BOZEMAN – The red zone wasn’t a hot zone for Montana State over its first five possessions of the Bobcats 33-25 FCS playoff win over Weber State.
Despite scoring on all five trips there, the Bobcats seemed to be stepping on hot coals and settling for four field goals whenever the goal line was in sight despite their big edge in total yards – 314-144 – to that point.
Then all Sean Chambers broke loose.
MSU’s “backup” battering ram signal-caller connected on two second half touchdown passes on back-to-back possessions as he got the Bobcats (11-1) to simply skip over the red zone as he hit on scores of 28 and 47 yards. More importantly, however, he almost single-handedly ran out the clock to turn back a frantic comeback attempt by Weber State (10-3) in MSU’s second win over the Wildcats in five weeks.
His first touchdown pass went to junior tight end Derryk Snell in the third quarter to jump the Bobcats to a 26-10 lead. Chambers then took a handoff on a jet sweep and hit senior wide receiver Willie Patterson near the WSU five-yard line and he fought his way into the end zone from there.
Montana State had dominated the game to that point but led just 19-10. Chambers’ two touchdown heaves helped MSU blow the game open on the way to advancing to the final eight of the FCS playoffs for the third fall season in a row.
Chambers ran the ball eight times for 56 yards – the only other MSU player to touch the ball was Mellott, who had one carry for 10 yards – after Weber had scored for the second consecutive time with 4:42 to play to cut the lead from 33-10 to 33-25.
Chambers had 83 yards on 14 carries and a touchdown – his 18th of the season. He’s now just three touchdowns behind Troy Andersen for the MSU single-season record.
Between Chambers’ initial touchdown plunge and his two touchdown passes, the Wildcats were able to hang around by bowing up in the red zone.
Kicker Blake Glessner kept MSU’s red zone stalls from being any worse as he connected on all four of his attempts improving his consecutive streak to 11 before finally missing in the fourth quarter from the 49 yards. The 11 straight makes were the second most in program history next to 14 in a row by Jason Cunningham in 2010.
“In every football game you want to count by sevens, not by threes,” MSU quarterback Tommy Mellott said. “We gotta clear that up. We gotta take care of business. We made a couple mistakes and got behind the sticks there early on a lot of those possessions down in the red zone. Ultimately that was one of the reasons we were struggling to finish drives.”
Glessner connected from 36, 33, 31, and 32 yards out to methodically advance the Bobcats to a 19-10 lead after they received the opening kickoff to the second half.
After Chambers broke across the goal line for a touchdown the first time MSU had the ball, the Bobcats still kept moving the ball all over the field. The went 65, 59, 43 and 67 yards the next four times they had the ball only to have to send Glessner out.
MSU nearly fumbled the ball away on two of those four trips with both involving star running back Isaiah Ifanse, who returned to the lineup for the first time in nearly a year. And while the 2021 All-American appeared to have an extra burst in his game, he was also a little rusty in some elements. MSU got behind the sticks the other two times when they lost yardage on the other two red zone entries, including one when Ifanse was lit up on an option pitch and fumbled, although the Bobcats recovered.
“Offensively, we were pretty steady, but we were kicking field goals instead of scoring touchdowns,” MSU head coach Brent Vigen lamented. “Obviously, a bunch of big plays there in the third quarter opened things up.”
It was the second game back in action for Chambers, who saw his first action since the Northern Colorado game (six weeks ago) against Montana two weeks back. He had 86 yards and a score in that game but attempted no passes.
The Bobcats ran for 388 yards and have gone over the 300-yard plateau seven times this season. They broke the school record for rushing yards in a season and now have 3,971. Ifanse ran for 91 yards and is just 24 yards behind the school record for career rushing yards held by Ryan Johnson. Vigen broke the record for career playoff wins with four. Mellott has now started four playoff wins, which is also the most by a quarterback in school history, surpassing fellow Butte product Paul Dennehy in the MSU annals.
Montana State returns to action when it faces No. 5 seeded William & Mary in Bozeman. The date and time have not been finalized for that game. William & Mary was a 54-14 winner over Gardner-Webb in its second-round game.
