Big Sky Conference

Bobcats travel to Greeley for first time since 2013

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Mitch Herbert will start 37th consecutive game at at wide receiver for Montana State on Saturday. Mac Bignell will appear in MSU’s starting lineup as an outside linebacker for the 29th straight time. Dylan Mahoney will start at left tackle for the 18th time. Even Bryson McCabe, a senior that transferred in after a year each at South Dakota State and Iowa Western, is working on a streak of 18 straight starts.

None of Montana State’s captains have ever stepped foot on Nottingham Field in Greeley, Colorado. So goes the random scheduling that is Big Sky Conference football.

Montana State head coach Jeff Choate jumps into Ty Gregorak’s arms after a play at Eastern Washington last week/ by Blake Hempstead, Skyline Sports

MSU fourth-year running backs coach Michael Pitre is MSU’s longest-tenured coach. He’s never game planned for Northern Colorado. Montana State head coach Jeff Choate has never faced Northern Colorado as MSU reaches the midway point of Choate’s second season.

Most of Montana State’s staff have never faced off against UNC. Ty Gregorak has been to Nottingham plenty of times because of his 12 seasons as an assistant in Missoula for Montana but Saturday marks his first trip to Greeley and his first matchup with the Bears since becoming a Bobcat.

MSU quarterbacks coach DeNarius McGhee quarterbacked MSU to a 35-28 win over Northern Colorado the last time Montana State and UNC squared off, period. Football administrative assistant Cole Moore forced a fumble as an MSU captain linebacker that same afternoon.

Defensive intern Kendrick Van Ackeren notched seven tackles against Northern Colorado when Van Ackeren was an All-Big Sky outside linebacker at rival Montana in 2014. It marked his only game against UNC; Montana did not play UNC in 2013 or in Van Ackeren’s senior season in 2015.

Montana State defensive intern Kendrick Van Ackeren, a former Montana linebacker/ by Brooks Nuanez

Montana State plays at Nottingham Field on Saturday in the first of five must-win games that will determine if MSU can snap a streak of two straight losing seasons or return to the postseason for the first time in 2014. Even that last playoff berth came more recently than the afternoon Cody Kirk rushed for 180 yards and two touchdowns in 2013, Montana State’s last trip to Northern Colorado.

“It’s crazy we’ve never been there and it’s going to be different,” said Bignell, a senior captain who leads the team with nine tackles for loss among his 48 stops. “It’s exciting going to places you haven’t been before. It makes me a little nervous playing on grass again because I haven’t played on grass in five years. But it’s exciting to go play in a new stadium.”

Aside from McGhee – in his first season as a full-time assistant and his first back at his alma mater –  Gregorak, Van Ackeren and Moore, no member of the Bobcat coaching staff has been to Greeley.

“I think it’s weird,” Choate said on Wednesday. “For lack of a better way of saying it: It’s weird. We had 13 teams in the SEC (Choate coached at Florida) but you played everyone on a three-year rotating basis so it made a little more sense. You never went more than three years without playing someone. Here you can go however many years — the last time Montana State was in Greeley was 2013 — so a long time.”

Northern Colorado seventh-year head coach Earnest Collins Jr. at the Big Sky Kickoff in July/ by Brooks Nuanez

The first time Northern Colorado seventh-year head coach Earnest Collins Jr. played Montana State, the Bobcats were ranked No. 3 in the country and en rout to a second of three straight Big Sky titles. MSU won 31-21 that day. The next season, McGhee’s MVP junior year, MSU blasted UNC 41-17 at home, one of six straight wins to begin what would finish as an 11-2 campaign for the Big Sky champion ‘Cats.

Collins helped his alma mater to just six wins in his first three seasons at the helm. UNC has improved since, posting 17 wins over the last four years, including two straight 6-5 finishes entering 2017. But he has not faced the Bobcats since the Bears’ improvement.

“This is the way our conference is set up,” Collins said. “I don’t have any control over the schedule so we just play who’s in front of us. We haven’t played them in awhile but it’s always good when you play somebody you haven’t played and they get to come back up on the schedule so you can see how you match up with everybody in the conference.”

The Bobcats have battled in each of their six games this season, five of which have come against ranked opponents. Yet Montana State stumbles into Greeley with a 2-4 record overall. MSU will certainly have to win its final five games if it hopes to return to the FCS playoffs for the first time in three years.

