Although it took just under three hours to play out, the last Brawl of the Wild in Missoula was arguably over within the first minute of game time, when Cam Humphrey hit Junior Bergen for a 74-yard touchdown on the second play of Montana’s first drive.
The Washington-Grizzly crowd, already frothing, never hit a pitch below “fevered” for the remainder of the game. After answering Bergen’s touchdown with a field goal one drive later, the Bobcats didn’t score for the entire second and third quarters and the first 14 minutes of the fourth as Montana ran away with an uncompetitive 29-10 win to hand MSU’s first-year head coach Brent Vigen his first-ever Big Sky Conference loss.
Montana State had just 122 yards before a final, meaningless 82-yard consolation march. With Matt McKay at quarterback, a hobbled Isaiah Ifanse and nearly 27,000 Griz fans baying in their ears, the Bobcats struggled at times even to function on offense. After their early field goal, they failed to even cross the 50 on nine straight drives, punting on eight of them.
It was a shocking display, a departure from the composure that Vigen’s Bobcats had already established as a trademark, and still the most lost that one of Vigen’s MSU teams has looked against an FCS opponent.
“Playing over there in a hostile environment, it’s a challenge,” Vigen said on Monday. “Momentum can be, if you are on the right side of the moment, can you keep it going? If you are on the wrong side, can you stop it? I think back to 2021, we gave up that early touchdown, then obviously had a chance to answer that with an offensive score and we didn’t do that.”
And if Vigen thought that the 2021 crowd was hostile, imagine what Washington-Grizzly will be like with two Top 5 teams going at it for the first time in the history of the Brawl.
“Very clearly what that environment is all about, it’s about a very passionate fan base that is going to be at a fever pitch and you have to be able to play in the challenges that are presented,” Vigen said.
There are other matchups that will ebb and flow over the course of 60 minutes on Saturday, individual or position battles that go back and forth. Those might decide the game. They might not. There’s no question about this one. If the ‘Cats can’t handle the atmosphere and the crowd, and if either (or both) of MSU’s stud quarterbacks unravel, none of those other matchups will matter.
“I’m excited. A lot of guys talk about the environment and how hostile it is and I’m excited for it,” Montana State senior captain quarterback Sean Chambers said. “I’m ready to embrace the challenge.”
That challenge falls primarily on two groups for the ‘Cats: Vigen and his coaching staff, and Chambers and MSU’s other part-time yet all-league caliber quarterback, Tommy Mellott.
The 2021 loss, as shocking as it was, turned into a blessing in disguise for the Bobcats as Vigen benched McKay after the massacre in Missoula and rode Mellott all the way to the national title game.
Over the course of that playoff run and the nearly two full ensuing regular seasons, the uber-athletic, uber-tough quarterback from Butte became both a cult figure in the Treasure State and, when healthy, one of the best signal callers in the FCS.
Chambers joined the program before the 2022 season, transferring over from Vigen’s old program Wyoming, and the duo has been unstoppable at times in leading the Bobcats to a combined 20-4 record over the two years.
This season, Chambers is averaging 8.5 yards per carry, Mellott 7.6. They’ve each thrown for over 700 yards, with a combined 16 touchdown passes against two interceptions. Last week, they combined to go 8-of-8 for 217 yards and four touchdowns in the first half alone in a 57-14 rout of Eastern Washington to help set up Saturday’s showdown for the outright Big Sky Conference title.
If there’s a catch, it’s that all four of those losses – to Oregon State and South Dakota State last year; and to South Dakota State again and Idaho this year – have come on the road. The Bobcats, who are averaging over 43 points per game this season, scored just 37 combined in their losses in Brookings and Moscow this fall
Both Chambers and Mellott have played in tough road environments, particularly this year, when the Bobcats went on the road to play top-ten ranked SDSU, Sac State and Idaho.
“I think South Dakota State, Idaho, it’s helped us prepare for this,” Chambers said. “We have learned some things from those games, going on the road into hostile environments and I think we are going to be ready and equipped to handle this type of environment.”
That could be true. It could also be naivete from a player who’s never been to Washington-Grizzly Stadium for a Cat-Griz game. Unfortunately for ‘Cat fans, there’s no way to tell which until they walk out of the northwest tunnel into the belly of the beast on Saturday.
“Our guys haven’t started over there, but they’ve both played in some loud environments,” Vigen said. “You certainly hope their maturity will allow them to not only function, but to thrive with their ability to communicate, their ability to not panic. I think those are situations that can unravel in a hostile environment if all of a sudden that panic piece comes in and you are trying to make a 21-point play. They just don’t exist.”
When they’re rolling, Chambers and Mellott are fully capable of shredding the Griz, as they did last year to the tune of 104 passing yards (on six completions!) and 141 rushing yards for Mellott, and 86 more yards on the ground for Chambers. But if they get knocked off track by the noise…well, we’ve seen that movie before too.
“What you have seen a lot of times, whether it’s in Missoula or other hostile environments across the country, is that quarterbacks can unravel,” Vigen said. “If your quarterback unravels offensively, you are in trouble. I like our guys’ experience, I like their poise, and I think we have two guys who feel like, ‘Let’s go after it, let’s go compete, this is why I’m at a place like Montana State, so I can go over to a place like Missoula and play in a big game and give it everything I have.’”
