EDITOR’S NOTE: THIS STORY CONTAINS EXPLICIT LANGUAGE. MATURE AUDIENCES ONLY.
The stairway leading up to Row 34, Seat 13 in Section 118 at the very top of Bobcats Stadium is a narrow and particularly treacherous set of stairs, especially after snow and ice clad the stadium the day before. But as I stood on the third or fourth stair and turned back over my shoulder to watch Keali’l Ah Yat bounce in the pocket and find Jake Olsen for a 1-yard touchdown, those stairs might as well have been a golden escalator. There was nothing that could endanger me now. The ice and snow were no match for my maroon and silver AirMax 1 86s.
Hell, I didn’t even need shoes because I felt as if I had sprouted wings and ascended above those stairs, up, up, up above more Bobcats fans than I could possibly imagine packed into every nook and cranny of that stadium. Just a fucking ocean of these bastards and I floated past every one of them, their faces twisted by paralyzing fear, their EAT SHIT GRIZZLIES voices muted by another Griz drive that tranquilized the delirium a 20-3 lead filled their Blue-and-Gold hearts with.
Then my little flirtation with glory crashed to a sudden halt. Shattered. Destroyed. Dead.
What the fuck just happened?!
In that ascent up the stairs, I was again certain that Montana’s sophomore star QB had delivered another moment in his growing legend. But this one was bigger than any other because what I thought he had just done was toss a TD that accelerated the momentum Montana had built over the last hour of real time and thrust that momentum ahead of the Cats to restore the Griz into their rightful place as the best football program in Montana. It was going to smash these Bobcat hearts into a million pieces.
But it turned out to be the motivation Montana State needed to avalanche the Griz in the most gut-wrenching loss I’ve ever known.
WHAT THE FUCK JUST HAPPENED!?!?
My short-lived flirtation with ecstasy might sound hyperbolic. If you’re a Cats fan reading this, yeah, sure, you can believe it’s just a jumbled, maniacal and biased spin on the most glorious day your program has ever known. Fair, I’ll concede that.
But six hours after my journey up those stairs in the sea of suddenly soul-searching Cats, I was left only with an endless loop of memories of Montana State’s disturbingly dominant comeback. They just twirled by one after another as if Don Draper was at the controls of my mind, clicking through one snapshot after another like a twisted carnival worker trapping me in a House of Horrors:
Justin Lamson escaping the pocket…
…Taco Dowler makes the catch. 3rd and 20 is now 1st and 10. Fuck…
Oh, it’s not over. Boyd and Lawler collide, collapse to the turf… Dowler sprints to the end zone for an 87-yard touchdown…
Stop it, Don, you sick fuck. Shut the carousel off…
The Griz were just ahead. Now it’s 34-23 Cats. Bobcat fans all around me in a state of Griz-hating euphoria…
Ah Yat sacked. Gillman dropped pass. Lamson touchdown. 41-23. Mother fu…
Ah Yat intercepted. Grebe evading tacklers into the end zone. It’s the other Grebe?! 48-23 Cats…
EAT SHIT GRIZZLIES!!!! GO CATS GO!!!! EAT SHIT GRIZZLIES!!!!! GO CATS GO!!!!
And then it stops. It’s over. It’s all over.
The faces I drifted by had fear written on them, and for good reason. Had Montana won – especially in that fashion – it would have invalidated everything Montana State thought they were becoming and overcoming. They were on the precipice of taking hold of the control Montana once had over the state — literally curling their Cat-pawing fingers around it after Adam Jones’ long 2nd quarter TD run put them up 17.
A few years ago under Jeff Choate, Montana State became bona fide Griz slayers, winning four straight over Montana. Overpowering and embarrassing the Griz. Turning insurmountable halftime deficits in Missoula into a comeback-celebrating documentary. That was good and all, and Cats fans were happy to look West, press play on “Mony Mony” ad nauseum and tell the Griz the tide was really turning. But how tangible was it? Montana State wasn’t really stacking wins against anybody else of consequence. Momentum was building, but that can be fleeting. You need something to actually realize it.
In the Vigen years, they started to. They went to a national championship in ‘22, the first time in 38 years. They lost. They absolutely steamrolled the Griz in Bozeman every chance they got. They went back to the championship in ‘24. Another loss. ESPN GameDay came to Bozeman and showcased the Yellowstonification of their town and program. They were the next cool thing. They were partying like it was 1984. Their university was expanding. Their president was turning everything to (blue and) gold.
Despite all of this, they still needed validation. Something that was in their hearts — and living very strongly in the Grizzlies’ nightmares — but could actually be realized. Four weeks ago, they went into Missoula and beat the Griz in what was then the biggest game in the rivalry’s history. It set up another meeting between the two in the most anticipated sporting event the state has ever known.
