Portland State has played one of the toughest schedules in the FCS this season. And the Vikings seem to always be pushing a boulder up the backside of a slippery mountain year after year regardless of the fate cast by the schedule makers.
But the Vikings are often at least competitive and have been in recent years against Brent Vigen’s Montana State Bobcats. Last season, Dante Chachere ran wild in the first half in Bozeman before MSU clamped down on the way to a 38-22 win. Three years ago in MSU’s first and only trip to Portland under Vigen before Saturday, the Bobcats rode All-American Isaiah Ifanse to the tune of 30 carries for 217 yards on the way to a 30-17 win.
But this year, MSU bulldozed the hosts in front of a less than half-full stadium, the majority clad in blue and gold. The Bobcats scored 28 second quarter points and raced to a 35-0 halftime lead while Vikings defenders demurred from matching MSU’s physicality, and therefore, tackling Bobcat ball carriers. A pair of third quarter field goals pushed the lead to 41-0 before Vigen called off the cavalry.
Following Montana State’s 44-14 cruise control victory, one couldn’t help but wonder…where do the Vikings go from here? That question rings loudly both within the scope of this season — the Vikings play at Sac State, then host Idaho, play at No. 11 Montana and host Northern Colorado to finish the slate — as well as the world of college football continues to rapidly shift.
“They are a dangerous team and they gave us fits last year,” Vigen said in the lead up to the game. They have one of the more explosive players in our league and in the country in Chachere.
Bruce Barnum had a high-water mark in his first year as the head coach at PSU. The Vikings won a program-record (for Division I at least) nine games, including becoming the first and only FCS team to beat two FBS opponents in one season. The Vikings rode a bus to everywhere other than North Texas, embarking on “Barney’s Americana Tour”, making stops at historical landmarks like Alcatraz and various national & state parks.
Barnum became a folk hero of sorts, in part because of his comedic timing and insanely quick wit and partly because from time to time, he’s picked up the entire beer tab at Portland State home games.
But those wins were nearly a decade ago. These days, it takes PSU two seasons to win nine games. Portland State has lost 59 games since 2015 and won just 27. PSU went 4-4 in league play last season and in 2021 but have not been able to get above .500 in league play since earning a national playoff seed nine seasons ago. Not to mention the Vikings still play in a high school stadium 25 minutes from their previous home at Providence Park in downtown Portland.
That’s not to say Barnum isn’t the guy for the job. In fact, Barnum might be the ONLY guy for the job. Who else is going to post an 11-13 Big Sky Conference record in post-pandemic Portland? Who else can endure four different athletic directors, all with varying visions, during Barnum’s tenure as head coach?
Who else is going to put up with having a game with an FCS power lined up only to have the contract fall through, forcing Portland State to play North American University last season? The 92-0 win is one that Barnum said was one of his toughest as a coach in terms of upholding sportsmanship values against a completely overmatched NAIA team from Texas.
Who else is going to endure guiding a football program low enough on its university’s budgetary priority that it still makes bus trips to Idaho State? Pocatello, Idaho is 663 miles from Portland.
Who else is going to put up with playing two FBS games the first month every season, especially when the money games get changed just months before they are supposed to be played?
“My quote on quote money games were supposed to be Washington State and San Diego State and they called me in July, and they said, ‘You can’t play San Diego State, you are playing Boise State’. There wasn’t a question,” Barnum said on October 15, 2024 leading up to the MSU matchup. “So they switched me up and we ran into No. 2, the Jeanty (Ashton Jeanty, the nation’s leading rusher) kid up there. It was fun to watch him, but playing defense against him, everybody is struggling.
“I thought we had San Diego State, and they are a little down, we had better odds of winning that game, I dunno, but it affected me the following game (PSU had open league play in Week 2 against Weber). It also affected the following year. We were supposed to play Oregon State and Hawaii next year and now they’ve changed Oregon State to BYU. And they haven’t lost a game.
“That’s all immediate. That’s what I’m trying to do. Help the Viks out a little bit more (with making the athletic department revenue). They are dropping me, we had that contract signed, let’s get a little bit more money from you, a little bit more money from them….bottom line is that we can’t keep playing two money games. It’s brutal. That’s the immediate.”
Perhaps the biggest question is, where does Portland State fit within this universe of constantly changing, completely uncertain college athletics, especially with its unique position as a Pacific Northwest public school with the second-largest enrollment in the state behind only Oregon State?
