BOZEMAN, Montana — Tommy Mellott watched his defensive teammates boogie down as a song that’s becoming a Bobcat Stadium staple drown out the sound of the whipping Gallatin Valley wind.
With senior defensive end Daniel Hardy along with safeties Jeffrey Manning Jr. and Tre Webb leading the dance party to the song “Freaks”, it was clear the Bobcat defense had decided to shift into overdrive.
So as Hardy and fellow senior Amandre Williams met at Tennessee Martin quarterback Dresser Winn for a momentum-shifting sack to end the third quarter, all of a sudden Montana State’s six-point lead against a team playing its second ever playoff game in the Mountain time zone seemed much larger.
After Skyhawks’ punter Tyler Larco flipped the field with the best of his seven boots, Mellott then found a way to channel that energy himself.
The strong, tough-willed freshman who is the pride of Butte, America faked a jet sweep handoff to Willie Patterson, put his foot in the turf, made a cut off all-conference senior offensive tackle Lewis Kidd’s backside, kicked it to the sideline and turned on the jets.
Mellott’s 73-yard touchdown run less than a minute into the fourth quarter flipped what as a nail biter, at least according to the scoreboard, into a final frame in which the eighth-seeded Bobcats asserted their will.
The touchdown gallop, Mellott’s second of more than 70 yards this season, sparked a dominant fourth quarter as MSU turned a game that was 10-7 at halftime and 13-7 when the defenders started to dance into a 26-7 victory in the second round of the FCS playoffs.
“Whenever our defense and come out excited, that’s a good thing for us and in that moment, we were just feeling it, having fun,” Williams said after Montana State’s 10th win this season. “To go get those two sacks, get the stops in the fourth quarter, that was huge.
“It was a long two weeks but we were excited to get back there.”
“That’s our job: when we step on the field, we keep teams from scoring,” added MSU junior safety Ty Okada. “We have a lot of fun, especially when we are pitching a shutout. We are excited to get into this next week.”
Montana State has endured a few weeks of turmoil. First, the Bobcats surprisingly struggled to close out a Senior Day victory against a struggling Idaho squad. Eventually, MSU pulled out a 20-14 win in its regular-season home finale but not without a cost. And the Bobcats needed three scores from Tommy Touchdown to do it as starter Matt McKay continued to struggle.
Bobcat All-American tailback Isaiah Ifanse did not play the second half against UI. Starting right tackle T.J. Session suffered a lower leg injury he has still not returned from three weeks later. And scat-back Elijah Elliott also got knocked out and has not returned.
Those bumps came before rival Montana bruised Montana State’s previously nearly unblemished season. The Griz used a wave of momentum to surge past MSU with a 29-10 win. Ifanse didn’t look healthy, McKay looked like he could not function and the Bobcat offense sputtered against a ferocious Griz defense that thrives when it smells fresh blood.
Still, a season that included a nine-game winning streak, a 7-1 mark in Big Sky Conference play led by a roster flush with some of the best talent in the FCS still helped Montana State earn the No. 8 seed and the bye that goes with it.
Thursday, another plot twist. McKay, he who had thrown for 17 touchdowns and just three interceptions in starting all 11 games for the Bobcats, abruptly and surprisingly entered the NCAA Transfer Portal. The junior and former transfer from N.C. State went from FCS starter to not on a college football roster.
Montana State head coach Brent Vigen said the coaching staff made a change at quarterback sometime in between the loss to Montana and Saturday’s playoff game, but did not specify when.
Sources close to the situation confirmed earlier this week that Mellott had been named MSU’s starter before McKay left the program. Vigen acknowledged that change following the game.
“We made a change that we thought was better for our team,” Vigen said.
On an afternoon in which the wind blew between 19 and 26 miles per hour with gusts upward of 45 mph, any quarterback would’ve faced a steep challenge to throw the football.
Mellott was no different, struggling to find the rhythm in the passing game all afternoon. He finished 8-of-20 for 51 yards and said after his first career start that he “holds himself to a higher standard than that.”
But Mellott’s ability to chew up yards on the ground in the read-option game, in designed QB runs and with his improvisation helped spark a revitalized Bobcat run game.
“That was a main reason for us putting Tommy in there because of his ability to be a play-maker,” Vigen said. “His development through the course of this season, we’ve felt like his ability to throw the football has come along, however today was a challenging day, especially one side of the field (because of the wind).
Montana State led the Big Sky in rushing yards per contest but because of Ifanse’s injury and Montana’s devastating defense, MSU rushed for just 96 yards, 140 yards less than its league-best average entering the game.
