I was scrolling on Instagram in seat 12A departing from Nashville when I was reading comments on another Montana State Bobcats Football post. You couldn’t wipe the smile off my face, still buzzing off the Cats’ first national championship since 1984 the night before.

Suddenly I was back in 2019. Trying to come up with a caption for a hype video I just made. I thought of the gold standard of FCS football accounts at that time, and how we could catch up to them. Continuously posting creative ways to maximize our engagement and following. A benchmark analytic I found while writing this showed that in August of 2019, @msubobcatsfb had 8,625 Instagram followers.  

So right before taking off, I checked. North Dakota State has had everybody beat for forever in every category: national championships, NFL talent, stadium attendance, AND social media followers. And we knew it too after running into them time and time again in the postseason. 

• 2018 second round loss
• 2019 semifinal loss (Cats first semifinal since ‘84)
• 2021 national championship loss (my final game filming as a student)
• 2023 second round loss
• 2024 national championship loss

Setting aside the Jackson State caveat due to the Coach Prime Effect, the Cats had been competing against the Dakota State schools, JMU, and a herd of northeast programs for most of social media’s existence. But less than 24 hours after the Bobcats pulled off their dramatic overtime victory in Vanderbilt’s stadium, my refreshed phone screen said Montana State had surpassed NDSU’s Instagram follower count at 61,000. 

Does that even mean anything? Honestly, not really. You can’t exactly make the argument that teams win games because they have the sweetest graphics or most viral recap videos. Or say that a program is more prestigious based on their elite Facebook analytics. Except for this one word that comes to mind: momentum. 

Three days after moving into my South Hedges dorm freshman year in 2017, I crafted an email to Garrett Becker, MSU’s Director of Creative Services, asking about an opportunity to shoot video or photos for Bobcat Football. Social media had taken off several years ago, Facebook gaining popularity in the mid-late 2000s, Twitter launching in 2007, and Instagram in 2010. But at this point and time, content being posted to social platforms really began to become an opportunity for teams to establish their presence in an online format. 

FCS schools, of course, will not always be able to compete on the turf against the Oregons and Texas Techs of the world, but the level playing field is found on social media. Everybody has a chance to be seen. A big reason there are so many Dallas Cowboys fans across the country, and even still today, is because in the 70s and 90s they dominated the NFL. Meaning they also dominated the newspapers, TV ratings, and kitchen table conversations. When winners win, they get the spotlight. Champions earn attention that demands respect, which in turn, is passed down generationally. 

You won’t always find Big Sky football games filling the weekend ABC primetime slot, which is why social media is all the more important. The beautiful thing about sports is that anything can happen on any given day. And those who are there to witness it and capture it should always capitalize on their moment, because documenting moments is documenting history. 

Freshman year me didn’t have that philosophy fully fleshed out yet, but I got to work. Holding lights, charging batteries, and filming an angle to be used only if everybody else somehow missed the shot (GTS: always get the shot). I had to earn and work my way up to a primary shooter. But this is not a story about young Dawson earning his stripes. Rather it is about the responsibility entrusted to the man who holds the camera. 

My good friend Jack Murray, MSU alum and current Assistant AD of Brand Advancement at U of Washington Athletics, recalled a 2015 Bobcat Football game in which Drummond, MT native Mac Bignell obliterated a running back in the open field. The play happened right in front of his Panasonic camcorder. He uploaded the monster hit to Twitter, and woke up the next morning with hundreds of retweets and favorites. A moment that spoke value in capturing the occasion effectively. 

My time at MSU had many moments just like that. It was unique, in my opinion, because year after year the Cats got better. And I had a front row seat… literally. 

Sophomore year in Missoula with 14 seconds left on the clock, I ditched my long lens for a shorter one and sprinted 120 yards to the endzone where Tucker Yates, Chase Benson, Grant Collins, and Derek Marks made one of the greatest plays in Bobcat Football history. My lens was zooming out, zooming in, then back out again, I couldn’t believe what had just happened. 

An assignment from FILM 371, a junior year documentary production class, had me thinking, “I’m nowhere qualified to make a documentary about the most dramatic Cat/Griz game in 118 years.” But if I didn’t take the chance to tell the story of that game, then somebody else would. 

The class project stood no chance at staying under the required seven minute time limit. We raised $18,000 in under 72 hours which went directly into funding film costs. Who knew an original music score cost so much? Safe to say Bobcat Nation wanted to see this story get told. Months later, 500 people were chanting those famous words to the sound of Mony Mony as credits rolled in a packed Emerson theater in Bozeman.

Fall of 2019, the Cats crushed the Griz definitively by a score of 48-14, claiming their fourth consecutive Brawl of the Wild win. MSU’s first time accomplishing a four-peat in 44 years (1972-75). I remember wrinkled Bobcat fans coming to the football facility after that game thanking the coaching staff for routing Montana so badly. A margin of victory their eyes had not seen since young men.

This momentum I’m writing about can also be found in the line of video creatives from Montana State. Where would I be without trailblazers before me? Conner Firstman was creating game trailers and hype videos as a student back in 2010. He loved Bobcat athletics and that passion showed in his videos. Conner lost his battle with cancer in 2014, and a scholarship was established in his name that I was blessed to receive. Guys like Johnny Randazzo, Brian Morse, Jack Murrey, and Garrett Becker showed me how to be dedicated to a craft and to care for it. To give anything less than my best is a disservice to the program and to those who poured into me. 

Through many games that I filmed from the sidelines I learned the importance in capturing a great shot. It sounds simple, but for a multitude of reasons. For one, the immediate response is that all of a fanbase will want to rewatch that highlight and share it. Two, when archived properly, that shot lives on for the rest of time. It became part of my shooting philosophy that when I record this goalline stand, or game winning PAT, I want whoever is digging through the archives 10, 20, 30, 41 years from now to say, “Man, this guy got the shot.” 

