We’ve all heard the cliché lines: ‘he’s got big shoes to fill’ and ‘that’s a tough act to follow.’ That was certainly the case when current Montana State football head coach Brent Vigen took the reins from previous MSU head coach Jeff Choate.
All Vigen did was take the Bobcats to the national championship game, which is one step further than Choate, so the shoes were filled, and the act was followed nicely, right? Certainly…but now Vigen has big shoes to fill and a tough act to follow again. His own.
“Coming in under the Choate staff, then them leaving, not playing because of Covid, Coach Vigen and his staff coming in, it’s been wild but like I told my parents, this is probably the smoothest coaching transition I’ve really ever had,” senior safety Jeffrey Manning Jr. said on Montana State’s media day the first week of August. “We didn’t miss a step as far as the leadership aspect upstairs. I’m thankful for that.”
Vigen’s first season at MSU went better than that of any other first year coach in the school’s history. First year coaches, especially those that weren’t in the program previously, aren’t supposed to have seasons anything like that of Vigen’s 12-3 campaign that landed his squad in the FCS championship game. The run included wins over No. 1 ranked Sam Houston State on the road and a raucous semi-final win over South Dakota State that his team won despite not suiting up its top running back (Isaiah Ifanse), top interior defensive lineman (Chase Benson) and top defensive back (Ty Okada). The win over Sam Houston in Huntsville, Texas also marked MSU’s first-ever FCS road playoff win.
Expectations for the 2022 version of the Bobcats are sky high, at least among most players, coaches and fans surrounding the program. So how does Vigen fill his own big shoes from 2021 and follow that act up with something measurably as successful or better?
“It’s a new season,” Vigen said at the Big Sky Kickoff . “I know, there was a lot of good players that departed from this league last year. I know we had some really good players that we lost, but there’s a lot of players on the rise.
“I think it’s a league where you better be ready to go each week. And you have to have a team that’s improving. And that’s what I think we felt like we were able to do for the most part last year and we got to find a way to do that again this year.”
Despite the great run, the Bobcats left a few things on the table. They not only lost to archrival Montana on the last game of the season, but the loss cost MSU a share of the regular season Big Sky title championship with Sacramento State. Add those items to the resounding 38-10 loss to North Dakota State in the national title game and there’s some room for improvement in 2022 for Vigen.
The Bobcats have been walking their way up the ladder for the past five full seasons. In 2016, MSU failed to make the playoffs ending the year with a 4-7 record in Choate’s first year at the helm. That mark improved to 5-6 a year later, but still no playoffs.
Then in 2018 the Bobcats finished 7-4 and won a first-round playoff game before falling to eventual champion NDSU. In 2019, MSU not only advanced to the FCS playoffs, but earned a No. 5 seed in the tournament. They parlayed into a trip to the national semifinals only to venture to Fargo and another lopsided loss to NDSU.
The 2021 season ended in a gut-wrenching loss to NDSU one more time, this heartbreak including an opening drive season-ending injury to shooting star quarterback Tommy Mellott. And the defeat was accentuated by the fact that NDSU is Vigen’s alma mater, a place he played, then coached at from 1998 until 2013.
The 2022 schedule is a favorable one with most of the tough games being played at Bobcat Stadium. According to the media and league coaches, along with most national prognosticators, the Bobcats are among the top teams in the conference and the nation, but none have tabbed the Bobcats as the best team in either. Big Sky Conference coaches have MSU ranked second and the media covering the BSC have it ranked third in league. Not a big vote of confidence for a team looking to win its first regular season crown since 2012. Most national pollsters have MSU ranked fourth behind NDSU, SDSU and Montana.
“We want to be competitive both at the Big Sky level at the national level,” Vigen said. “And I think for us, the one thing we had to do right from the start back in January is we had to push the reset.
“We were 10 days removed from the disappointing game down in Frisco and we had to become the 2022 Bobcats that day and refocus and and understand that our success last year was great and there was a lot to be proud of, but it wasn’t going to dictates by any means our success,” Vigen said.
“I think our guys have continually went about their business, whether it was the winter the spring and now the summer with that mindset, new players emerging, new transfers and freshmen coming in that will have to play roles and then our key guys that were our backups last year, they need to take their games to another level. I think the target will be a little bit different on us this this year and that’s okay. That’s the product of success.”
Accomplishing two of the three missing items will most likely come down to winning the season finale against the Grizzlies in Bozeman. The third is quite a bit more daunting for winning a national title usually all but requires having one of the top two seeds, which ensure home games throughout the playoffs. Avoiding a trip to Fargo, where NDSU has won all but one home playoff game in 32 postseason games at the Fargo Dome since 2011.
MSU was on the verge of doing just that when it rolled into Missoula with a 9-1 record and its lone loss being to FBS Wyoming. The Bobcats eventually earned a home semi-final game despite being a No. 8 seed mainly by virtue of its upset of SHSU.
Not only does Vigen have big shoes to fill, but the Bobcats also need to get past the losses of some of the best players in school history. Troy Andersen was arguably, if not definitely, the best defensive player in the FCS last season and was selected in the second round of the NFL Draft by the Atlanta Falcons after turning in an eye-popping combine.
Daniel Hardy was selected in the seventh round by the Los Angeles Rams marking the first time MSU has had two players taken in the top seven rounds. Wide receiver Lance McCutcheon had a phenomenal preseason with the Rams. Safety Tre Webb got a shot with Falcons and offensive lineman Lewis Kidd made the active roster lwiththe New Orleans Saints.
One thing Vigen has working for him is the depth that he and the previous staff have built. When key players went down last season, the Bobcats didn’t seem to miss a beat. They played their best games of the season against SHSU and SDSU despite missing several top performers. MSU was also in a constant state of rotating players at nearly every position in 2021 except along the offensive line to keep fresh legs on the field.
Some familiar and not so familiar names are waiting in the wings. Sophomore Brody Grebe appears quite capable of replacing Hardy at defensive end. Sophomore Danny Uluilakepa looks solid in the void left by Andersen at inside linebacker and MSU’s strongest unit may well be its secondary.
A set of transfer receivers (Ravi Alston, St. Johns (Minn.); Clevan Thomas, Kentucky; Marquis Johnson, Sacramento State) and freshmen Taco Dowler and Christian Anaya could replace McCutcheon by committee. The MSU passing game could easily surpass the 2021 version considering the development Mellott and variety of targets present.
“It’s nice to know at least how things are going to be run and what expectations you have,” Grebe said. “The weirdest thing was this spring when you are together, we had been together for those seniors, that team last year, for two years straight. You never really had the reality of people leaving. And good leaders, all those guys we had last year, we have six guys in the NFL still. If you are in the NFL, you are guys who are willing to work every day. That was kind of a shock to the team a little bit not having them around as leaders. That’s kind of what I have been trying to step up a little bit as a leader and I know other guys on this team have too.”
“We trust the coaches and we know they are going to be able to lead us there this fall,” Grebe said.
Despite losing all but one of its offensive linemen, Vigen has been passing along favorable reviews of current group noting that not only does he have five solid starters, but also a couple players that are ready to step in on short notice.