Northern Colorado running back Trae Riek/ by Robert Trubia, UNC athletics

After two straight 6-5 seasons — Northern Colorado won four league games last season, including a 28-25 win over Montana, UNC’s first since 1978 — the Bears showed well early. UNC looked competitive in a 41-21 loss at Colorado before piling up 609 yards of total offense and hitting a game-winning field goal in a 43-42 win over Idaho State the next week to begin conference play.

Northern Colorado had no answers in Flagstaff for a red-hot Northern Arizona team that avenged last season’s 21-18 loss to the Bears with a 48-20 win. NAU piled up 14 tackles for loss, six sacks and snared three interceptions defensively while All-American quarterback Case Cookus threw for 271 yards and three touchdowns as the Lumberjacks pulled away late.

The Bears fell behind 28-7 midway through the second quarter at North Dakota two weeks ago. But Northern Colorado rallied, cutting the UND lead to 28-24 before halftime, then taking a 31-28 advantage on Trae Riek’s 10-yard touchdown run early in the third frame. But disaster struck as strong-armed junior quarterback Jacob Knipp suffered a shoulder injury that might end his season for a second straight season. The diagnosis was made during UNC’s bye week last week.

UNC quarterback Jacob Knipp/by Rob Trubia

The 6-foot-4 Knipp suffered a similar shoulder injury last season during non-conference play, giving way to Kyle Sloter, who went on to throw 29 touchdowns and is now a backup to Case Keenum with the Minnesota Vikings. Collins Jr. said Knipp’s injury this season is not as bad as last year but he is still expected to miss at least six weeks, meaning his season is likely over. He certainly won’t play Saturday against the Bobcats.

“And that’s too bad,” Choate said. “Jacob Knipp is an unbelievable player. He has tremendous arm strength and would pound the ball on people, some next level type throws. But they are not that much different with (sophomore Connor) Reagan in there.”

Saturday also marks the first contest between Choate, who is 6-11 midway through his second season at MSU, and Collins, who has posted a 31-61 mark in six and a half seasons at UNC. Collins is 13-37 in Big Sky play, a mark skewed by two 0-8 finishes in his first three seasons.

“I haven’t played against Coach Choate yet but being around him at our conference meetings, you can tell he’s a coach,” Collins said. “He’s got them going. You can start to see his stamp on that football team. You like it and you like the challenge. I’m looking forward to facing it on Saturday.”

Montana State has averaged 19,454 fans per game in its three home games this season. On the road, MSU has played in front of crowds of 12,342 at UND, 30,254 at Washington State and 11,301 last week at Eastern Washington. Northern Colorado has drawn 8,820 fans in its two home games combined this season.

Montana State senior linebacker Mac Bignell sacks Portland State quarterback Josh Kraght two weeks ago/ by Brooks Nuanez

“BYOE – bring your own energy — that’s the rallying cry,” Choate said. “I’ve never been there. Ty has. It’s a different environment. You try to think about how to modify practice enough to help us bring the appropriate level of energy on Saturday. You can get lulled to sleep and that’s a dangerous place to be when you are playing the game of football, both physically and emotionally. You have to have your edge.”

Bignell for one has never had much of a problem bringing his own energy. The Drummond native is hearing impaired so music and crowd noise has never influenced him much. But the Bobcat captain is still aware of the necessity to ignite his team even if Saturday marks Northern Colorado’s homecoming.

“When we went down to Weber State last season, that first half was one of our worst halves of football all last season (MSU trailed 42-14 at intermission) and it’s going to be an environment that lulls you to sleep,” Bignell said, echoing his head coach. “It’s something we’ve been working on all of practice this week, not playing any music, being able to bring your own energy to practice and still performing well.”

Photos by Brooks Nuanez and Blake Hempstead. All Rights Reserved. 

 

About Colter Nuanez

Colter Nuanez is the co-founder and senior writer for Skyline Sports. After spending six years in the newspaper industry with stops at the Missoulian, the Ellensburg Daily Record and the Bozeman Daily Chronicle, the former Washington Newspaper Association Sportswriter of the Year and University of Montana Journalism School graduate ('09) has cultivated a deep passion for sports journalism during his 13-year career covering the Big Sky Conference. In August of 2014, Colter and brother Brooks merged their passions of writing and art to found Skyline Sports.

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