This time it’d be in Bozeman. Right there in the Litter Box that was having its Cinderella moment beamed to a national audience on ABC. Its new-ish South end zone and its flanking grandstands packed to the fucking gills with Cats. So full you could literally feel the structure sway anytime a Cat found his way to the end zone. Its giant scoreboard gleaming bright in front of the Cats’ new athletic complex as the strong winds rolled in and dusted the snow off their indoor practice facility — the one any Cat’ll use to remind every Griz fan that it isn’t an impermanent bubble. Every structural reminder that the Cats had erased the gap between them and the Griz was playing its part. Jesus Christ, it was the shimmering stage the Cats had longed to bludgeon the Grizzlies on. For most of the first half they did.
And that’s why Ah Yat’s touchdown pass seemed so important.
The Grizzlies seemed dead during that disastrous start. Montana State ran right over top of them. Overpowering them in a fashion so particularly upsetting to Griz faithful because it’s what we used to do. It felt like a calculated personal attack.
Text threads lit with up with doom: “we’re fucked” … “this is going to be an ass kicking” … “it’s over”. I Googled how to cancel my flight to Nashville when Jones went untouched for the 20-3 lead. For all intents and purposes it looked like the Cats were going to embarrass the Griz in Bozeman for the fourth straight time with Bobby Hauck as coach. Then they were going to Nashville to win a national championship and validate everything that had been building in Bozeman for the last decade.
And that’s why I thought that little one-yard pass felt like a 10,000 pound sledgehammer. I thought it was going to obliterate everything the Bobcats thought they were becoming. If Montana could go into Bobcats Stadium with the will of the universe bending toward Bozeman the way it had, erase that lead and leave victorious, it was then likely to march to Nashville and capture its own national championship, its first since 2001. What an absolutely soul-crushing loss that would be for the Cats. Inches away from resting the crown softly on their furry little heads. Having beaten Montana in Missoula 28 days earlier, only to be batted aside by their most hated rival that had been wobbling along like a battered boxer for the better part of the last 15 years.
The Griz had fallen far in those years. They were the subject of book detailing the horrors of a rape perpetrated by a homegrown former football player. It was titled after the Grizzlies’ city and its effects were so institutionally devastating that their program had to be reset and their university enrollment fell off a cliff. Looking for refuge anywhere it might come, the Grizzlies were instead Stitt on. They suffered through the worst three-year period in 30 years. They unfathomably missed the playoffs two years in a row. They were without a Big Sky title for so many years, the interim period could legally drive the Griz to their grave. They were has-beens. Their time had passed. They were Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid in Bolivia.
Maybe the worst title of all: they were falling into little brother status for a generation of fans who knew the Bobcats, not the Grizzlies, as the dominant program in Montana.
And that’s why I was almost bursting with joy when Ah Yat threw that touchdown. I thought a prodigal son had just reversed all of that.
So what’s next? If I thought a Griz win in Bozeman could have had that impact on the Cats, what does a Griz loss do to the Griz? I don’t know. I’m not a fortune teller. I really, really thought Montana was going to win that game. I thought that would deliver us a third national championship. I know a national championship would have healed a lot of deep wounds. For a few moments that’s exactly where I thought we were headed.
I don’t know if that title’s impact would have been cosmetic or if it would reset the natural order of things. But I know it would have been one of the most glorious things a distraught fan base could experience. There’s a deep divide in Griz Nation about what should be done next: should we burn it down, should we tweak around the edges, should we run it back and pretend the embers aren’t burning the curtains? I don’t know. I see some validity in two of those options.
But I lean hard toward instituting a comprehensive autopsy of the program to stabilize it and do what Bobby Hauck said he was going to do: Return it to Glory. He certainly hasn’t done that and maybe it’s getting close to the time we go our separate ways.
Tony Annese might be available. Cody Hawkins with Montana’s resources is interesting. Kyle Sampson in Butte is an intriguing guy who could possibly be brought on staff and groomed as the next head coach. I don’t know. I’m fucking desperately spitballing and pushing my thoughts to text at 4:38 a.m. Sunday morning because I don’t know what else to do. I thought we were in the splendor of the most beautiful comeback I could possibly imagine only to have it savagely ripped away by the mother fucking Bobcats.
What a fool I am.
Kyle Sample was a sports writer for most of the 2010s, working at the Bozeman Daily Chronicle, the Helena Independent Record, the Missoulian and Skyline Sports. He is now a contributing member of the Griz Fan Podcast and a University of Montana QB Club member.
