It’s been no bed of roses on the injury front for the Bobcats as Montana State gets ready for its visit to the City of Roses, where MSU will take on Portland State at Hillsboro Stadium this Saturday. The Bobcats have been hit with what seems like an abnormal amount of injuries since last spring but they’ve been able to keep on rolling.
Despite losing three defensive starters in the last two weeks and plus a few more all-conference seniors on offense, Montana State heads to PSU with its first 7-0 record since 1978.
The Bobcats lost safety Dru Polidore and running back Julius Davis during spring practices and have gotten more than adequate contributions from Caden Dowler, who moved back to safety from nickelback, and Scottre Humphrey, who has had over 100 yards rushing in all but one game in 2024. Humphrey’s explosive start to his sophomore season has been keyed in part by an offensive line that has successfully reshuffled with All-American center Justus Perkins on the shelf.
MSU will need more players to step up due to recent injuries to defensive tackle Blake Schmidt, Dowler at safety, and linebacker Danny Uluilakepa. The trio has suffered season-ending knee injuries in successive weeks, with Schmidt being injured at Idaho State, Dowler against Northern Colorado and this past Saturday night, Uluilakepa going down in MSU’s big 38-7 win over then-No. 7 Idaho after he intercepted a pass. Officials didn’t continue to signal the play dead after one of them blew his whistle inadvertently and the return – during which Uluilakepa was injured – that went almost to the Idaho 20 was brought all the way back to midfield
“Always tough losing guys like those,” nickelback Miles Jackson said. “They’re great leaders who produce for us. We’ve got a lot of young guys in games this year and I’m comfortable with those guys. We have depth at all levels.”
Things look promising at tackle and safety as MSU has good depth. At tackle, junior Paul Brott, sophomore lec Eckert and sophomore Zack Black have all played impactful snaps this season. Freshmen Hunter Sharbono was impressive throughout camp but hasn’t had a lot of playing time due to the four-man rotation that MSU employs and is expected to continue to get a bulk of the vacated reps. Another freshman, Talon Marsh, has flashed at the position as has senior Nicholas Korom.
The return of Polidore is an even bigger welcome sight than it was expected to be due to the loss of Dowler. Polidore is a rare athlete that has shown the ability to make big plays against the run and the pass during his short time at Montana State. He exhibited that in Saturday’s game when he recorded a tackle for loss on his first play of the season. He got a tackle on the next play, then in the second quarter he made a nice pass breakup with a perfectly timed hit. Despite playing limited time against Idaho, Polidore finished with five tackles.
MSU has also seen Taki Uluilakepa become a capable defender at safety as the season progresses and part-time starter Blake Stillwell returned from an injury last week to give MSU good depth behind Polidore and senior captain strong safety Rylan Ortt.
Linebacker is a more pressing concern as the Bobcats typically rotate three players in their 4-2-5 defense. With Uluilakepa out, the third man, freshman Bryce Grebe, will take his spot. MSU has had Neil Daily listed as the other backup with Grebe. As the fourth player in that rotation, Daily hasn’t gotten nearly as many reps and that could put some pressure on Grebe and senior stalwart McCade O’Reilly to be on the field more.
“We were hoping for good news on Danny, but we didn’t get that unfortunately,” MSU head coach Brent Vigen said during his weekly news conference on Monday. “If you’re going to go out, what a way to go out. That was a great play that he made, and we were able to get points right before the half. How he played up to this point this season was significant so big shoes to fill there.
“Bryce Grebe has been gaining traction as the season has gone on playing more and more, so he’s going to have to step up. Ultimately, it’s Neil Daily more than anybody as his role will continue to grow. Neil has continued to emerge probably more on the practice field, but I think that in game opportunities as well as we’ve gone through the season.”
Davis is close to returning from injury and Vigen said he’ll make the trip to Portland. Vigen thinks Perkins is within a couple weeks of returning as well.
“It sucks but it’s the nature of (the game),” Vigen said of the injury situation. “The true test of your team is how can we withstand that? Can the next guy that goes in there play with the confidence and execution so that we don’t have a drop off?
“We have a number of guys who have position flexibility. Neil Daily we feel has the ability to play both linebacker positions. It’s great to have a guy like Dru come back. It’s unusual that you have a chance to get three guys (Davis, Perkins and Polidore) that are at a minimum all conference guys that are able to come back. Excited to get them all back ultimately.”
The replacements – Sharbono, Bryce Grebe and Polidore – will get a strong test from a Portland State squad that despite its 1-5 record has plenty of flashy players, including but not limited to quarterback Dante Chachere. The Vikings trailed just 17-14 last season in Bozeman and could easily be 2-4 had they been able to hang on two weeks ago at home against league title contender UC Davis. PSU lost on a controversial last-second touchdown pass.
MSU continues working on its game plan for PSU this week before travel to Hillsboro Stadium for a 2:00 kickoff.
