The Bobcats started slow in Greeley again. But once Tommy Mellott settled in, the rest of the team followed suit. And Montana State continued its winning ways.
With Mellott, MSU’s prized sophomore quarterback, back in the fold after suffering a head injury early in a 38-35 win over Eastern Washington, Montana State found itself staring a 14-3 deficit in the face against a Northern Colorado team with just five wins over the last season and a half.
All-Big Sky Conference (at Sac State) running back Elijah Dotson showed his usual juice, ripping off a 58-yard touchdown to give UNC a 7-3 lead. Mellott looked rusty early, throwing incompletions on three of his first five passes. And MSU’s second possession — a 13-play, 70-yard march — ended with sudden star Sean Chambers, the man who replaced Mellott the last two and a half games, getting stuffed for a one-yard gain on a 4th down and 2.
The host Bears took that stop and turned it into a methodical, bruising 15-play, 95-yard drive capped by senior quarterback Dylan McCaffrey throwing a 9-yard touchdown to Noah Ford to give the hosts their biggest lead.
That drive shook Mellott out of his slumber. He threw a 44-yard strike to tight end Derryk Snell to set up a 3-yard touchdown pass to senior fullback R.J. Fitzgerald. After a swift stop by the previously struggling Bobcat defense, Mellott engineered a seven-play, 81-yard drive capped by a 16-yard touchdown pass to Willie Patterson to put MSU up 17-14.
Montana State would not look back, scoring 34 unanswered points on the way to a 37-14 win at Nottingham Field on Saturday afternoon in Greeley.
“I knew we were going to get Northern Colorado’s best shot,” Montana State head coach Brent Vigen said following his first career win in in Greeley. “Their players are on scholarship, their coaches get paid so you have to be withstand some things.
“They popped a long run on us and I certainly didn’t want to see that. Some unfortunate events led that to getting to 14-3. But for us to hang in there, take a lead before halftime, tack on a couple of scores and ultimately getting it to 37-14, it’s a credit to our guys for hanging in there and continuing to fight.”
The win is Montana State’s sixth straight against FCS opponents this season and the 18th in 20 games against non-FBS opponents under Vigen’s watch. Montana State is 4-0 in Big Sky Conference play and 6-1 overall. The loss dropped Northern Colorado to 1-3 in league and 2-5 overall.
Patterson’s first touchdown made the score 17-14 in favor of MSU and the visitors would never trail again. His second touchdown catch, a 37-yarder to cap an 8-play, 75-yard drive, pushed the lead to two scores just three minutes after halftime. And his third touchdown, a 26-yard grab with 9:08 left in the third quarter, gave MSU a 30-14 advantage.
It also made Patterson the first Bobcat since 2010 to snare three touchdowns in a game. The senior from Tacoma, Washington finished the afternoon with seven catches for 148 yards and the three scores, giving him eight touchdown catches.
“We ultimately got them out of man coverage, we were beating them, Willie in particular, in those man to man routes,” Vigen said.
“We needed his performance. The jump ball, I don’t know how he came up with it. For a guy his size, it speaks to his competitiveness and his ability. A wide variety of things Willie did today and he’s been that all year. We had to lean on that more today but that’s ok. We have to have guys like Willie on the perimeter making plays.”
During Mellott’s absence, Chambers exploded onto the scene. He went nuclear in a 41-24 win over UC Davis, becoming just the second Big Sky quarterback to rush and throw for 200 yards each in a single game. He rushed for 160 yards against Eastern Washington and completed all but three of his passes in the first half before helping MSU cruise to a 37-6 win over Idaho State last week.
Vigen said the Bobcats would use both quarterbacks leading up to the game in Greeley. And they did. But when Mellott missed on four of his first six passing attempts, anyone scratching their heads perhaps felt justified.
By the end of the game, Chambers notched a touchdown pass and rushed for his 16th TD this season, giving him an FCS-best total and drawing him within five rushing scores of tying Troy Andersen’s single-season mark at MSU set in 2018.
And once Mellott settled in, he was nearly perfect against UNC’s struggling defense, completing 14 passes in a row on the way to throwing for 217 yards and three touchdowns. He also rushed seven times for 40 yards as MSU rolled up 481 yards of total offense.
“It was probably uneven early,” Vigen said of Mellott’s play. “There were a couple of throws missed. I think you go several weeks without playing. You can practice all week all you want but there’s the speed of the game, the decisions you have to make and there’s some guys chasing you that comes reality in a hurry.
“I think he definitely settled in. We will evaluate it and there are areas I’m sure he can approve upon but when we needed him.”
Junior running back Lane Sumner continued his strong play, rushing for more than 100 yards for the third time in three starts this season. Saturday, he finished with 130 yards on 22 carries as MSU finished with 231 rushing yards, actually their second-lowest total in a season in which the ‘Cats have flirted with 300 yards per game on the ground.
With No. 2 South Dakota State’s 23-21 win over No. 1 North Dakota State and No. 3 Montana’s 30-23 loss to Idaho in Missoula, the Bobcats stand to vault into the top two spots in the poll this following week.
Montana State hosts Weber State, a 42-7 winner over Portland State on Saturday. That win moved WSU to 3-0 in league play and 6-0 overall. MSU defeated the Wildcats 13-7 in Ogden, Utah last season.
Photos courtesy of MSU athletics. All Rights Reserved.