It felt like a storybook ending to my time as a student filming for the Bobcats. A shot at the national championship to end the 2021 season, an opportunity to beat the Bison, and we didn’t even have to go to Fargo! But part of the job is to also tell the story when coming up short. An emotional Tucker Rovig walking off the field, tears in his eyes, savoring one last Bobcat applause. Ty Okada consoling Daniel Hardy lingering on the hashmarks. And there’s proof of that pain. Because the story does not stop when the clock hits zero. 

It’s hard to measure creative value. Impossible really. But places that value it, give opportunities to document history. Louisiana State University Athletics gave me one of those opportunities after graduation where I got to spend two and a half years filming and telling stories about Paul Skenes, Dylan Crews, Tommy White, Jayden Daniels, Will Campbell, and Seimone Augustus among other LSU greats in Baton Rouge.

Athletics are the front porch to a university. Teams generate unexplainable exposure that often gives a person their impression—or lifelong fandom—of an institution. When those teams are rolling, the cameras must also roll. History doesn’t preserve itself. This can be argued for any type of medium; radio, photography, writing, print, or even word of mouth. Wins and losses demand creative interpretation, or else history collapses into a box score.

I’m proud of the way my alma mater has continued to do that. The exponential growth in an online presence, the intentional storytelling projects that engage an audience, and keeping in mind the fans who make this whole thing go around. Followers, analytics, and fandom don’t just happen. It’s laid out, brick by brick pairing team success with creative intention because momentum lasts when memories are built. 

Since winning their last title in 1984, the Bobcats have had to endure numerous coaching changes due to their miserable on field performance, illness, and classroom performance.

After Monday, those things are a distant memory buried in the elation of perhaps the most exhilarating victory in FCS, if not all of college football, history. The Bobcats hopes of exorcising what had pained them for so long looked all but lost Monday night in Nashville. When Illinois State set up to kick a 38-yard field goal that would give the Redbirds the lead with under a minute to play and with MSU struggling mightily to move the ball, the feelings of despair were creeping back into the souls of the nearly 20,000 Montanans in the stadium.

Like everyone, I had given a lot of thought to what would happen that night. I poured through all the stats looking for an edge, wrote five stories and rarely had my mind off the game. It was promising for the Bobcats. They had edges all over the field. It seemed destined.

January 5, 1949 – I had been thinking about other things going into the game as well. Like my late sister Suzy, who was born, coincidentally, on the same date of the 2025 FCS title game. The second of my parents’ six children, Suzy would marry right out of high school and have two wonderful children. They were my first niece and nephew. Suzy would travel the country working in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Phoenix and New York City before settling into her favorite place – Chicago.  She passed away from cancer in 2007 at the age of 58 years and 10 months.

I went out to visit her twice after she had become sick. I brought her a Montana State stocking cap the week the Bobcats were at Northern Arizona, who they had lost to in Flagstaff 12 straight times. She loved it and wore it running on cold days. I was so proud of that, not to mention that MSU surprisingly and convincingly beat the Lumberjacks that night, 60-14. When she passed away with my other two sisters – Mary and Teresa – by her side, she gave the stocking cap to Mary, and it carries on.

Normal, Illinois is about 100 miles from Chicago and two of the top players on the team – quarterback Tommy Rittenhouse and wide receiver Daniel Sobkowicz – grew up on the west side of Chicago. It washed across my mind a couple times that maybe she would be okay with it if Illinois State won.

April 1, 1925 (4-1-1925) – A total of 100 years before MSU would snap its 41-year losing streak, my mother was born in St. Paul, Minnesota on April Fool’s Day – that’s 4-1, kind of like the “41” the Bobcats have made their legacy number.  She would write letters to my father during WWII and when he returned from the War, he swept her off her feet and away from the hustle and bustle of the Twin Cities to his family’s homestead in desolate northeastern Montana to the town of Thoeny, named after his mother’s side of the family.

She would have six children with yours truly being the last. She named me after her favorite doll she had while growing up. It was supposed to be the name of her first son, but her sister had a boy about the same time and named him Tom, so she had to hold off. She loved sports and that’s how I became an avid Minnesota Vikings and Twins fan. We moved to Helena when I was 10 years old and I would insist on going with her to the public library almost daily after she told me they had newspapers from all over the country there. I especially loved box scores and knowing the Billings Gazette, Great Falls Tribune, Pioneer Press (St. Paul) and Minneapolis Tribune were on the racks every day, I looked forward to going. A sports nerd was born.

When we lived in Hinsdale, she nailed two boxes up on either side of a large spare room that used to be a café. She cut holes in the bottom of the boxes, and they became makeshift basketball hoops.  She played games of one-on-one and HORSE with me for as long as I wanted.  She painted larger than life sized pictures of then Vikings’ quarterback Gary Cuozzo and Twins slugger, and her favorite player, Tony Oliva to hang in my bedroom. She loved Tony-O for making the sign of the cross before he’d step into the batter’s box.

The first baseball game I’d ever been to was in the summer of 1970, and I wouldn’t go to another until 1984. My mom took me to the railing in the hope of getting Tony-O’s autograph. Just as he was getting close, we were thwarted as it was time for him to go back to the club house. She yelled, “Hey Tony-O!” as he trotted away. He turned and yelled, “Hey!”

Tony-O had just said “hey!” to my mom! That was better than an autograph, I was certain.

April 1, 1984 (4-1-1984) – Nine months before MSU would win the ‘84 national title and 41 years before its most recent title, my mom was struck by a car while walking down the street. She would die later in the hospital on the same day she was born – 59-years-old to the day. The driver was never located. I was 22 years old. I was absolutely crushed when I got the news from my best friend.

January 5, 2026 – Sitting in the press box at FirstBank Stadium in Nashville as time wound down and the Redbirds methodically moved the ball closer and closer to field goal range, the memories of my mom and sister were right there, albeit briefly, because just then I could hear them.

“You’re just fooling yourself, Tom,” I thought they’d be saying to me while laughing shamefully at me. “We have more important things to do besides grant some kind of intervention – divine or otherwise – to help a football team.”

