Winning college football games on the road is never easy, and you don’t need to remind University of Montana head coach Bobby Hauck of that this week.
“The goal here is to win, home or road, and you’re going to play a percentage of games on the road,” Hauck said. “So, you better go win.”
While Hauck has struggled to beat Montana State in Bobcat Stadium – he’s 2-5 there during his two terms and 14 total seasons leading UM – he is 4-0 on the road this season and has won seven of his last eight regular-season road games. He also won a national semifinal game in 2008 on the road when the Grizzlies went to Harrisonburg, Va. and defeated No. 1 James Madison 35-27. So this is not unfamiliar territory for him, even if Hauck is 0-3 in Bozeman since returning to his alma mater ahead of the 2018 season.
Montana lost 31-28 at home to MSU three weeks ago in a game that determined who would get the No. 2 seed and homefield advantage throughout the Football Championship Subdivision playoffs this Saturday. Now Hauck and the Griz get a rematch with the ‘Cats, but it will play out at Bobcat Stadium, a place Montana has not won in a decade and a place Hauck has not won since 2009.
“We need to focus in on what happened to Ohio State last year when they lost to Michigan (13-10) in their rivalry game, but I think came back to win four straight and won it all, certainly,” Hauck said right after the loss, the first by a road team in the rivalry since MSU won in Missoula in 2018.
The Grizzlies, with or without Hauck, haven’t won in Bozeman since 2015 after winning five straight there from 2007 to 2015. Hauck was at the helm for two of the five before MSU started its current four-game win streak. The Bobcats took a 31-23 win in 2017 over former UM head coach Bob Stitt, then defeated Hauck’s Grizzlies 48-14 in 2019, 55-21 in 2022 and 34-11 in 2024,a using a nearly unstoppable run game to vault themselves to wins.
Things haven’t always been so gloomy in Bozeman for UM’s head coach. After starting with a pair of losses in 2003 and 2005, he put together one of the greatest stretches the college football world has ever seen.
Hauck lost his first two trips to Bozeman against Mike Kramer’s Bobcats. But the 2004 Griz made the national title game and between 2006 and 2009, UM dominated the Big Sk Conference. Montana made the semis in 2006 after outlasting MSU in Missoula, 13-7. UM was the No. 1 seed in the 2007 playoffs after running the table in the regular-season, including a 41-20 win over MSU in Bozeman. In 2008 and 2009, before vaulting to the 2008 and 2009 national title games. The second half of Hauck’s first tenure at UM, he put together one of the most dominant runs in FCS history. From 2006 until 2009, Montana had a 51-6 record that included a 43-1 mark against FCS teams in the regular season and a 31-1 BSC record.
In 2007, the undefeated and No. 1 ranked Grizzlies were up just 20-14 through three quarters before exploding for 21 fourth quarter points. Running back Lex Hilliard went for 181 yards on 32 carries and scored three times despite first having a cast on his hand before then ripping it off and playing with a pin from surgery sticking out of his skin. UM junior quarterback Cole Bergquist connected on 22 of 33 passes for 274 yards and two touchdowns to give Hauck his first win in Bozeman and his third over MSU overall.
In 2009, UM came into the game with an unblemished record once again as both teams collected safeties in the first half with UM taking a 9-5 lead into the locker room before the Griz scored 14 points in the third quarter and coasted to a 33-19 win. Billings West product quarterback Andrew Selle was the mark of efficiency for the Grizzlies with 17 completions out of 22 attempts for 163 yards and three touchdowns.
Hauck’s teams have winning road records against all the other BSC teams. While he’s lost in Bozeman five times, including three in a row, he hasn’t lost more than twice to any other league foes on the road. Weber State (3-2) and Sacramento State (5-2) are the only teams with more than one win over UM at home during Hauck’s time at the helm. He’s 24-6 against Eastern Washington (5-1), Idaho (3-0), Northern Arizona (5-1), UC Davis (3-0), WSU (3-2) and SAC (3-2), which comprise the other top BSC teams, excluding the Bobcats. He’s undefeated at Northern Colorado, Cal Poly and Portland State and is 5-1 at Idaho State.
