Montana State will need to guard itself into falling into a ‘fools gold’ trap as it prepares for Friday night’s quarterfinal showdown with Idaho, which is a rematch of the Bobcats’ 38-7 beat down of the Vandals back in October.
While the Bobcats were impressive that night as they have been all season, the Vandals weren’t able to function in top form. Along with missing starting quarterback Jack Layne, Idaho was also dealing with injuries along its defensive front and at running back.
“The way that Montana State played last time, there’s not too many teams that could’ve beat them on the road that night,” Idaho head coach Jason Eck said. “There’s less than 20 teams in FBS that could’ve beat them that night.
“We had some costly penalties last game, some costly turnovers. I want to make sure we play good, clean football. Handle the situation, handle the environment better than we did last time.”
Athletic defensive end Keyshawn James-Newby, who played high school football in Helena, and fellow lineman Dallas Afalava both played against MSU despite nagging injuries. Rotational linebacker Mathias Bertram was ejected due to what some thought was a questionable targeting call.
Eck had good news about James-Newby’s status coming out of the Vandals’ second round playoff game against Lehigh.
“He’s good, he had a sack last week; double digit sacks (on the season),” Eck said of his All-Big Sky defensive end, who has 10.5 sacks and 14.5 tackles-for-loss. “I thought he played well and he’s ready to go again.”
Newby still had eight tackles and a tackle-for-loss in the first meeting but without he and Afalava being at full strength, the Vandals got little pressure on MSU quarterback Tommy Mellott, who was 11 of 15 for 121 yards and two touchdowns. Mellott also ran for 140 yards and two touchdowns on 11 carries.
“If we can get people in third and long, I think we can do pretty good,” Eck said. “We got pretty good pass rushers, and we have guys who can cover. In the last game we didn’t get a lot of third and longs and when we did, we got a penalty to give them a first down.
“We got some hits on Tommy last time but we gotta get them in more situations where they gotta throw it more than they’d like to because they’d rather run it right down your throat.”
The Bobcats ran wild against the Vandals as Scottre Humphrey joined Mellott with over 100 yards rushing as he finished with 19 carries for 124 yards. Humphrey has nine 100-yard games this season, tying MSU’s single-season record.
“That was kind of an outlier performance,” Eck said. “We’ve only given up 200 yards rushing twice this year. Montana State had 360. We gotta make huge progress on that number. If they run for 300 yards against us, you won’t need to tell me what the score is, I’ll already know.
“Scottre Humphrey probably forced more missed tackles than anybody we’ve played all year. We struggled to tackle him and some of the guys who’ve been all conference players and have tackled well in a lot of games, didn’t tackle well in that game. They got a lot of displacement out of our D line. Knocked guys out of gaps when we tried moving, they did a good job picking up our movement.”
The Bobcats rolled out to a 24-0 halftime lead and cruised through the second half against the depleted Vandals.
“Things did snowball on us,” Eck said. “You look at the game last year we got up 10-0. We need to get off to a good start.”
Idaho also has the advantage of having played a game in Bozeman and of the five times Idaho has met a Big Sky team in the playoffs, the team that won first lost the second time on four occasions.
“We know what to expect,” Eck said. “We played in front of their crowd. We know the stadium. We know the small, little visitor’s locker room they have. The one advantage we have over going to Fargo, Brookings or Vermillion is we’ve been here before. It’s a short flight.”
The Vandals leading rusher, Nate Thomas, was out for the game and their No. 2 rusher, Eli Cummings, missed the entire second half. That duo has combined for over 1,000 and six touchdowns, while getting 5.3 yards per carry.
Just how much of a difference those injuries made is unknown for now, but the Vandals are of a mind that it was significant and for good reason. With Layne and Idaho’s defensive line back at full strength the upcoming game is likely to play out much differently. There’s also the revenge factor at play. MSU used that in the first matchup to get even for a 24-21 loss in 2023, but this time it’s the Vandals that have atonement on their minds.
“Since it’s a rematch I know the defense is going to be hungry,” Idaho linebacker Zach Johnson said. “We honestly didn’t show what we’re capable of the first time we played them. Since we’ve already played them once, for us it’s kind of a revenge game. We’re going to be ready to go.”
Jordan Dwyer, one of the top receivers in the Big Sky Conference, echoed Johnson’s sentiments.
“We’re really excited as a team to back up there to Bozeman and try to put our best foot forward,” Dwyer said. “I know everybody on this team knows we didn’t do that last time we were down there.”
The Bobcats are set to host the Vandals at Bobcat Stadium in front of a national television audience as the game will be aired on ESPN Friday night at 7:00.
“It’s one of those situations where we have everything to gain and nothing to lose,” Eck said. “I don’t think anybody expects us to win this game. I don’t think this is a team you hang your head if you lose to them. Hopefully it’s close enough so people have to think about if they go to the parking lot.”