MSU cornerback Jhase McMillan blocks the go-ahead field goal; Seth Johnson scoops it up and MSU is about to get into field goal range and win. Until it didn’t. Hunter Parsons then blocks the ISU extra point, leaving room for MSU to simply score and win the game with the point after touchdown. Julius Davis blew through the Redbird’ defense for 11 yards and then another three and it’s second-and-seven from the 11-yard line. It’s happening.

False start. Second-and-12.

Two-yard gain. Third-and-10.

Incomplete pass. Fourth-and-10.

The incomplete pass was to a wide open Jabez Woods, yet it was still catchable and would’ve given the Bobcats a first down. It seemed the best chance MSU had to score since the third quarter and it sure didn’t seem likely they’d get another one like that. McMillan’s and Parsons’s blocks appeared to have made it inevitable that the Bobcats were going to win this game somehow after it seemed all but lost. MSU’s bag of tricks must be empty now. It’s not happening.

The Redbirds’ blitz came and the ball left Bobcat’ quarterback Justin Lamson’s hand seemingly in desperation. It would either flutter to the ground or sail far out of bounds.

Until it wouldn’t.

The ball was caught. It was in the end zone in the hands MSU’s Taco Dowler. The extra point by Myles Sansted was good. It happened and the 41-year drought that started in 1984 was over.

I wasn’t born in Montana, but I got here as fast as I could.

So say many of the transplants who have identified this great state’s natural beauty and distinctive culture and have chosen to make it our home. Yet most of us transplants realize that there is something special about being born and raised here that cannot be replicated.  Outsiders and insiders blend together to make this state what it is. But there remains something unique about having roots in Montana.

What is true of the state in general is true of the football teams as well. Montana State and Montana field teams that are composed of both in-state and out-of-state players. Only a fool would dismiss the immense value of players who have come here from other locales. If you need a reminder, consider that Keali’i Ah Yat (Hawaii), Michael Wortham (California), and Eli Gillman were making Bobcat fans sweat in their own house in the third quarter during the 125th rivalry matchup on December 20 in Bozeman.

And all of Bobcat Nation would readily tell you how important (and appreciated) players like Justin Lamson (California), Julius Davis (Wisconsin), Titan Fleischmann (Idaho), and Carson Williams (Texas) are, among several others. In a recent Skyline Sports podcast episode, Colter Nuanez interviewed former MSU offensive lineman J.P. Flynn, who played his high school ball in Iowa. The passion for the Bobcats could not have been more obvious– Flynn made me want to run through a wall and tackle something maroon.

But there is a reason that the legacy numbers, 41 and 37 respectively, reside with in-state players. There is and always will be something critical about fielding great talent from the great state of Montana. During the UM’s run of dominance in the late 1980s through the early 2000s, they tended to attract the best in-state talent and it showed. But more recently, that edge has shifted to Montana State and the discrepancy could not have been on fuller display in the Rivalry 2.0.

Missoula native Adam Jones continued his recent torrid pace, racking up 131 yards on 16 carries, including 2 touchdowns that helped Montana State race to a 20-3 lead. The redshirt sophomore has been everything that the Cats need him to be in the playoffs. Speaking of Missoula natives, Zac Crews got the party started early, teleporting into the UM backfield to sack Ah Yat in the first quarter. He was outpaced in the TFL category by a Bozeman native son Kenneth Eiden IV getting stops behind the line of scrimmage on two different occasions.

In the fourth quarter, as the Cats were looking to put the game on ice, it was impossible not to notice Billings and Red Lodge products, Braden Zimmer and Burke Mastel, caving in the Grizzly defensive line for a long run. On the other side of the ball, another Billings native, Paul Brott battled through injury all night and over the last half of the season in order to limit the UM rushing attack, proudly wearing No. 41 while serving as a team captain in his All-American final season in Bozeman.

Meanwhile, Great Falls’ own Cole Taylor led the team in tackles, Caden Dowler (Billings) was conspicuous in his unfortunate absence, and Colter Petre (Helena) did an admirable job in relief.

The list could go on. But two plays rise above all the rest and will long define this game for Bobcat and Grizzly fans alike.

With 12 minutes to go in the game, UM was down 11 but there was no quit in them. Their defense had MSU backed up in a 3rd and 20 at the Griz own 13-yard line, looking primed to get the ball back and make things interesting. But Justin Lamson was able to break contain, roll to his right, and loft a ball that has already become a central piece of Bobcat lore. The Magic City’s own Taco Dowler snatched the ball over the middle of the field, evaded a tackler, and took it 87 yards to the house, causing Bobcat Stadium to erupt in celebration.

A few Griz possessions later, another Montana-born player made his presence known. Bryce Grebe of Melstone intercepted Ah Yat and returned it 40 yards to put the contest beyond doubt.

In the space of roughly five minutes of gametime, a representative of the biggest town in Montana and one of its smallest made plays that will reverberate in the history of this game for decades. In doing so, they underscored the importance of Montana-made players to the greatest rivalry in the West.

Nothing in football remains the same forever. But for the moment, Montana State holds the decisive edge in in-state talent. It’s no coincidence that they also hold the edge on the field.

The first time he experienced it was as an assistant at his alma mater 14 years ago. The win affirmed that North Dakota State did indeed belong in Division I. When Vigen experienced a semifinal win in his first season as Montana State’s head coach in 2021, the moment was a breakthrough, helping the Bobcats reach heights unseen in the previous 37 years. And when MSU did it last season, it was almost a relief because the ‘Cats had been on such an epic run and harbored such high hopes because of the prowess of their historical roster. 

NDSU turned its 2011 semifinal win into the first of three straight national titles. The Bison won nine of the next 10. Affirming, alright.

Montana State ran into those Bison in the national title game in 2021 and 2024 as Vigen suffered gut-wrenching losses to his alma mater twice in his first four seasons as a head coach.

