BOZEMAN — When Montana State third-year defensive coordinator Ty Gregorak first began coaching in the Big Sky Conference in 2003, the Missouri Valley Football Conference did not even include three of the best teams in the FCS yet.
Fifteen years ago, Gregorak landed his first full-time assistant coaching job teaching linebackers on Bobby Hauck’s staff at Montana. In the first game of Hauck’s first season, the Griz beat No. 16 Maine in Orono 30-20 to open the season. The following week, Montana lost to North Dakota State, then a Division II school.
NDSU, now working on a streak of six FCS national championships in the last seven seasons, did not move to D-I for five more years and did not join the MVFC until 2008. South Dakota State, the preseason No. 4 team in the country, also joined the league in 2008. South Dakota, a 2017 playoff team, joined the Missouri Valley in 2012.
Meanwhile, Montana dominated FCS football in the West the first decade of the 21st century. The Griz won the league every single year between 2000 and 2009, winning the 2001 national title and playing in four other national title games.
In 2010, Eastern Washington rallied for a 38-31 win over NDSU in the quarterfinals of the FCS playoffs on the way to EWU’s first FCS national championship.
Since that title, the Missouri Valley, spurred on by the rise of the Bison, has unseated the Big Sky as the premier FCS league with schools east of the Mississippi. Last season, the 10-team MVFC qualified a record five teams to the FCS playoff bracket. The 13-team Big Sky earned just three bids thanks in part to a 2-4 record against the Missouri Valley in non-conference contests.
“The rise of North Dakota State made the entire conference better and made the entire conference try to catch up and pump money into their facilities,” said Gregorak, who was the Montana defensive coordinator his last season in Missoula in 2015 when the Griz opened the season with a 38-35 upset of the No. 1 Bison. “What’s going on at NDSU is insane. It’s crazy. Not just the success but the sustained success. They got good, stayed good…like really good…like stupid good.
“The rest of the conference has benefited from that and pushed themselves to stay within the same caliber. You look at South Dakota State, who we play in Week 2, they’ve beat NDSU. That’s nuts. Back-to-back years. That doesn’t happen much at NDSU. It’s a good league, a tough league.”
Gregorak and Montana State get a chance to tussle with the Missouri Valley each of the first two weeks of the 2018 season. MSU opens its third campaign under head coach Jeff Choate on Thursday against Western Illinois, one of the MVFC’s postseason qualifiers. The following week, the Bobcats return the home-and-home with a trip to Brookings to play SDSU. MSU lost to the third-ranked Jackrabbits 31-27 in Bozeman in the second week of the 2017 season.
The two games for the Bobcats against a league the Big Sky is all of a sudden chasing in terms of national prestige are part of a nine-game crossover challenge. Montana State’s offseason has been filled with growing hype and optimism. The Bobcats will have chance to vault into Top 25 for the first time since 2015.
“I think it’s good for our league,” Choate said.
“How many teams we get (in the playoffs) is going to be determined with how well we play these first few weeks.”
The last time Gregorak played Western Illinois, the Leathernecks eliminated the Griz with a 43-40 win in Missoula in the first round of the 2003 FCS playoffs. The Bobcats have played the Leathernecks twice, winning in Bozeman in 1990 and Macomb in 1993.
MSU had plenty of common opponents to WIU, including South Dakota State, Weber State and Northern Arizona.
MSU lost 31-27 to SDSU in Bozeman, lost 25-17 to Weber State at Bobcat Stadium and lost 37-36 at Northern Arizona. WIU beat NAU 38-20 in Flagstaff, lost 52-24 to South Dakota State and lost 21-19 to Weber State in the first round of the playoffs.
“There’s some crossover, but the game I think helps us the most is North Dakota State and we didn’t play them,” Choate said. “It’s just stylistically, we are pretty similar. It’s not necessarily about the common opponent as it is the style of offense and defense you play, how do they defend this, what coverage do they play against this look? “
NDSU beat WIU 24-12 last season.
Gregorak has been coaching football in the FCS out West for 15 years. He has plenty of colleagues who have played MVFC opponents, including NAU defensive coordinator Andy Thompson, a former Griz linebacker. Gregorak said he has been asking around about Western Illinois as MSU prepares for its opener.
“It was interesting to throw in that film because Weber State as a pretty good outfit and that was a good game, a really good game,” Gregorak said. “Then you turn on the NAU film and you are going, ‘We went to Flag and we know what kind of a dog fight we were in’ and they went there and whooped em. It wasn’t pretty. We know we are getting a good outfit in here.”
Since Choate and Gregorak took over, the Bobcats have improved by almost every defensive metric. But ranking stats when comparing two different conferences can be arbitrary, Choate said. Because of the run-heavy style in the Missouri Valley and the slower pace, league-leading defenses usually rank in the Top 10 nationally.
In the Big Sky, you might play the top rushing attack in the country in Cal Poly one week and one of the top passing attacks in the nation in Eastern Washington the next week. Even solid yardage totals can hinder national statistical rankings. With nine games, including two involving the Bobcats, the contrasting styles will bash heads.
“I think they are two really different leagues,” Choate said. “You look at the teams that consistently do well in the Missouri Valley, they are mostly split-safety defenses, not heavy pressure outfits. They run the ball. They have to play in a lot of weather. They will be a very good team.”
Photos by Brooks Nuanez. All Rights Reserved.