Recapturing the glory days that the Vikings celebrated with a reunion on Saturday — Portland State won six Western Football Conference titles between 1984 and 1992, including five in six years under the late Pokey Allen and several of those alums attended Saturday — is probably a pipedream, at least if PSU continues to compete in the Big Sky Conference. The Vikings have made the playoffs at the Division I-AA/FCS level just twice (2000 and Barnum’s first season) and have never won the Big Sky title.
With the Pac 12 turned Pac 2 turned Pac “to be determined” experiencing a bit of a revival, and those dominoes impacting the membership of the Mountain West, it’s hard for the other 12 Division I football playing schools that reside out West within the Big Sky to ignore the changing landscape. That includes Barnum, even if PSU is nowhere close making any sort of upward move.
“We just keep wondering if anyone is going to pop from the Big Sky with all the realignment, who’s going where, who’s going to the Pac? Who’s going to the Mountain West? Are people going to take the top tier from our conference? Will we lose the Montanas? Then what’s next?” Barnum wondered aloud last week.
In Barnum’s first season at the helm, the Vikings still played downtown at Providence Park, a quaint, vintage turned modern gem of an inner-city football stadium. That year, both Montana State and Montana went to the City of Roses and met their demise.
When MSU star quarterback Dakota Prukop did his post-game interview wearing an upside down and backward visor and eating a banana, the level of frustration from the Bobcat offense over a defense that couldn’t get a stop was on full display. Prukop had just rolled up 313 yards of total offense and accumulated four touchdowns for a team that scored 42 points and racked up 440 total yards….and lost by 17 points.
But nine years later, Montana State has ascended to the base camp at least of the FCS mountaintop. The Bobcats can see the summit from here and only the Bison of North Dakota State and the Jackrabbits of South Dakota State stand in their way, unless the rival Grizzlies carry momentum into November or UC Davis can stay red hot. Either way, buildings are going up fast on the MSU campus while Portland State takes a bus to a high school stadium after being exiled from downtown because of soccer.
Saturday, PSU fell to 0-3 in Big Sky play and 1-6 overall. PSU has one of the three hardest schedules in the entire FCS. The Vikings didn’t play a home game until October after the lone September home date got called off because of a pertussis outbreak. Yes, whooping cough. Welcome to life for the Vikings.
While Barnum has not had a winning season since that magical run in 2015, he has won at least four games every year since 2018 and has won five games three of the previous four seasons. The Vikings went 4-4 last year in conference play, although the wins came over Cal Poly, Northern Arizona, Eastern Washington, and Northern Colorado. Three of the four losses came to playoff-bound Big Sky teams (UC Davis should’ve made the playoffs).
That’s the space Barnum’s Vikings have occupied for the last decade or so after that breakthrough in 2015. But this year’s team seems far away from that space. Chachere remains one of the most athletic players in the conference.
But Saturday, the Vikings showed little interest in tackling and little interest in engaging in the shoving match Montana State has trademarked as its style in recent years. The Bobcats piled up more than 400 yards of total offense in the first alone and finished with 607 total yards, including 323 on the ground. Scottre Humphrey rushed for a career-high 160 yards before halftime.
When diminutive slot receiver Taco Dowler shrugged off two Portland State tackle attempts on his 57-yard touchdown jaunt, you could see the Viks were in trouble. When Rohan Jones broke a tackle, then drug three more Vikings into the end-zone, you could see the game was over. And it wasn’t even halftime.
When Portland State first joined the Big Sky in 1996, the program had plenty of mystique. Spread offense gurus like Don Read (yes, that Don Read), Mouse Davis and Pokey Allen had torn up the D-II ranks. The Vikings finished in the top three of the Big Sky standings six times between 1999 and 2006 under Walsh’s direction, including tied for second four times. Other than 2015, PSU hasn’t finished higher than sixth since 2011.
Will the Vikings ever reascend?
“I know the problems. Everybody has them, don’t get me wrong. I have two handfuls, not one. I want answers,” Barnum said. “How are we going to fix it? From feeding them to travel to whatever it is, we try to come up with solution that take care of my players and my coaches and we go from there. Our schedule, yeah, it’s brutal, but what are you going to do? Control what we can control and put it together and try to win a football game.”
Perhaps the better question remains, who could do better than Bruce Barnum?
Until Portland State finds institutional and athletic department stability, in turn deciding to invest in football, the short answer is no one will do it better than Barney.