This past Saturday in Bozeman was a picturesque afternoon that saw bedlam descend upon Bobcat Stadium. The bleachers were packed with more blue and gold bedecked fans than have ever watched a football game in the Gallatin Valley since an MSU player first picked up the pigskin in 1897. And that 22,277 saw Vigen lead Montana State to a win that felt neither like a breakthrough nor an upset-avoiding relief.

Instead, Montana State’s electric fourth-quarter blitz helped the Bobcats turn a 23-20 deficit into a 48-23 runaway. And it felt triumphant. The Bobcats are officially the kings of the Treasure State. 

Not just for a day or an off-season like in several of the Jeff Choate-led Grizzly slayings. And not like when MSU snapped the nightmarish streak of 16 straight losses to Montana when they won in Missoula way back in 2002.

No, Saturday was different. It marked Vigen’s 11th as Montana State’s head coach, nearly half of the 23 post-season victories MSU has all-time.. As the sun set Saturday afternoon on the Gallatin Valley and on the Montana Grizzlies’ season, the incredibly partisan crowd celebrated joyously and boisterously, but also like they expected the victory. And why not? Their Bobcats had just won in Missoula 28 days earlier, getting the Washington-Grizzly Stadium proverbial monkey off Brent Vigen’s back. 

 Montana put Bobcat Stadium on edge for a brief moment on Saturday, only for Montana State’s steely quarterback Justin Lamson and electrifying receiver Taco Dowler to put the Grizzlies right back into the place they currently occupy: the corner little brother has to sit in at the kid’s table.

“They’ve (the semifinal wins) have all been very, very special,” Vigen said after his 60^th win in 72 games leading Montana State. “I don’t know if this is any more special, or anything like that. But we’ve come a long way with this team.

“Thinking about being in here (the Bobcat Athletic Complex) in mid-January with a lot of empty seats. A lot of new people needed to emerge. That’s the thing this team does: it brings you so much joy as a coach because so many guys have stepped into new roles and taken it upon themselves to become the best version of themselves.

“All these teams are special, all these opportunities are special. And today is the most recent and the fact that we have three to compare is a pretty sweet deal. And we aren’t done yet.”

The first time came in 2011, when North Dakota State defeated No. 3 Georgia Southern 35-7 in the semifinals to advance to Frisco. It was proof that, after transitioning up from Division II ahead of the 2004 season, NDSU belonged. Vigen, an NDSU alum, had been on the staff for his alma mater since 1998 and had been Craig Bohl’s offensive coordinator since 2009. The following week, North Dakota State won its first of three straight national titles, beating No. 1 Sam Houston State 17-6.

Vigen set the tone for his first playoff run in his first season as a head coach by playing a first-time starter who also happened to be a freshman. Following a 29-10 loss in Missoula, Vigen benched Matt McKay, his starting quarterback, in favor of Tommy Mellott, a Butte native who had spent most of his freshman season as a gadget weapon and a special teamer. Mellott, of course, led Montana State to three straight playoff wins, including an upset as the No. 8 seed over No. 1 Sam Houston in Huntsville, Texas in which Mellott threw, ran in and caught a touchdown in the first quarter alone. 

The following week, he morphed into Super Man, throwing for 233 yards and running for 155 yards, totalling four touchdowns as MSU raced past South Dakota State 31-17 and into the FCS title game for the first time since 1984. 

That win had grown men crying in the middle of Bobcat Stadium. You could almost feel the collective exhale from the fan base as a whole. The ‘Cats had bounced back from a loss to the Griz to get to the brink of a national title. 

Vigen’s second semifinal win as a head coach came with a sigh of relief. The Bobcats were in the midst of the greatest start to a season in the program’s proud history. Never before had an MSU team won more than 10 games in a row in a single season. Montana State’s 31-17 win over No. 4 South Dakota helped make it 15 in a row last fall, a Big Sky Conference record. Many wondered if 2024 would be the year MSU snapped its 40-year national championship drought.

Of course, 2021 and 2024 both came to a crashing halt. In 2021, Mellott suffered a lower leg injury in the first quarter and North Dakota State pounded the Bobcats, rolling to a 38-10 win and its ninth national title in the previous 10 seasons. MSU had to say goodbye to one of the most decorated and winning senior classes in history, a group spearheaded by All-American linebacker Troy Andersen, whirling dervish defensive end Daniel Hardy and fearless and unbreakable nickelback Ty Okada. All three still play in the NFL.

In 2024, another decorated Montana State senior class carried a plethora of wins — this time a 15-0 mark — into the national title game, only to fall flat in the first 20 minutes before coming up just short in a 35-32 loss to…you guessed it, North Dakota State.

That disappointment triggered a mass exodus. All-Americans offensive lineman Conner Moore (Michigan State), running back Scottre Humphrey (New Mexico) and tight end Rohan Jones (Arkansas) hit the transfer portal for lucrative NIL deals. Cornerback Andrew Powdrell (UNLV), a second-team all-conference selection, also went searching for greener pastures, as did starters wide receiver Lonyatta Alexander (Idaho), cornerback Jon Johnson (New Mexico) and safety Dru Polidore (Cal).

Walter Payton Award winner Mellott and Big Sky Defensive Player of the Year Brody Grebe graduated, as did first-team all-conference seniors offensive lineman Marcus Wehr, linebacker McCade O’Reilly and safety Rylan Ortt. Second-team all-conference players like offensive lineman Cole Sain, captain inside linebacker Danny Uluilakepa and punter Brendan Hall, plus starters cornerback Simeon Woodard, nickelback Miles Jackson and wide receiver Ty McCullouch all exhausted their eligibility.

To make matters more complicated, Vigen had to figure out how to replace both his coordinators after OC Tyler Walker (and offensive line coach Al Johnson) went to Temple while defensive coordinator Bobby Daly went to UTEP. Vigen also had to replace wide receivers coach Justin Udy, who doubled as the special teams coordinator, when Udy bounced for Boise State.