In 2019, Montana rolled into Bozeman on the heels of four convincing Big Sky Conference wins and the Bobcats played the game without star linebacker Troy Andersen, who was out with an injury. The Bobcats started the game the same way they all but ended it the previous season – with a forced fumble that was recovered by defensive end Derek Marks. From there, MSU raced out to a 24-0 lead before UM scored midway through the second quarter and would trail 31-14 at halftime. The Bobcats would finish with 382 rushing yards on 62 carries.
In 2022, MSU ran the ball on its first 17 plays and 32 of its first 33 as it raced out to a 31-7 lead by halftime. The Bobcats would only throw 10 passes in the game, while running a whopping 65 times for 439 yards despite being without the services of running back Isaiah Ifanse. Every offensive touchdown came on the ground. The dynamic quarterback duo of Tommy Mellott and Sean Chambers collected 227 of the rushing yards, while Elijah Elliott had 126 filling in for Ifanse.
A year ago, the Bobcats again imposed their running game on the Grizzlies as they ran for 326 yards on 52 carries. The defense got into the act as they didn’t allow a drive over 30 yards until the fourth quarter in building a 27-3 lead. Then Missoula native Adam Jones broke off an 88-yard run to setup his own short touchdown. Jones picked up the slack for Julius Davis, who left the game with an injury, and Scottre Humphrey, who had just one carry. Jones finished 25 carries for 198 yards and two scores.
During those three games in Bozeman, Hauck saw the Bobcats run for 1,147 yards (382.3 per game). Of the 17 touchdowns MSU has scored, 14 have been on running plays, two on passes and one by the special teams. Of the two TD passes, one was by tight end Derryk Snell. Former MSU head coach Jeff Choate’s son Jory Choate scored the special teams touchdown when he pounced on a punt snap that sailed into the end zone.
In his previous stint as UM’s head coach from 2003 to 2009, Hauck lost to MSU in his Cat-Griz debut 27-20 when the Bobcats opened the game with a 90-yard kickoff return for a touchdown by Corey Smith and then got a 56-yard interception return for a score by Kenneth Qualls near the end of the half to stake MSU to a 13-10 lead. MSU then took its first two possessions of the second half nearly 80 yards each for touchdowns to push its lead to 27-10 in Bozeman.
Hauck followed that with a 16-6 loss in 2005 on a muddy field with freshman running back Evan Groves slogging his way to 143 yards on 35 carries for the Bobcats. The Grizzlies could muster just 197 yards of offense in the game but still qualified for the Football Championship Subdivision playoffs, but lost in the first round.
While those losses don’t bode well for UM, they also didn’t have as strong of a team as they do in 2025, which is a good reason Montana comes to Bozeman with confidence. The Grizzlies were never ranked No. 3 before any of those losses, and this is arguably the best offense UM has ever had. When UM played at MSU in 2003, the Griz were 9-2 and lost in the first round of the playoffs. The 2005 team came in at 8-2 and lost in the first round of the playoffs to finish 8-4. The 2019 squad was 9-2 and lost in the quarterfinals of the playoffs to finish 10-4. The 2022 was 7-3 and lost in the second round of the playoffs. To finish 8-5. And, 2024 was 8-3 and lost in the second round to finish 9-5.
The 2025 team sits at 13-1 with wins over 2022 and 2023 national champion South Dakota State, 2024 semifinalists South Dakota, 2025 playoff team North Dakota, and 2021 and at 2022 BSC champion Sacramento State as part of this year’s accomplishments.
This is Hauck’s 14th season as the head coach at Montana. His all-time win-loss record is 166-91 at Montana and 86-23 in Big Sky Conference games. His first stint with the Grizzlies saw the team win 80 games against just 17 losses, including a 47-6 mark in BSC play. He was also the head coach at University of Nevada-Las Vegas and was 15-49 over five seasons with the Rebels.
Hauck will look to improve his all-time record against the Bobcats to 8-7 this Saturday when Montana and Montana State kickoff at 2:00.
