BOZEMAN — In Jeff Choate’s second season at the helm, Montana State took a collection of talented teams down to the wire only to come up short.
MSU nearly sprung an upset of No. 4 South Dakota State in its home opener the second game of the 2017 season. But two missed field goals by Luke Daly and a blocked extra point played a huge factor in the 31-27 loss to the eventual FCS Final Four team.
During the first home Big Sky Conference game of the season for the Bobcats, Gabe Peppenger missed field goal attempts of 34 and 41 yards in the first half in what ended up a 25-17 loss to eventual league champion Weber State.
On Montana State’s first possession at Eastern Washington, the Bobcats moved the ball to the EWU 36 but went for it on a fourth down with five yards to go rather than line up for a 53-yard field goal. A collection of turnovers doomed the Bobcats more than the lack of a 3-pointer in the 31-19 loss.
The following week, Peppenger hit two of his five total field goals, the second a 27-yarder as time expired to lift MSU to a 27-24 victory at Northern Colorado.
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Peppenger’s miss from 31 yards in a 37-36 loss at eventual playoff qualifier Northern Arizona proved crucial. His 20-yard make in a 31-23 win over rival Montana would end up being his last kick as a Bobcat. MSU finished the season 5-of-11 as a team, tied for the second-least field goals in the league. Daly missed all three of his kicks before leaving the team. Peppenger was 5-of-8, including 4-of-4 from between 20 and 29 yards. He had a long of 34 yards and missed three of his four attempts from more than 30.
In the off-season, Choate added Tristan Bailey to the roster from Coffeyville Junior College. The former Wyoming starter emerged by default in spring ball because Peppenger left the program in the off-season, eventually resurfacing with his hometown Griz.
In Montana State’s 2018 opener on August 30 against Western Illinois, another playoff qualifier last season out of the Missouri Valley Football Conference, the kicking game morphed from liability to crucial factor as the Bobcats emerged with a close, hard-fought win.
Bailey drilled four field goals, including a 47-yarder as the first half buzzer sounded to cut WIU’s lead to 13-6, a game-tying 50-yarder with eight minutes left and the go-ahead kick on a fourth down and one yard to go from 35 yards out to lift MSU to a 26-23 victory.
“That was the difference in the game,” Choate said at his weekly press conference on Monday. “I point to some of the things from a year ago, like we missed two field goals and an extra point against South Dakota State and we lose by four.
“You can point to a lot of plays here or there but those kicking game opportunities are such significant moments. I think Tristan was very deserving of not only the Big Sky but the national honor this week. Hopefully, it doesn’t go to his head. I’ll make sure of that, actually.”
Bailey, as Choate said, was named Big Sky Conference and FCS Special Teams Player of the Week on Monday. After giving MSU its first score with a 20-yard field goal in the first quarter, Bailey said he knew he was locked in. When it came time to break a 23-23 tie with just over four minutes to play, the junior said he used the same mindset.
“There’s nothing different throughout the game, you have to prepare for it the same, can’t put too much pressure on a kick,” Bailey said in the postgame press conference following MSU’s first victory of the season. “If it’s the end of the game, you can’t put too much pressure on it and feel like you have to make it and everything is going to end if you don’t. Everything is the same. I have positive affirmations I tell myself every time I go kick and it keeps me calm.”
Although the newcomer was cool under pressure in his Bobcat debut, Bailey knows full well the pressure – and potential downfall – of kickers missing pressure kicks. After hitting 10 of 12 field goal attempts as a senior at Rampart High School in Colorado Springs, Colorado in the fall of 2014, Bailey earned a preferred walk-on spot with Wyoming.
He eventually won the starting job but struggled right away. He missed his first four field goals and finished the 2015 season 2-of-8 overall. His two makes came against Air Force and San Diego State. He made 28 of his 31 PAT attempts. Bailey had left the program that December. In February of 2016, Wyoming head coach Craig Bohl signed standout kicker Cooper Rothe.
“The hardest part of being a kicker is the stigma, everything is on you in the game,” Bailey said in an interview in August. “Wide receivers, they drop a catch, it sucks, people notice it, but they are back out there the next play and they can go make another play.
“It’s maybe two to three kicks a game and if you miss one, people remember, especially if it’s at a critical moment or you lost by three and you could’ve had a field goal. As a kicker, you remember that stuff and it’s one of those things that you have to know in the future so you make sure to make the kicks.”
During fall camp, Bailey showed a booming leg on both field goals and kickoffs. He hit a 55-yard field goal during MSU’s spring game but missed all three of his field goal attempts during live situations in MSU’s two fall camp scrimmages. Yet he entered his first game at MSU with strong confidence.
“You can’t worry about the misses,” said Bailey, who posted a video of himself drilling a 71-yard field goal last summer on his personal Twitter account. “You have to know what you did, figure it out, move on and not dwell on it because you are not going to perform well if you keep dwelling on it. Those scrimmage kicks, I knew I hit them thin. Every time I hit them off my foot, it was thin off my foot. I knew how to fix it so I did.”
Following his departure from Wyoming, Bailey did not play football anywhere during the fall of 2016. But the former soccer standout — he didn’t start playing football until his junior year of high school — decided the one thing missing in his life was football. After a year in Kansas and an off-season acclimating to a new school and team, Bailey seems to have found what he was missing.
“I never felt satisfied and I knew I need to get back to football,” Bailey said in August. “The best way to get back to D-I was to go to junior college. They call it bounce back for a reason but I was the rare case where I wasn’t going to JUCO because I was in trouble. For me, it was a chance for me to recreate myself and get back to a level where I belong. I’m really happy I’m here.”
Photos by Brooks Nuanez. All Rights Reserved.