None of it mattered. The Bobcats took just a handful of transfers — quarterback Justin Lamson (Stanford) and wide receiver Chris Long (Rutgers) were the only transfers who started for MSU Saturday against the Griz — yet still captured a third Big Sky championship in four seasons. The roster featured just nine seniors.

“We had to figure it out. It wasn’t like we were going to take off in January and have one group or another not become what they need to become,” Vigen said. “I think generally, it’s two-fold. Our group of new leaders really took it upon ourselves to take on that new role. That’s not just our captains. That’s 15 to 20 guys who really have led us.

“And we also have a youthful group MSU that maybe still haven’t figured it out. But they’ve figured out a lot of things. Our leadership and our youth both rising up to the challenge we set back in January, it’s a really cool deal that has come together.”

Perhaps Montana State’s depth and chemistry was best on display Saturday when Caden Dowler, this season’s Big Sky Defensive Player of the Year, went down with a shoulder injury only to see Colter Petre, a former walk-on from Helena High, more than hold his own. And while Dowler, a captain as a junior, gritted his teeth in pain on the sideline, his superstar twin brother Taco helped Montana State explode to a victory thanks in large part to an iconic 87-yard touchdown that Vigen said is one of the greatest plays in Montana State football history.

“These two brothers are something, and the fact that for 14 games-plus, they’ve both been able to operate at a high clip, that’s been really special,” Vigen said. “I know they’ve had moments where one of them has been out there and the other hasn’t and that happened again today.”

This is the first time the Treasure State’s fiercest rivals played in the post-season in the 128-year history of the rivalry.So, inevitably, despite Montana’s 13-2 record, the fallout for the Grizzlies will be profound. Big picture questions arise on both sides of the Great Divide after Montana State won for the 8th time in the last 10 against the Grizzlies. 

What does it mean for Montana State to be able to graduate Mellott, Brody Grebe and a star-studded roster laden with two dozen seniors, then start the 2025 season 0-2 and still be headed to the national title game while Montana — which started 11-0 for just the fourth time in school history — is sitting at home? The Griz are left wondering just how the Bobcats have so conclusively gained the upper hand in a rivalry the Griz dominated so thoroughly for the first three decades of the schools’ Division I-AA eras beginning in 1978. 

Montana State’s 25-point win gives MSU four straight victories over UM in Bozeman by an average of 29 points per. The Bobcats have now won eight of 10 over the Grizzlies after beating them twice in the span of 28 days, following a season-ending and playoff-seed-determining 31-28 win in Missoula on November 22 that ensured Saturday’s “Super Brawl” would be in Bozeman.

It’s certainly caused for reflection on both sides.

“They’ve done a really good job,” Hauck said, referring to Montana State football. “We’ve been behind in some of the NIL and that stuff, but we are now level, I believe, moving forward. They’ve done a really good job.

“The bar was set in this conference by us. There’s been a desperate urgency at this place (MSU) to catch up. And certainly they have. We talk about it a lot. I talk to (MSU athletic director) Leon (Costello), talk to Brent (Vigen), and everybody is looking at the two of us. We have good football programs. We have good players, we have good coaches. It’s highly competitive, whether it’s recruiting or on the field.

“Competition is good. That’s why you do this. It’s highly and wildly competitive. My impression is the wrong team won today. But that’s 50 percent of the state, not the other 50.”

Vigen is now 4-2 against Montana. The Bobcats are 13-11 against the Griz since the streak snapped in 2002. Since the two teams joined the Big Sky Conference, Montana holds a slight 33-32 edge over MSU.

Since 2010, Montana State has claimed six Big Sky Conference championships. Montana has won one. The Bobcats have been to the semifinals of the FCS Playoffs five times since 2019. Montana has been twice since 2009. The Bobcats are playing in the title game for the third time in five seasons with Vigen at the helm.

“The all-around piece is how it is,” Vigen said. “It’s something that we are about every day of the year probably in some facet. You have your game week in November. That’s about that game. But being able to recruit this state and get the best and brightest to come to Bozeman is the most important thing.

“There’s a long list of guys we have been very fortunate to bring to Bozeman. That’s where it’s an every day deal. If you don’t realize that, you are a little off. I knew Day 1, that was going to be a priority. We’ve worked really hard at that. And guys have had really good experiences … It keeps adding on to itself.

“Can’t say about the young men from this state that are on our football team and the impact that they’ve made.”

Saturday at Bobcat Stadium was triumphant for Vigen and the Bobcat faithful. There’s no doubt who has the upper hand in the rivalry since Montana State moved on from Rob Ash following the 2015 season, which also marks the last time the Griz won in Bozeman.

But for the semifinal victory to become a true seismic shift…for MSU’s consistent domination of Montana over the last decade to have a final sledgehammer of assertion behind it… Montana State must defeat Illinois State and win its first national title in 41 years when it plays the Redbirds in Nashville, Tennessee on January 5.

And Brent Vigen knows it.

“This has happened three times, we have hosted a semifinal, we have won each of them but you can’t take these moments for granted,” Vigen said. “You want to take them all in. As a coach, you want to think ahead. I know that game (Illinois State’s 30-14 win over Villanova) is already on and I know at the same time, we have two weeks to prepare.

“We have been through this transition. I want guys to do everything we can to finish the job the way we intend to. We aren’t finished yet.”

The stairway leading up to Row 34, Seat 13 in Section 118 at the very top of Bobcats Stadium is a narrow and particularly treacherous set of stairs, especially after snow and ice clad the stadium the day before. But as I stood on the third or fourth stair and turned back over my shoulder to watch Keali’l Ah Yat bounce in the pocket and find Jake Olsen for a 1-yard touchdown, those stairs might as well have been a golden escalator. There was nothing that could endanger me now. The ice and snow were no match for my maroon and silver AirMax 1 86s.

