After two easy wins to start the season, Montana wraps up its non-conference schedule this week at Indiana State. It’s the first time on the road this season for the Griz, and to an unfamiliar opponent – Montana has never played the Sycamores. Indiana State has been an FCS team since 1982, but has been to the playoffs just once, in 2014. The Sycamores finished 7-4 and ranked No. 25 in the final media poll in 2018, but haven’t been above .500 since. In 2022, they were picked 10th out of 11 teams in the preseason Missouri Valley Football Conference poll. Tragedy struck the team a week before the season when two freshman football players were among three ISU students killed in a car crash. ISU opened with a 17-14 overtime win against North Alabama before losing 56-0 at Purdue last week.
Mascot: Sycamores. Straight from Wikipedia here: “Early on in the school’s history, the athletes were referred to as the “Fighting Teachers” (one of the school’s early names was “Indiana State Teachers College”), until the students chose the name “Sycamores”, due to the abundance of sycamore trees in Indiana and especially in the Wabash River Valley; though it is believed that the students voted on ‘Sycamores’ on a lark, never thinking it would win.”
Location: Terre Haute, Indiana
Founded: 1865
Enrollment: 12,144
Famous alumni: Larry Bird, religious figure; Thad Matta, basketball coach; Willa Brown, first African-American woman commercial pilot. Jason Bateman’s main character in the TV show Ozark went to Indiana State.
THE COACH
Curt Mallory (fifth season, 18-29)
Faced with the tragedy of two Indiana State players dying in a car crash just a week before the season, Mallory is navigating certainly his biggest challenge in his six years (five seasons – the Sycamores didn’t play the spring 2021 season) at Indiana State. From a coaching family – his father Bill was the head coach at Indiana – Mallory followed his two older brothers to Michigan and played two years for the Wolverines as a linebacker. He started his coaching career in Ann Arbor as well before joining his father’s staff at Indiana and has since been all around the country, with stops at Ball State, Central Michigan, Indiana again, Illinois, Akron, Michigan again, and two years as the defensive backs coach at Wyoming before getting the head coaching job at Indiana State in 2017. It’s his first head coaching job.
PLAYERS TO WATCH – OFFENSE
WR Dante Hendrix, 6-3, 210, RS Sr.
Indiana State’s only preseason all-conference selection – on either side of the ball – Hendrix was a second-teamer after finishing fourth in the MVFC with 74.5 yards per game last year.
RB Justin Dinka, 5-11, 180, RS So.
Dinka, a San Diego State transfer, splits carries with Tee Hodge but has been more effective catching the ball this year.
PLAYERS TO WATCH – DEFENSE
DB Rylan Cole, 6-0, 205, So.
Cole had a massive game with eight tackles, 2 1/2 TFLs and two interceptions in Week 1 against North Alabama, and added eight more tackles against Purdue.
DL Kris Reid Jr., 6-2, 245, RS Sr.
The Sycamores have eight sacks in two games. Reid leads the way with 2 1/2 – already more than halfway to his career total before the season of 4.
