Montana State’s bye week comes at an atypical time but the Bobcats are trying to use it to their advantage nonetheless.
No. 11 MSU begin fall camp on August 9. The Bobcats opened the 2015 season on Thursday with a 45-14 win over Division II Fort Lewis at home. Now the Bobcats will wait until a trip to Cheney, Washington on September 19 to play No. 7 Eastern Washington to take the field again.
“We are going to give guys the rest this week that need the rest,” MSU ninth-year head coach Rob Ash said on Tuesday. “We have four or five guys who came out of the game with nagging issues that need to get fixed before they go full speed so we are going to let them get fixed. That part is not different at all. There’s just fewer of them this time of year than in October.
“In the middle of the stretch, October or November, the bye week would be looking good but we don’t have it that way so we will be trying to use it to our advantage to try to get better right now.”
During Tuesday’s practice, the following players saw limited or no action: senior offensive guard Kyle Godecke (foot), senior offensive tackle Alex Eekhoff (shoulder), junior defensive end Shiloh LaBoy (undisclosed), senior cornerback Trace Timmer (ankle), junior tight end Austin Barth (appendicitis), junior linebacker Zach Stern (hamstring) and sophomore defensive tackle Matt Brownlow (undisclosed).
Senior cornerback Bryson Keeton (undisclosed) and redshirt freshman safety DeMonte King (toe) wore red non-contact jerseys.
Redshirt freshman cornerback Braelen Evans and junior defensive end Robert Wilcox have yet to be cleared after off-season knee surgeries. Junior linebacker Wyatt Christensen is still limited after off-season knee surgery.
Shilo LaBoy
Montana State’s defense went through an off-season overhaul. Ash promoted Kane Ioane to defensive coordinator, hired Mike Rider to coach cornerbacks and hired Jody Owens to coach linebackers. The Bobcats brought in seven transfers on the defensive side of the ball, including three — LaBoy, safeties Des Carter and Bryson McCabe — who played significantly on Thursday night.
The transfers worked in with a group of fresh faces that include a collection of first-time starters against Fort Lewis. Junior defensive end Zach Hutchins, senior defensive tackle Connor Thomas and sophomore defensive end Tyrone Fa’anono all got time a year ago but are now getting significant first-team repetitions, as is senior defensive tackle Nate Bignell. Sophomore Mac Bignell, junior Fletcher Collins and redshirt freshman Grant Collins all made their first career starts at linebacker. Timmer was a first-time starter at cornerback as was King at free safety.
Montana State’s new scheme put its new aggressive, blitzing style on display as the Bobcats forced three Fort Lewis fumbles, recovered two and got an interception from sophomore Bryce Alley, the first of his career.
“Defensively, what we liked was we played with great energy, passion and we played fast,” Ash said. “There was good effort all the time. That was positive. What we found out looking at the film too is we still have a lot of missed assignments. We missed some gaps on blitzes, we missed some containment responsibility on blitzes. The coverage was actually fairly solid. I felt really good about that. We have to clean it up.”
Dakota Prukop
Offensively, the Bobcats sputtered to start. Montana State went three-and-out on its first three drives. On the fourth drive, a possession starting after a huge hit by Mac Bignell, junior quarterback Dakota Prukop ripped off a 58-yard touchdown run negated by a holding penalty, one of five first-half penalties for the Bobcats. MSU would eventually convert the drive into a Chad Newell 1-yard touchdown to go up 7-0. MSU would score again before halftime and on six of its next seven possessions all told.
“Offensively, it was a matter of execution, throwing and catching the ball,” Ash said. “Anyone could see that coming out of the game that we have to improve that. Schematically, I thought we did the right thing. They loaded the box. They pressured off the edges. They tried to take away Dakota’s run game and they were fairly successful at that at times, although he got away a few times. What they gave us was the deep ball down the field and when we hit them in the third quarter, that’s when we broke open the game.”
Montana State has a full 16 days between the first and second games on its schedule. Eastern Washington opened its season with a 61-42 loss at FBS No. 7 Oregon, a game that saw All-America wide receiver Cooper Kupp catch 15 passes for 246 yards and three touchdowns. EWU is working in new quarterback Jordan West, a junior who replaced Vernon Adams, the two-time reigning Big Sky Conference MVP that transferred to Oregon in the off-season. The Eagles are also operating a new 4-2-5 defense under new coordinator Jeff Schmedding.
Montana State hasn’t beaten EWU since a 36-21 victory in Cheney by the Bobcats in 2011. Still, Montana State’s players won’t turn their attention to EWU until next week.
“We are not going to spend two full weeks on Eastern Washington as far as practice time,” Ash said during Wednesday’s Big Sky coaches’ conference call. “Coaching wise, yes, we are spending a lot of time breaking down the Oregon game. We will also get the Northern Iowa game after this Saturday. We will base our game plan on the combination of those two games.
Rob Ash post-game Fort Lewis
“In the mean time, practice-wise, we are going back to camp mode. We will practice Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday of this week. Those practices will be technique and fundamentals, polishing our own stuff. As far as the players are concerned, they are concentrating on the basics while the coaches concentrate on the game plan behind the scenes.”
By the time Montana State plays at Eastern, the Bobcats will have endured more than 40 days of preparation for a total of two games.
“It’s almost back to fall camp mode for us,” MSU senior captain wide receiver Mitch Griebel said. “Four weeks, only playing one game…but I think it will be good for us going into the Eastern week preparation wise. They got that opportunity with a bye before us last year so we will try to capitalize on it and be ready to go.”
Adams converted a two-point conversion with less than 30 seconds to play last season to lift EWU to a 52-51 victory over Montana State in Bozeman.
Photos by Brooks Nuanez. All Rights Reserved.
