BOZEMAN, Montana — The Bobcats have gravitated toward rallying cries ever since Jeff Choate took over as Montana State’s head football coach in December of 2015.
“Beat the Sky, Own the State” earned an exclamation point when a previously struggling Bobcat team posted a 24-17 upset win in Missoula over rival Montana, the first of three straight victories in the fiercest rivalry in the West for MSU.
Choate has consistently, articulately and prevalently preached his plan, a vision of “Riding for the Brand”, using principles he learned under Chris Petersen at Boise State and Washington mixed with some heavy Montana flavor. That vision included Choate’s proclamation that the rebuilding process would begin with losing big, progress to losing close, elevate to winning close and emerge as a FCS power by winning big.
The “Win Big” season is underway at Montana State. And a main motivating factor may come from the rallying cry that provided fuel for the Bobcats’ collective fire in the off-season.
Montana State’s social media accounts consistently used the hashtag “#NeverAgain”, referencing the season-ending beat down MSU suffered at the hands of eventual national champion North Dakota State. The top-ranked Bison steamrolled the Bobcats, rushing for more than 400 yards in a 52-10 victory that was lopsided just minutes after MSU failed to convert an 84-yard Kevin Kassis catch-and-run on the first play from scrimmage into a touchdown.
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By halftime, NDSU led 38-3 and three different running backs had already surpassed 100 yards rushing. The Bison ended up with 407 rush yards on just 44 carries, good enough for 9.2 yards per clip.
North Dakota State has manhandled its fair share of opponents during its unprecedented run to seven national titles in the last eight seasons. Montana State was making its first playoff appearance since 2014 and its first under Choate. The previous week, MSU had won the first playoff game by a Bobcat team since 2012.
The run came to an abrupt stop against a team that has proved its superiority time and again and again this decade. Yet that whooping left a bitter taste in MSU’s mouth.
“You don’t want to end the season, especially in the playoffs, like that. It was embarrassing,” Montana State senior captain safety Brayden Konkol. “But I think that helped us in the winter program and the summer program. It’s definitely a bitter taste.
“There’s a reason they’ve won seven of the last eight titles. They are super detailed. At every position, they look the part. They are a well-oiled machine. They are super well coached. They have really nice facilities. They just play really physical. They are the standard.”
The embarrassing loss showed Montana State just exactly how far away a 7-4 team that finishes fourth in the Big Sky Conference is from a team that has gone 112-8 since the beginning of the 2011 season.
“That’s the first time since I’ve been here at our level that we’ve played a team THAT good,” MSU senior captain offensive tackle Mitch Brott said. “It’ shows us what we have to be if we want to be at our goal, which is a national champion. It can’t be what it used to be. It has to be a different mindset.”
Montana State navigated a tumultuous 2018, Choate’s third season at the helm. In the summer leading up to the season, quarterback Chris Murray forfeited his junior year because of academic issues. Troy Andersen came out of left field to win the starting quarterback job (he was the Big Sky Freshman of the Year in 2017 as a running back and linebacker), putting his peerless athleticism on full display during a record-breaking individual performance.
Andersen carried MSU to wins over Western Illinois, Portland State, Idaho and Cal Poly with superior offensive performances for an offense that was almost non-existent otherwise. A 24-17 loss at Idaho State pushed Montana State’s collective backs against the wall. At 4-4, the Bobcats needed to win out to stay alive in the postseason picture.
Montana State did just that, exploding offensively in a 49-42 win over Cal Poly, dominating Northern Colorado and coming up with a memorable and, some say, miraculous final play in Missoula to cap a historic, unforgetabble 22-point rally for a 29-25 victory over the Grizzlies.
The win streak reached four with a 35-14 win over Incarnate Word in the first round of the FCS Playoffs. Then the momentum screeched to a halt in the FargoDome
“If we are being honest, it was a wake up call,” Brott said. “It exposed our weaknesses. It was probably the best thing for us, to be honest. Especially the guys up front, even linebackers, guys playing physical positions, now they understand what it takes to compete against a team like that.”
