After a somewhat sluggish start, Adam Jones is surging down the stretch of his sophomore season. And now he has another shot to be a thorn in the side of Montana State’s archrival yet again.
The MSU running back must’ve taken some advanced classes this past semester. His sophomore slump is well behind him as he and his Montana State teammates continue to cruise through the Football Championship Subdivision playoffs.
Jones has kept accelerating statistically as the 2025 season has worn on. His first six games he had just 242 yards on 59 carries averaging only 4.1 yards per carry, which was a far cry from his freshman campaign when he averaged 6.4 yards per attempt. He made up for that, in part, with 14 catches for 135 yards and a touchdown. The pressure of his second full college football season was accentuated by the fact that he was the runner-up for the Jerry Rice Award last season as the top freshman in the FCS and the preseason Big Sky Conference Offensive Player of the Year entering this year.
In his debut season, Jones burst onto the scene by ripping off a 93-yard touchdown run in MSU’s season-opening win over FBS New Mexico. The Missoula native didn’t really get it rolling this season until a breakout game against Idaho State when he went for 173 yards on just 16 carries and a score.
When questioned about Jones’s breaking out of his funk after the Idaho State game, MSU head coach Brent Vigen bristled at the notion that Jones had been struggling.
“Adam’s been running the ball fine all year,” Vigen said. “He hasn’t had the opportunities maybe but hopefully this will get everyone beyond that thought of, ‘what’s wrong with Adam?’ Adam’s a good football player. He’s a real good football player and that showed up today.”
After being held to 46 or less rushing yards in each of the first six games, he has only been below that number once in the last eight games and that was mostly due to sitting out a big part of a 66-14 blowout win over Weber State. He’s run for 674 yards since then to date and also has 16 catches for 150 yards. In his last three games he has 36 carries for 269 yards and four touchdowns. All told, he has nearly 1,200 yards from scrimmage and a team-high 15 total touchdowns.
“Adam continues to be a real steady force for us,” Vigen said. “I look at Adam and how he takes care of himself. He got pretty banged up last season and he was bound and determined to change that. His hard work from January on is a huge contributing factor. All the extra work that he does, he’s not a guy you have to tell what he needs to do. He is already doing well beyond whatever it takes to make himself as strong and durable as possible.”
Jones’s season total now sits at 152 carries for 916 yards ,moving the needle on his average from 4.1 to 6.0 per carry. His 13 rushing touchdowns are second in the Big Sky. His 15 total touchdowns are third in the BSC. And his 90 points is third among non-kickers.
This past week, in a 44-28 quarterfinal win over Stephen F. Austin, was perhaps his best all-around game as he had 160 total yards (114 rushing; 46 receiving; three total touchdowns) on just 14 touches. He caught a pair of passes and scored on MSU’s first touchdown drive. He took a short pass on 3rd and 20 early in the second quarter and went 21 yards to get into the end zone, running for 11 yards and catching another pass on that drive. Then Jones broke off a 40-yard run in the third quarter to set up a score and had three carries for 36 yards on a decisive fourth quarter drive that burned all but the last 1:52 off the clock.
Jones and senior running back Julius Davis have been perfect compliments to each other all season. The duo has pounded opponents with 152 and 151 carries, respectfully, and have netted just under 2,000 yards at 1,960 with 21 combined rushing touchdowns.
“Adam had a real impactful game,” Vigen said of his performance against SFA. “It was catching the ball, it was blocking, it was timely plays. For him and Julius to not get frustrated and know the run game was going to break eventually, their mentality to embrace their opportunities was awesome.”
The Bobcats had just 27 yards on 20 carries in the first half against the Lumberjacks but broke loose for 200 yards on 22 carries in the second half as Jones and Davis combined for 210 yards on 26 carries in the game.
“I think part of it is that as we sit here 14 games in, those two (Jones & Davis) are one carry apart. Being able to truly be able to play two guys as one is philosophically what we want to be able to do. That reduces the wear and tear. A lot of credit goes to him and philosophically how we spread the wealth to those two guys is why they are as fresh as they are.”
Jones is no stranger to being a playmaker and a work horse for the Bobcats. As a freshman in 2024, he ran for 1,174 yards and 14 touchdowns and had a penchant for making big plays. In his season-opening debut game against the New Mexico Lobos he broke off the long touchdown run with the Bobcats trailing 31-21 as they went on to win 35-31. In the regular season finale, he went 88 yards to set up a touchdown to ice the Cat-Griz late in the third quarter in a 34-11 MSU win. Jones ended the day with 197 yards rushing against the team he grew up rooting for, certainly a vindicating moment in his rivalry debut.
This Saturday, Jones will have to deal with a surging University of Montana team in a rematch of their annual game won by the Bobcats 31-28 in Missoula. In the first rivalry game, he had 48 yards rushing on nine carries and a touchdown along with four catches for 31 yards. He started MSU’s game-clinching 14-play, 72-yard drive with a swing pass from quarterback Justin Lamson for nine yards and finished it with a first down carry of 15 yards on second-and-seven deep in UM territory as the Bobcats ran out the final 6:59 of the game.
This week’s game will be played in Bozeman and Jones is expected to have a key role. Being a Garden City native, he’s all too familiar with the meaning of the Montana-Montana State rivalry.
“Overall, this game is the biggest game because it’s the next game,” Jones said. “That’s how I view it. I think you can make this game a little too big for what it is. I’m honored to be a Montana dude playing in a game like this but it’s just another game at the end of the day. There’s gonna be 21 other dudes against 22 dudes and we’re gonna do whatever it takes to be on the right side of it.”
Winning the first game made it possible for the Bobcats to host this game and Jones believes that’s the only thing that game accomplished.
“The only thing that mattered about that first game is now we get to play this game at home,” Jones said. “Playing in Bobcat Stadium, I think we do get an advantage with that. It was really hard to play over in Missoula, and I think they’re gonna see how hard it is to play here. Just playing in front of our fans isn’t something we take for granted.”
Jones conceded that winning in Missoula does give MSU some confidence but that the next game will have a different look to it.
“I think we do have some confidence in how that game went,” Jones said. “At the same time, they’re going to make a ton of adjustments. They’re a great team. We’re going to make some adjustments and it’s going to be a new game for sure. It’s not gonna look the same, it’s not gonna play the same.”