Hell, I didn’t even need shoes because I felt as if I had sprouted wings and ascended above those stairs, up, up, up above more Bobcats fans than I could possibly imagine packed into every nook and cranny of that stadium. Just a fucking ocean of these bastards and I floated past every one of them, their faces twisted by paralyzing fear, their EAT SHIT GRIZZLIES voices muted by another Griz drive that tranquilized the delirium a 20-3 lead filled their Blue-and-Gold hearts with.

Then my little flirtation with glory crashed to a sudden halt. Shattered. Destroyed. Dead.

What the fuck just happened?!

In that ascent up the stairs, I was again certain that Montana’s sophomore star QB had delivered another moment in his growing legend. But this one was bigger than any other because what I thought he had just done was toss a TD that accelerated the momentum Montana had built over the last hour of real time and thrust that momentum ahead of the Cats to restore the Griz into their rightful place as the best football program in Montana. It was going to smash these Bobcat hearts into a million pieces.

But it turned out to be the motivation Montana State needed to avalanche the Griz in the most gut-wrenching loss I’ve ever known. 

WHAT THE FUCK JUST HAPPENED!?!?

My short-lived flirtation with ecstasy might sound hyperbolic. If you’re a Cats fan reading this, yeah, sure, you can believe it’s just a jumbled, maniacal and biased spin on the most glorious day your program has ever known. Fair, I’ll concede that.

But six hours after my journey up those stairs in the sea of suddenly soul-searching Cats, I was left only with an endless loop of memories of Montana State’s disturbingly dominant comeback. They just twirled by one after another as if Don Draper was at the controls of my mind, clicking through one snapshot after another like a twisted carnival worker trapping me in a House of Horrors:

Justin Lamson escaping the pocket…

…Taco Dowler makes the catch. 3rd and 20 is now 1st and 10. Fuck…

Oh, it’s not over. Boyd and Lawler collide, collapse to the turf… Dowler sprints to the end zone for an 87-yard touchdown…

Stop it, Don, you sick fuck. Shut the carousel off…

The Griz were just ahead. Now it’s 34-23 Cats. Bobcat fans all around me in a state of Griz-hating euphoria…

Ah Yat sacked. Gillman dropped pass. Lamson touchdown. 41-23. Mother fu…

Ah Yat intercepted. Grebe evading tacklers into the end zone. It’s the other Grebe?! 48-23 Cats…

EAT SHIT GRIZZLIES!!!! GO CATS GO!!!! EAT SHIT GRIZZLIES!!!!! GO CATS GO!!!!

And then it stops. It’s over. It’s all over. 

The faces I drifted by had fear written on them, and for good reason. Had Montana won – especially in that fashion – it would have invalidated everything Montana State thought they were becoming and overcoming. They were on the precipice of taking hold of the control Montana once had over the state — literally curling their Cat-pawing fingers around it after Adam Jones’ long 2nd quarter TD run put them up 17.

A few years ago under Jeff Choate, Montana State became bona fide Griz slayers, winning four straight over Montana. Overpowering and embarrassing the Griz. Turning insurmountable halftime deficits in Missoula into a comeback-celebrating documentary. That was good and all, and Cats fans were happy to look West, press play on “Mony Mony” ad nauseum and tell the Griz the tide was really turning. But how tangible was it? Montana State wasn’t really stacking wins against anybody else of consequence. Momentum was building, but that can be fleeting. You need something to actually realize it.

In the Vigen years, they started to. They went to a national championship in ‘22, the first time in 38 years. They lost. They absolutely steamrolled the Griz in Bozeman every chance they got.  They went back to the championship in ‘24. Another loss. ESPN GameDay came to Bozeman and showcased the Yellowstonification of their town and program. They were the next cool thing. They were partying like it was 1984. Their university was expanding. Their president was turning everything to (blue and) gold.

Despite all of this, they still needed validation. Something that was in their hearts — and living very strongly in the Grizzlies’ nightmares — but could actually be realized. Four weeks ago, they went into Missoula and beat the Griz in what was then the biggest game in the rivalry’s history. It set up another meeting between the two in the most anticipated sporting event the state has ever known.

This time it’d be in Bozeman. Right there in the Litter Box that was having its Cinderella moment beamed to a national audience on ABC. Its new-ish South end zone and its flanking grandstands packed to the fucking gills with Cats. So full you could literally feel the structure sway anytime a Cat found his way to the end zone. Its giant scoreboard gleaming bright in front of the Cats’ new athletic complex as the strong winds rolled in and dusted the snow off their indoor practice facility — the one any Cat’ll use to remind every Griz fan that it isn’t an impermanent bubble. Every structural reminder that the Cats had erased the gap between them and the Griz was playing its part. Jesus Christ, it was the shimmering stage the Cats had longed to bludgeon the Grizzlies on. For most of the first half they did. 

And that’s why Ah Yat’s touchdown pass seemed so important. 

The Grizzlies seemed dead during that disastrous start. Montana State ran right over top of them. Overpowering them in a fashion so particularly upsetting to Griz faithful because it’s what we used to do. It felt like a calculated personal attack.

Text threads lit with up with doom: “we’re fucked” … “this is going to be an ass kicking” … “it’s over”. I Googled how to cancel my flight to Nashville when Jones went untouched for the 20-3 lead. For all intents and purposes it looked like the Cats were going to embarrass the Griz in Bozeman for the fourth straight time with Bobby Hauck as coach. Then they were going to Nashville to win a national championship and validate everything that had been building in Bozeman for the last decade. 

And that’s why I thought that little one-yard pass felt like a 10,000 pound sledgehammer. I thought it was going to obliterate everything the Bobcats thought they were becoming. If Montana could go into Bobcats Stadium with the will of the universe bending toward Bozeman the way it had, erase that lead and leave victorious, it was then likely to march to Nashville and capture its own national championship, its first since 2001. What an absolutely soul-crushing loss that would be for the Cats. Inches away from resting the crown softly on their furry little heads. Having beaten Montana in Missoula 28 days earlier, only to be batted aside by their most hated rival that had been wobbling along like a battered boxer for the better part of the last 15 years.

