BOZEMAN – It was looking like ‘Upset Saturday’ was making a presence at Bobcat Stadium – that is until the Montana State run game and defense came alive to break open a 17-14 halftime lead and roll to a 38-22 win over a pesky Portland State crew.
The Bobcats ran for 199 yards on their first nine carries of the second half, while the defense shutout the Vikings until the 2:56 mark of the game to help No. 3 MSU move to 2-0 in Big Sky Conference play, 4-1 overall.
The day started off with No. 2 ranked North Dakota State falling to South Dakota 24-19 and No. 5 William and Mary losing to Elon 14-6. Later in the day No. 6 Holy Cross fell to Harvard, 38-28.
The Vikings looked solid for two quarters after getting a penalty induced touchdown drive to go into the half trailing just 17-14. The Bobcats drew with three 15-yard penalties on the drive as PSU had to amass just 30 yards of offense to get into the end zone from 75 yards away.
“I think it was probably things that we missed in the first half, more than it was changing anything,” MSU head coach Brent Vigen said of his run game that had an uncharacteristically low 83 yards in the first half. “Some things we’d been close on, let’s stick with it. Keep blocking the way you are and running backs hit it the way you’re supposed to and we’ll see how it goes in the second half.
“We didn’t score a touchdown when we were inside the five, had to kick a field goal, that was disappointing that we didn’t punch it in there.”
MSU drove 75 yards on its first possession of the game but a botched snap on the extra point loomed ominously. Moments later, PSU quarterback Dante Chachere displayed his running skills on a 31-yard touchdown scamper that suddenly gave the Vikings leading the third-ranked team in the nation, 7-6.
Chachere finished with 83 yards rushing on 16 carries and scored twice on the ground, but had just 105 yards on 14 of 25 passing and two interceptions.
Chambers was brilliant passing the ball on the day, going 14 for 21 for 143 and three touchdowns against no interceptions. He found Derryk Snell on a short two-yard pass for a score and then ran in the two-point conversion to put MSU up 14-7.
“We miss Tommy (Mellott), but Sean is stepping in and doing what he can for our team,” Snell said. “He’s a dog so we just keep rolling with him until whatever happens and I’m just excited for him, too.”
Snell ended up catching two touchdown passes on the day to match his roommate Treyton Pickering’s two TD game last week against Weber State.
“He’s awesome,” Snell said of Pickering. “We want to see each other succeed and when it’s like that you have a lot of fun on the field.”
The Bobcats looked primed to go up 21-7 after plays of 17, 17 and 13 yards got the ball to the PSU eight. Chambers found Clevan Thomas, Jr. for the first 17, then Julius Davis ran for 17 followed by a 13-yard pass to Ty McCullouch, which was his first reception at MSU. The drive stalled from there, however, and after Brendan Hall’s chip shot field from 21 yards it was 17-7.
The next drive was a strong one. The Bobcats were whistled for three 15-yard penalties. Two came on third-and-long plays and one was called targeting on senior captain linebacker Nolan Askelson. The targeting call was the second in as many weeks against MSU. Chachere ripped off a 19-yard touchdown run to cap off the drive that only required 30 yards of total offense by the Vikings.
The MSU run game was off the charts in the second half. On the second play, Chambers ripped off an 88-yard touchdown run. The Bobcats got a run of 40 yards by Elijah Elliott later in the quarter to set up Chambers’ 20-yard touchdown pass to Thomas. Then Jared White went for 51 yards prior to Chambers hitting Derryk Snell from the three to cap off the MSU scoring and put the Bobcats up 38-14 with 9:01 to play.
Chambers and White both went over 100 yards with Chambers needing just four carries to get 118, while White maintained his 10.0-plus average on the season with 10 carries for 102 yards. Elliott would finish with 43 yards on five carries and Davis added 40 yards on eight carries. MSU would finish with 313 yards on just 30 carries, averaging a staggering 11.3 yards per carry.
“That’s a testament to the O-line,” Snell said. “They’re always working their butt off and whenever we’re doing a drill in practice you see them going 100 percent. Coach Al (Johnson) is getting them right, too and we’re just really appreciative of the line out there.”
On the opposite side of the ball, it was the Brody Grebe Show, especially in the first half. The junior defensive end recorded two sacks and 2.5 tackles-for-loss, while forcing two fumbles and hurrying the quarterback twice. One of his quarterback hurries caused PSU’s Chachere to toss the ball straight up into the air where safety Rylan Ortt was waiting to grab his second interception of the season.
“I had an outside rush and beat the guy pretty clean,” Grebe said. “Came around the edge and (Chachere) was winding up to throw and he pulled the ball back and I got my left hand on it. Just made him throw it straight up in the air basically and allowed Rylan to come back and make a play on the ball.”
Linebacker McCade O’Reilly had a solid game for the second straight week. In the first official start of his carere, the Bozeman native had a team-high with eight tackles and added a sacked and 1.5 tackles-for-loss for the Bobcats.
Through five games Vigen feels his team is playing the game the way it wants to play the game.
“I think we are capable of playing the brand of football on a regular basis the way we want,” Vigen said. “That’s playing fast and really playing physical. That’s been what we’ve wanted to be about. A day like today you develop a little more character, which I think we have a lot of character right now. There was no panic. We were down in that game and only up three at halftime, but I think that there’s a relative confidence within this team that we stay after it, we do the things we been coached to do and we trust one another and we find a way.”
Montana State has a week off before hosting Cal Poly on October 14.