Mellott rushed for 106 yards in the first three quarters to buoy an offense that was searching for a big play or a breakthrough. Then the former Montana Gatorade Player of the Year gave the ‘Cats that shot in the arm as he raced into the North end-zone.
“This game was an indicator of who we are as a team,” Mellott said. “We faced a lot of adversity, especially these last two weeks, and the wind was just one more thing that both teams had to deal with.
“Credit to the guys up front. Every single day they come to work. Our practices are super intense. Going into however many weeks we are at, there are probably very few teams who are doing what we are doing.”
Ifanse looked back to his first-team All-Big Sky self, grinding out 176 yards on 28 carries against Tennessee Martin’s hyper aggressive, hard-hitting defense. His longest run was 18 yards yet he averaged 6.3 yards per carry. Ifanse is up to 3,272 yards in his career, third in MSU history. He now has 16 games with 100 yards rushing or more, the second-most ever by a Bobcat.
On the other side of the ball, Montana State’s defense allowed just 11 first downs and 178 yards of total offense. The Skyhawks converted 5-of-15 third downs. Winn, making his second straight start after Ohio Valley Offensive Player of the Year Keon Howard was knocked out of UTM’s regular-season finale, completed 13-of-27 passes for 98 yards.
Making your first career start in a loser go home scenario in front of a crowd of 15,327 with the wind whipping like it was Saturday is an intimidating task.
Guiding a team that rushes 60 times for 387 yards (the most in Bobcat playoff history) that’s bolstered by a defense that has given up one defensive touchdown in its last 15 quarters, including pitching its first shut out of the season Saturday, is quite a boost in helping a new quarterback find his footing.
“We have all the confidence in the world in Tommy,” said Okada, an all-league performer who suffered a shoulder injury against Montana and said later on that he would likely not have played if MSU did not have an extra week off because of its bye.
“You see Tommy every single day in the off-season, the way that kid works and we knew he was going to get his opportunity. When someone loves the game and plays the game with a passion like he does, it makes it a lot easier to have the utmost confidence in him. He’s a great kid, a great player but ultimately, he’s a great teammate.”
Led by its usual cast of characters, the Bobcat defense never let the overwhelmed Skyhawks get in a rhythm.
Even though a Mellott fumble that turned into a 61-yard scoop and score by UTM stud senior linebacker Josh Woods with 16 seconds left in the first half helped the visitors keep pace, the dominance of MSU’s defensive front made the game seem completely in the Bobcats’ control for most of the action despite the slim margin.
Following the sack to end the third quarter, Hardy got loose one more time as part of MSU’s three-sack effort. MSU managed four tackles for loss but gave up just 3.1 yards per play.
“As a defense, we played good team defense and we were gap sound today,” Williams said. “We knew UT Martin was good at rushing the ball, Top 10 in the country and we knew they were going to come in and try to do that. It was important for us to just execute our jobs and win our one-on-ones.”
For Tennessee Martin, affable 16th-year head coach Jason Simpson knew his team was in for a challenge against a team that was ranked third in the FCS just a few weeks ago.
With Howard on the shelf again, a pair of freshmen playing offensive guard against a Bobcat defensive line led by a trio of stud seniors and a team playing in the playoffs for the second time ever and coming off their first ever win, Simpson was simply proud of his team for a historic season, one of the best in UTM history.
“That’s what it should look like and sound like,” Simpson said. “We appreciate the opportunity to come here and compete.
“You do this for a long time and you see kids that might not ever put a helmet on again but they enjoy their careers in FCS football. You see them grow. They might be selling insurance next week and that’s ok. The love football and they love competing for championships and hopefully they came out of our program a better person. That’s pretty good.”
The victory marks the 10th in the Bobcats’ 11 appearances in the FCS Playoffs. MSU is into the quarterfinals for the fourth time since 2011 and will face a somewhat familiar foe.
Top-ranked Sam Houston hasn’t lost a game since November of 2019. Saturday, the Bearkats survived the upset bid of Incarnate World. UIW got stopped on fourth down on the one yard line to come up just short the spring national champions won 49-42.
“Great team and we are excited about the challenge,” Williams said. “We think it will be a good matchup.
Now Montana State heads to Huntsville for the first time since 2011. MSU’s last two Big Sky Conference championship teams that season and the next each lost to Sam Houston teams that went to consecutive national championship games.
Sam Houston is on a 22-game winning streak and has been No. 1 since beating South Dakota State 23-21 in the spring national championship game.
“We love it,” Okada said. “This is what you play football for. To be the best, you have to beat the best. We are going to go down there and play those guys, give them everything we got. We are excited to be down in Texas.”
Photos by Brooks Nuanez and Jason Bacaj. All Rights Reserved.