“We didn’t match up very well size-wise anywhere,” added MSU inside linebacker Josh Hill, who snared an interception in his lone appearance in 2018 thanks to recovery from back surgery the previous summer. “And the physicality, those were the two things that were the most noticeable for us. I think that’s pretty motivating going into the off-season. We knew if we wanted to compete, we had to get better across the board at every position to play at a level like that.”
Kassis hauled in an 84-yard bomb and sprinted almost into the end-zone on the first play of the game. An NDSU defender pushed Kassis out of bounds four yards short of pay dirt. Several negligible plays and a false start later, Montana State had to settle for a 24-yard field goal from Tristan Bailey. Four and a half minutes later, Lance Dunn’s first rushing touchdown gave North Dakota State a lead it would never relinquish.
“We are three years into the rebuilding process and last year, playing against North Dakota State, getting exposed, shows us that those guys are the benchmark and what to do in the post-season,” said Kassis, a captain for the second straight season. “That was a good test for us and exposed our weaknesses. That’s what we’ve been addressing and striving for.”
During an interview in May, Choate praised Dunn and fellow workhorse running back Bruce Anderson saying he thought both could play “at the very least in the MAC or Mountain West.” Choate said NDSU’s offensive line would translate into a “very good offensive line at a non-Power 5 program.” He said he thought MSU’s defensive line matched up decently well despite NDSU’s size and depth. Choate also evaluated that he thought his “secondary compared reasonably favorably. Team speed, that’s not what their program was built on.”
Being able to have an up close evaluation of such a dominant program was essential for the keenly observant Choate.
“Seeing the elephant was important to us,” Choate said. “Knowing what we were up against and what we have to do to creep into that upper echelon of FCS football was important. And I think it really doesn’t change a whole lot for what we had as a vision when we first got here.
“We wanted to increase our size across the board, get bigger, stronger and faster. And specifically on the front, on both the offensive and defensive lines. You can get away without being huge on the defensive line but you have to have some twitchy guys. We are close defensive line wise.”
Kassis finished the afternoon with four catches for 93 yards during a contest where Andersen only completed seven passes. The Bobcat rushing attack managed a respectable 177 yards on the ground, including 129 and the lone MSU touchdown by Andersen.
Just as he had all season, Andersen found a way to rip off a huge play despite the unorthodox nature of how he earned carries last season. Andersen scored his 13th touchdown of at least 45 yards with a 51-yard jaunt with 5:47 left in the third quarter.
The Dillon native is back to playing Sam linebacker with spot carries at running back. While preparing himself mentally for the transition — he did not participate during spring practices and was limited during fall camp last month — Andersen said he thought about the loss to NDSU often.
“That game, it was a poor outcome for us, a poor showing but that put things into perspective for us on how hard we have to work and how we have to take things to the next level here,” the unanimous first-team All-Big Sky selection said on August 22. “We just take that mindset into the off-season, into winter conditioning, into our summer program. If you want to be the best, you have to beat the best.”
It’s hard to gage the Bobcats’ progress thus far. The team looks physically imposing and the offensive and defensive lines are littered with talent. Kassis and fellow captain Travis Jonsen return on the perimeter offensively while senior Logan Jones joins sophomore phenom Isaiah Ifanse as the primary tailbacks when Andersen isn’t in the game. Konkol is an NFL prospect as is fellow senior safety Jahque Alleyne.
Montana State opened its season with a lopsided 45-10 loss at FBS Texas Tech in triple digit temperatures in Lubbock last week. Saturday, the Bobcats host No. 12 Southeast Missouri State. “Never Again” remains the rallying cry with the FCS portion of the schedule about to commence.
“We weren’t prepared,” Alleyne, a former Virginia Tech transfer, said. “We thought we were a pretty decent team but clearly we weren’t as decent as we thought.
“Losing that badly in the (playoffs) put a chip on our shoulder. That game will be in the back of our minds every time we step on the field. We refuse to lose like that again.”
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Photos by Brooks Nuanez. All Rights Reserved.
