two weeks as November turned into December last year, the noise was omnipresent around the Montana State football program.
The Bobcats won nine consecutive FCS games to assume the No. 3 position in the FCS polls entering their rivalry game against the hated Grizzlies of Montana. After the dust settled on a 29-10 throttling that lifted UM past its arch nemesis for the first time since 2015, many wondered if Brent Vigen’s first season at the helm would come to an abrupt halt.
In the days following the beat down in Missoula, MSU quarterback Matt McKay entered the NCAA Transfer Portal. Was there unrest in Bozeman?
Enter Tommy Mellott and the run of the 21st century, a surge that has been covered exhaustively by this collection of scribes.
The hype and the hollowness of the off-season proved to be quite the labyrinth for MSU to navigate. From the departure of rising star defensive coordinator Freddie Banks to the graduation of the most decorated senior class in school history to the insane amount of attention paid to Mellott to a head coach entering his second season leading a program he wants to make all his own, the accelerated exposure received by the Bobcat football program reached nearly unprecedented heights over the first 235 days of 2022.
Mellott entered his sophomore season as the preseason All-Big Sky Conference quarterback despite never starting a conference contest. Sophomore defensive end Brody Grebe shared the same preseason accolade. The Bobcats received five of the votes in the league’s coaches’ poll, more than the Griz or defending league champion Sacramento State. Isaiah Ifanse was named preseason all-league at running back but was not nominated for Big Sky Preseason Offensive Player of the Year because of his uncertain health after having off-season knee surgery.
And perhaps the most impactful factor: Troy Andersen, a young man who enamored all who got a chance to watch him perform, is now an Atlanta Falcon.
In other words, Callahan O’Reilly, Ty Okada, Jeffrey Manning Jr., Simeon Woodard and the Bobcat defense have to learn to live without one of the greatest athletes to ever compete in the Treasure State.
This is not to make any excuse. As former Montana State head coach Jeff Choate used to day, nobody cares about your problems and most people are glad you have them.
When one considers just how many potentially overwhelming factors highlighted the first nine months of this year, it’s easier to put into perspective a scoreless first quarter and a sluggish first half in Montana State’s season-opening 40-17 victory over McNeese State.
“The question marks I suppose we had in some spots and how guys would respond, at least to get one game under our belt to see where some of guys are at, moving forward, you feel good about that,” Vigen said during his weekly meeting with the media on Monday.
“Now we are into the world where this is more the norm, having a week to prepare. I think we handled our preparation during that long wait fairly well. I think we played ok and I think there’s a lot of reasons for that.
“Now we go Week 1 to Week 2 and we’ve got to show real improvement and I think we are capable of that. Sometimes, it’s hard to know where you are at until you know where you’re at. It’s easy to look at practice and scrimmage time but until you play an opponent, it’s hard to gauge. We have that now.”
A three-plus score win over a Division I opponent from a once-proud conference like the Southland is nothing to complain about. And Montana State knows it. The Bobcats seized momentum before halftime last week by first converting on a fourth down and then hitting a highlight as Willie Patterson scored a go-ahead touchdown late in the second quarter.
Out of the locker room, Mellott and the Bobcat offense found life, operating with efficiency and precision in gaining nearly 250 yards of total offense and scoring 16 unanswered points to help Montana State pull away from the visiting Cowboys.
“The crowd, the excitement of not playing in a long time. I think the unknown of the opponent, all factors,” Vigen said following the game, referring to the fact that McNeese had nearly 60 new players on its roster, plus an entirely new coaching staff. “We want our guys to be as prepared as possible. Even in a game like this, you’re prepared but not nearly like you will be two, three weeks down the road for opponent that you have a couple of games worth of film on so I think I think that probably contributed to the uneasiness as much as anything.”
Vigen referenced his team’s uncharacteristic penalties (six for 55 yards, including a holding call that negated a nearly 60-yard touchdown run by Lane Sumner) as areas the team needed to clean things up. He also mentioned the offense’s two turnovers
“Our expectation is to play complimentary football and not shoot ourselves in the foot,” Vigen said.
Montana State thrived last season at rising to the occasion in crucial moments in games. Part of that came from being led by a pair of future NFL Draft picks in Andersen and defensive end Daniel Hardy, along with future pros like offensive lineman Lewis Kidd and stud wide receiver Lance McCutcheon.
It’s impossible to lose that sort of talent and not look like a different team. It also likely had an impact on a few defensive missteps for a unit that, while still trying to find its footing without its stars, looked talented and deep despite giving up a few gash plays. More than personnel improvement, MSU simply needs to settle into a new hierarchy of leadership. Last year’s team had nearly two years and an abrupt coaching change to bring it close.
Yet there are always tangible, fundamental challenges to work through. McNeese State tied the game 7-7 when D’Angelo Durham took the first play from scrimmage following MSU’s first touchdown 75 yards for a score. When MSU’s dominant third quarter run helped put the hosts up 33-10, Josh Matthews’ 66-yard catch and run for a touchdown gave the Cowboys one final glimmer of hope.
“I think we gave up far too many explosive runs. I know they had at least three or four big ones,” O’Reilly, MSU’s senior captain inside linebacker, said following a game that saw him make just two tackles but also tie his season total from a year ago with two interceptions. “So we just got to fit our gaps better and eliminate those. But besides that we had quite a few three and outs. Quite a few good series, but just the explosive runs that we really have to eliminate.”
On Saturday, Montana State hosts Morehead State, a team from the Pioneer Football League, visits Bozeman. The Bobcats are into the week-by-week routine of a season rather than battling the omnipresent opponent of the unknown. And MSU enters Saturday’s game as a 42.5-point favorite against an Eagles team that lost 63-13 to No. 23 Mercer on August 27.
“This stretch and how these weeks unfold is really what we are made for as coaches and players alike,” Vigen said. “The ebbs and flows of a season, different opponents, different schemes, dealing with adversity, dealing with injuries, adjusting your roster, trying to create competition, this is what it’s all about.
“What we did very well last year was we continued to improve as a football team and create momentum. We need to do that this year. We need to be a different team in Week 2 than we were in Week 1 and we sure as heck need to be a different team in November than we are here in the beginning of September.
“The charge this week is to clean things up, build off of one week’s experience and continue to create a new identity for this 2022 team. We had a good start to that. There was a lot of good things out of that game, we recognized that and we also realized that we are holding ourselves to a really high standard here and we will continue to raise that bar.”
Photos by Jason Bacaj and Blake Hempstead. All Rights Reserved.
