BOZEMAN – What the Idaho Vandals didn’t do, allowed the Montana State Bobcats to do what they’re best at – making plays – and the result was a 52-19 win for MSU in a game that featured ridiculously good and ridiculously bad plays.
The win moves the top-seeded and undefeated Bobcats (14-0) into the national semifinals against the winner of today’s game between UC Davis and South Dakota. Montana State has advanced to the Final Four of the FCS Playoffs four times since 2019.
MSU was 11 of 13 on third downs at one point in the game and also converted its only fourth down attempt as they continually made plays when needed to bowl over the Vandals.
Fortunately for the Bobcats, or unfortunately, for the Vandals seemingly all the good plays went MSU’s way, and the bad ones went against Idaho to the delight of a sellout crowd of 18,127 on the same day MSU celebrated graduation commencement.
An ill-advised decision by Idaho head coach Jason Eck to try an onside kick despite his team’s early ability to move the ball on its first three possessions turned the game around completely. The Vandals had just kicked a field goal to the tie the game at 10-10 with 8:22 to go in the first half.
“We figured they were going to throw everything at us, and I think they did,” MSU head coach Brent Vigen said. “We certainly withstood the early failures we had on defense.”
Eck took the blame for the play that took away all of his team’s momentum and gave it to the Bobcats, who were struggling after a rare Tommy Mellott interception, a few dropped passes and some misplays by the back end of their defense.
“I told him it was my fault for calling it,” Eck said about his comments to freshman kicker Owen Adams, who didn’t hit the ball hard enough. “Just reminded him we wanted to give our guys a chance to recover it. It was my idea, but it’s a tough situation to put a freshman in. We probably should’ve used it later in the game.”
The ball only traveled three yards – it needs to go 10 on an onside kick – and the Bobcats didn’t even need to recover it. Eight plays later, Mellott scored on an eight-yard run and two plays after that Idaho freshman wide receiver Mark Hamper ran into an offensive lineman and fumbled the ball.
It was recovered by MSU defensive end Brody Grebe and it took just five more plays for MSU to find the end zone again. In the blink of an eye, a 10-10 ballgame turned into a to 24-10 Bobcat advantage.
Idaho conservatively punted the ball back to the Bobcats with 35 seconds to go in the half after three straight incompletions by Layne. That led to Mellott electrifying Bobcat Stadium with a 63-yard run that featured him juking Idaho players at the line of scrimmage and Vandal’ defenders tumbling and somersaulting to the ground in pursuit of the speedy quarterback.
“I decided to go to the field, and I didn’t like what I saw,” Mellott said. “It just parted when I looked to my checkdown and just take off and made a play.”
Layne, a sophomore who didn’t play in Idaho’s 38-7 loss in Bozeman in October, came out smoking to start the game by hitting on his first seven passes. But he cooled down and when he threw an interception on the first play of the second half to lead to another MSU score, the Bobcat rout was on.
The Vandals then failed on a fake punt on fourth and 17 leading to yet another Bobcat’ touchdown as the lead ballooned to 45-10. Layne was just 13 of 23 for 141 yards after his perfect start.
The Bobcats, meanwhile, set records and made key plays – some at the insistence of the Vandals – all night.
Mellott converted a pair of key third downs on MSU’s first drive, which ended in a touchdown pass to reserve tight end Rylan Schlepp, who played elevated snaps because of injuries that kept Rohan Jones and Hunter Provience out of the game.
MSU senior McCade O’Reilly made the fourth down tackle to thwart Idaho’s promising first possession. Lonyatta Alexander, Jr. speared a dart from Mellott to set up Mellott’s touchdown run to put the Bobcats up 21-10. He also made a nice block on two of Adam Jones’s longest runs.
“Junior worked his tail off tonight,” Jones said. “He was super physical in terms of blocking and that’s all you can ask for as a running back. On that play (a 35-yard gain), I kind of bounced around, which that doesn’t happen a lot. I knew Junior was going to come down and he cracked him pretty good.”
Jones set the freshman rushing record, finishing with 95 yards on the night to move his season total to 1,068. Mellott is now second in school history with 28 touchdown passes in a season. He became just the second player in school history to rush for 40 touchdowns and moved ahead of Dakota Prukop into fifth place in career passing yards (5,676). He needs 159 yards rushing to catch Cody Kirk for third all-time.
The Bobcats were without the services of three All-Big Sky performers. Fullback/tight end Rohan Jones was out for the second straight game, while running backs Scottre Humphrey and Julius Davis were also out. That didn’t change Mellott’s mindset.
“Nope, I think those guys are great weapons and we’re excited for them to come back here,” Mellott said. “But our game plan is our game plan every single week. Just trusting in our coaches and trusting in the guys next to you are going to make plays as well.”
“We’re down a couple guys, it’s good we have guys behind them like Adam (Jones),” Vigen said. “So there was no panic because we down a few guys.”
The Bobcats had a 423 to 229 edge in total yards through three quarters. They also had the ball for 32 of the first 45 minutes. A bright spot for Idaho was wide receiver Jordan Dwyer, who was targeted 11 times and caught all 11 for 189 yards and two touchdowns. Idaho was just 2 for 10 on third downs and 1 for 5 on fourth downs.
The win puts MSU in the FCS playoff semifinals for the fourth time in five years. Their 14th win extends their record for wins in a season. They tie the best start to a season by a Big Sky Conference team at 14-0. Montana was 14-0 to start the 1996 and 2009 seasons. No team has started 15-0 in Big Sky history.
The Bobcats will play the winner of the UC Davis at South Dakota game tomorrow. That game starts at 1:00 and is aired on ESPN+.
“We had the short week this week so we have the opportunity to get one extra day,” Mellott said. “When it gets down to the semifinal, I don’t you can get much of an edge.
“We will take whoever comes.”
