MISSOULA, Mt. — Consider the boxes checked.
The Great Divide Trophy is returning to Bozeman where it will live for another year after Brent Vigen’s Montana State Bobcats sewed up a third season without a conference loss in the last four years.
Can the Bobcats win in Missoula for the first time since 2018? Check.
Can Justin Lamson settle in when he’s only lived in Montana since last spring? Check. The Stanford transfer completed 90 percent of his passed and rushed for 105 yards aside from the four times he got sacked.
Can Vigen and his charges win in one of the most hostile environments in college football? It didn’t matter that 27,340 passionately rooted on their first 11-0 team in 16 years and just the fourth Griz team to ever reach that many wins in a row to start the season. The Bobcats stole back the momentum every time the Griz found it, stealing the lead back on four different occasions in what will go down as one of the hardest-hitting, most violent and most passionately played rivalry games in the 124-year history of the storied clash between neighbors.
Vigen has done pretty much everything a head coach can do since taking over at Montana State ahead of the 2021 season. He’s won three Big Sky Conference championships, tying Rob Ash (2010-2012) and the late Jim Sweeney (1964, 1966, 1967) for the most in school history. He moved to 57-12 in his career, including 37-3 in Big Sky Conference games. He is now 3-2 against the rival and has the one regular-season win that eluded him: a victory at Washington-Grizzly Stadium.
“To win here is really challenging,” Vigen said. “I think right now, both programs are at a point where we are both chasing a really high mark. And I don’t know if that’s always been the case in the history of this deal, but it certainly is now. You are taking on the 11 guys out on that field but you are having to deal with the 27,000-whatever. You have to be able to separate the two things. You have to be able to make it about the 11 guys on the field. We felt like our mindset was right there. This place can swallow you up and it probably has to us the last few times. But this team prepared differently and I appreciate how we executed.”
Montana State repeatedly seized the momentum back every time Montana seemed to swing it in its favor. The Bobcats’ first drive stalled out in the red zone. The Griz answered with a touchdown to take their first lead. But Montana State scored 10 unanswered as quarterback Lamson’s ability to gash the middle of the Griz defense both on designed QB power runs and on scrambles helped spearhead a rushing attack that saw Montana State rush for 241 yards.
The Griz had a pair of commanding drives, one late in the first half and one to open the second half, that helped the hosts regain the upper hand. When Michael Wortham pounded in a 5-yard rushing touchdown more than nine game minutes after fumbling and recovering the opening kick of the second half, it seemed like the hosts would not relinquish their grip.
Instead, a tipped pass led to a Caden Dowler interception return for a touchdown, the second in as many weeks for the Big Sky Defensive Player of the Year candidate, helped give the momentum right back to the Bobcats. And Missoula native Zac Crews blocking a Montana field goal attempt helped MSU carry it.
“When that final buzzer goes zero and you see the trophy getting paraded around with all your boys, it’s just special. You’re filled with a lot of emotions,” Crews said. “I ran over to see our fans, and you see the emotion in their faces and their eyes. That kind of overwhelms you.”
When Lamson scored on a 23-yard scramble to put MSU up 31-21, Vigen knew his team would be able to salt away the game.
The Griz kept swinging as All-American running back Eli Gillman scored a 52-yard touchdown to cut the lead to three points. But Montana State took over with seven minutes to play and never gave the ball back. Lamson converted a third down with a powerful run that proved pivotal and Julius Davis, who bruised his way to 106 rushing yards, converted a fourth down reminiscent of a play he got stopped on against South Dakota State months earlier that was the final play in MSU’s most recent loss.
This time, Davis converted it, leading to Adam Jones, a fellow Missoula native who prepped at Sentinel with Crews, getting his chance to slam the door. A few kneels facing the south end-zone and the iconic win was complete.
“We talk about the momentum and it was really back and forth today after being one-sided the last four (rivalry) games, so for us to take it and for them to get it back and back and forth, we still had the lead when they cut it to three but they still had the momentum,” Vigen said. “And our guys went out there and we really functioned well today as an offense with the noise. We were prepared. Our guys had complete confidence to come here and operate. In our biggest moment, there was no doubt in our minds.”
The reigning Eddie Robinson Award winner as the national coach of the year helped his football team navigate a string of three straight losses after rolling to 15 straight victories a year ago. The Tommy Mellott era came to a heartbreaking halt when MSU no-showed in the first half of the FCS title game against North Dakota State. Vigen’s Bobcats rallied over the final 40 minutes of action, eventually taking his alma mater down to the wire before losing 35-32.
A win in last year’s title game and the 2024 Bobcats would be considered the greatest team in school history and in the argument for one of the best in the history of the league. Both those things are still probably true, but that narrow loss to the juggernaut Bison lingered throughout the off-season. And MSU did not get a chance to wash the bad taste out of its collective mouths until the third week of 2025.
Montana State began this season with a 59-13 loss at Oregon, the preseason No. 6 team in the FBS. The following week, the Bobcats lost a throwdown to No. 2 South Dakota State, falling in double overtime 30-24 in the first regular-season home loss of the Vigen era.
A few weeks later, the Bobcats sputtered through a 17-0 win over Mercyhurst in which MSU wouldn’t get anything going on offense. But you could see flashes of how dominant the Bobcat defense would become.
The following week, Montana State whipped Eastern Washington, winning 57-3, marking the largest margin of victory over a Big Sky opponent in MSU’s 63 seasons in the conference. That became the norm as MSU won its conference games by an average margin of over 30 points per contest.
Still, many wondered if Vigen and his troops could come into the belly of the beast and go blow for blow with Hauck’s latest version of a team that picks up steam as the wins pile up. It’s become a “Bobby Ball” specialty to become nearly unbeatable, particularly at home. And the way the Bobcats unraveled in each of their last two trips to Missoula before Saturday, it was easy to see why many around the Treasure State favored the Griz despite MSU’s dominance over its previous eight outings.
Yet this Bobcat team stood stall. And when their towering head coach had his first rivalry win to silence most of the record-setting crowd, he ran over the stands to find his wife, Molly. A quick kiss preceded an impassioned post-game speech while Vigen held the Big Sky Conference football trophy as his players burst into celebration again.
The Bobcats earned the No. 2 seed in this year’s FCS playoffs. They will not have to leave Bozeman until they head to Nashville, if they get to that point. And all that was on the line — an outright Big Sky title, homefield advantage in the playoffs, bragging rights, the Missoula monkey on Vigen’s back being thrown off resoundingly — was secured with Montana State’s steady, tough-minded effort to give MSU its seventh rivalry win in the last nine.
And it leaves just two boxes left to check for Vigen. One is to beat North Dakota State in the postseason. The other is the win the national championship. Following Sunday’s selection show, the Bison are the No. 1 seed and the Bobcats are No. 2. So Vigen might get a chance to check them both if the two meet in the national title game for the third time since 2021.
“You learn through the hard times, and we’ve had a couple hard times over here,” Vigen said after the game. “We hoped to flip the script and we did today.”
PHOTOS BY JASON BACAJ, BROOKS NUANEZ & BLAKE HEMPSTEAD