The Griz had fallen far in those years. They were the subject of book detailing the horrors of a rape perpetrated by a homegrown former football player. It was titled after the Grizzlies’ city and its effects were so institutionally devastating that their program had to be reset and their university enrollment fell off a cliff. Looking for refuge anywhere it might come, the Grizzlies were instead Stitt on. They suffered through the worst three-year period in 30 years. They unfathomably missed the playoffs two years in a row. They were without a Big Sky title for so many years, the interim period could legally drive the Griz to their grave. They were has-beens. Their time had passed. They were Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid in Bolivia.

Maybe the worst title of all: they were falling into little brother status for a generation of fans who knew the Bobcats, not the Grizzlies, as the dominant program in Montana.

And that’s why I was almost bursting with joy when Ah Yat threw that touchdown. I thought a prodigal son had just reversed all of that. 

So what’s next? If I thought a Griz win in Bozeman could have had that impact on the Cats, what does a Griz loss do to the Griz? I don’t know. I’m not a fortune teller. I really, really thought Montana was going to win that game. I thought that would deliver us a third national championship. I know a national championship would have healed a lot of deep wounds. For a few moments that’s exactly where I thought we were headed.

I don’t know if that title’s impact  would have been cosmetic or if it would reset the natural order of things. But I know it would have been one of the most glorious things a distraught fan base could experience. There’s a deep divide in Griz Nation about what should be done next: should we burn it down, should we tweak around the edges, should we run it back and pretend the embers aren’t burning the curtains? I don’t know. I see some validity in two of those options.

But I lean hard toward instituting a comprehensive autopsy of the program to stabilize it and do what Bobby Hauck said he was going to do: Return it to Glory. He certainly hasn’t done that and maybe it’s getting close to the time we go our separate ways.

Tony Annese might be available. Cody Hawkins with Montana’s resources is interesting. Kyle Sampson in Butte is an intriguing guy who could possibly be brought on staff and groomed as the next head coach. I don’t know. I’m fucking desperately spitballing and pushing my thoughts to text at 4:38 a.m. Sunday morning because I don’t know what else to do. I thought we were in the splendor of the most beautiful comeback I could possibly imagine only to have it savagely ripped away by the mother fucking Bobcats. 

What a fool I am. 

Kyle Sample was a sports writer for most of the 2010s, working at the Bozeman Daily Chronicle, the Helena Independent Record, the Missoulian and Skyline Sports. He is now a contributing member of the Griz Fan Podcast and a University of Montana QB Club member.

“And you may find yourself in another part of the world,

“And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile,

“And you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife,

“And you may ask yourself, “well, how did I get here?” – Talking Heads (1980)

Montana State running back Julius Davis must’ve been thinking something along those lines this past Saturday afternoon.

No, he wasn’t wondering how he ended up going to MSU to attend school and play football.  He was probably wondering how, after seeing his team win its 11^th straight game, watching his cousin spin an amazing rendition of the national anthem and after running for a touchdown in the Bobcats’ 21-13 win over Yale, he ended up arguing with his head coach and a teammate in the middle of the field in front of a national audience. And he was probably wondering how a not that uncommon confrontation ended up going viral.

The day most likely started out like any other for Davis. The whole routine of going to the team breakfast, then to the fieldhouse, then the Cat Walk to the Bobcat Athletic Center to get dressed and wrapped by trainers, then out on the field for pregame…pregame? Oh yeah, pregame. That’s actually where the genesis of Davis’s bizarre finish all started.

An hour or more before the Yale-MSU game was set to kickoff, players from both teams were going through their pregame rituals of stretching and doing drills. But this second round playoff game had much more smack talking highlighting the pre game with Yale visiting Bozeman.

Verbal combat at that ferocity isn’t very common in the age of wireless headphones and earbuds being donned by nearly every player during this part of the pregame routine. But somehow the music didn’t drown out the words and regardless of how the trash talk got started…it got started and things began to escalate from there.

One Bobcat’ player was approached by a team captain, then his position coach, then his head coach over about a 15-minute period. The player could be heard shouting from almost anywhere in the stadium. Just what he was saying exactly was hard to discern, but gauging by what the Yale players were saying back to him, it was fairly clear that it wasn’t about meeting after the game for a soda.

The Bobcats and Bulldogs had each other so fired up with the non-stop trash talk session that it carried over to the field during the game and, of course, if it went on from warmups through the game and into the post game ceremonies, where teams are supposed to shake hands, hug and congratulate each other on the effort they put into the game.

Not this time. Not following Montana State’s 21-13 victory over the visitors from New Haven, Connecticut.

Yale and MSU were still talking trash following MSU head coach Brent Vigen’s 9^th career playoff win. And not surprisingly Davis, who has a penchant for playing and living with his heart on his sleeve, was in the middle of the amped crowd of players and coaches.

During his first season with the Bobcats (2023), he was running down the Weber State sideline in Ogden blowing kisses to the cheerleaders, who had been razzing him throughout the game.  He’s also usually one of the first to rush to the scene when a teammate is hit late. Davis went after a Northern Arizona defensive back in Flagstaff earlier this season when Taco Dowler was thrown to the ground several feet out of bounds, only to be restrained quickly by teammates.

His reputation for being an instigator as well as a defender precedes him greatly, which is why when Vigen saw his team mixing it up with Yale after the game – after having to calm a player down in pregame – followed by watching the teams trash each other throughout the game…and then seeing Davis approach the Yale players after the game, Vigen quickly grabbed Davis only to have him protest mightily.

Vigen and Davis have been seen on the sidelines in heated conversations throughout Davis’s time at MSU. They always seem to get things worked out, albeit a little bit more behind the scenes than last Saturday’s contest, which was aired on ESPN+.

Davis said he was just trying to say ‘hi’ to one of the Yale backup quarterbacks, who happened to be a quarterback at the University of Wisconsin when both players were there. Vigen thought Davis was trying to make a bad situation worse. The two were seen jawing at each other and Davis tried to rip away from Vigen’s and a teammates’ grip. Fans, as they are wont to be, were appalled and gripping their pearls tightly.

Davis had to be thinking, ‘my day started out great…my cousin sang the anthem…I scored a touchdown…we won the game. Well, how did I get here?’

He vented his helplessness about the situation in the only way he knew how. Being in the wrong place at the wrong time can be frustrating and there was a lot more to the story than met the eye.

Davis put out a statement to social media to explain what happened and how he just wanted to talk to his old teammate. Vigen made a statement Monday morning saying, among other things, how much he likes Davis and how he was only trying to get his team through its post-game routine of shaking hands, singing the school fight song to the student section and congregating for a team prayer at midfield before hitting the showers.

The song “Once in a Lifetime” by the Talking Heads is about being on autopilot throughout stretches of your life without questioning how you got there. There might be a message in there for the Bobcats, who had systematically won 10 straight games, going into their fray with Yale.

MSU is set to face Stephen F. Austin this Friday night at 7:00 at Bobcat Stadium.

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

The following year, 1985, the Bobcats went 2-9.  That left many believing 1984 was just an anomaly.  There are those who disagree. Some folks saw the good in the 1983 Bobcats and felt they had a good defense that just needed a little help from the offense to become a formidable force. They were right.

Troy Timmer, who ran a roofing business in the Gallatin Valley and is now a business consultant, was a defensive tackle for the Bobcats from 1980 to 1984, while his younger brother Kirk was a linebacker. Troy Timmer’s career was supposed to be over in 1983, but a new redshirt rule allowed him to get one more year.

“I was going to be going out on a bad year,” Timmer said. “We’d go into halftime and the other team had often run 60-65 plays. We were just worn out.”

Timmer said opponents would end up with 100 plays and the defense couldn’t handle the wear and tear, but there was a silver lining.

“We got a lot of experience that year,” Timmer said with a laugh. “We didn’t rotate defensive linemen back in those days. MSU uses an eight-man rotation now, but we only had four guys, and they’d play the whole game. Seems like we’d get behind and we’d stay behind. We got avalanched a lot.”

Timmer said it was a frustrating situation because he and his defensive teammates knew they had a good unit, but the offense just had trouble scoring.

“We knew we were pretty decent,” Timmer said of the defense. “But we were a tight-knit team on both sides of the ball, and we stayed that way.”

MSU dominated the Big Sky Conference, especially defensively, in 1984. After allowing four games of 30 points or more, MSU only had one opponent score over 30 in 1984. But the offense was completely changed with new quarterback Kelly Bradley at the helm and an improved offensive line. The Bobcats scored just 109 points on offense in 1983 and that number was obliterated in 1984 as MSU scored 437 points in 14 games, which was an improvement of over 20 points per game.

That 1984 team went on to win the I-AA national title with a playoff run that saw the defense allow just 26 points in three games. The final score of the first playoff game was 21-14, but all 14 points by Arkansas State were scored on interception returns. The Bobcats won the national title game over Louisiana Tech 19-6 and collected 13 sacks in the game as the Bulldogs couldn’t score until the fourth quarter.

Cut to 2025 and the Weber State Wildcats are making a trip to Bozeman to face No. 3 Montana State. WSU is having an abysmal season by recent Wildcat standards. They won at least a share of four BSC titles from 2018-2021. They advanced to the second round of the FCS playoffs in 2022. This season they’re trudging along at 3-6 with an offense that has averaged just over 23 points per game. They rank eleventh in scoring in the BSC, last in total offense and special teams have lacked luster with a league worst net punting average.

Defensively, the Wildcats haven’t been much better, however, if you look at the strength of opponents through nine games it may shed a different light on their effectiveness this season. WSU started its season with losses to FBS schools James Madison, currently 7-1, and Arizona (5-3). They’ve also played three of the top five offenses in the Big Sky in Sacramento State, UC Davis and Montana.

After the opening losses to the FBS schools, they won their next game over McNeese State 42-41, but the defense didn’t play well, allowing 537 yards to the Cowboys. In total, WSU allowed 1,551 yards on 210 plays in its first three games, which comes to 517 yards per game and 7.4 yards per play.

Since then, they’ve allowed 2,276 yards on 397 plays, which equates to a more respectable average of 379.3 per game and 5.7 yards per play. Those two figures would place the Wildcats at fourth in yards per game and yards per play in the BSC – not bad considering they’ve play three of the top five offenses in the league during that span.

Does that make Weber State the next 1984 Bobcats? Most likely not. But if they can improve their offense, they seem like a good bet to be vastly improved in 2026 with a defense that, like MSU in 1984, returns nearly all of its starters and has just two seniors on its two-deep.

MSU’s 1983 team isn’t the only uplifting squad for the current Wildcats to look to for inspiration. The opposing defense this Saturday has been on a serious roll over the last seven games as the Bobcats are now recognized as having one of the elite defenses in the FCS. MSU has allowed just 51 points in five BSC games this season.

“It doesn’t matter if we play Montana State every other week or every four years, we know it’s going to be a war,” Weber State defensive coordinator Joe Dale said. “We know they’re going to be well coached, going to be disciplined. It’s going to be physical. Regardless of how long it’s been we have guys that have never played them, but they understand what that program is all about and what it’s going to take to get the job done. So, whether it’s been a long time or a short time we understand who they are and what they’re about and what type of task we’re up against.”

Dale was at Weber State during its defensive hey-day just a few years ago, so he knows what it’s supposed to look like.

“Everything matters. The little things become big things if you don’t focus on them. Just how to prepare the right way week in and week out regardless of the opponent. You earn the right to be proud and confident and perform well with your work throughout the week.”

The Bobcats and Wildcats will kickoff at 1:00 this Saturday at Bobcat Stadium. The game is part of Military Appreciation Week and the Bobcats will honor veterans throughout the game with Veteran’s Day coming up this Tuesday, November 11.