CHENEY, Washington — Montana State’s last football outing ended riddled with controversy. The strange ending put a stamp on a rare occurrence: a Big Sky Conference loss by the Bobcats under head coach Brent Vigen.
MSU saw its 19-game winning streak, its No. 1 national ranking and its 18-game conference winning streak all disappear in the blink of a two-point conversion by the Idaho Vandals at the Kibbie Dome.
Some blamed the loss on the circumstances. Montana State was without four All-American senior captains and was coming off a “Big Sky After Dark” 28-14 win on national television. UI was coming off a bye.
Some blamed the loss on the officials after a final second that caused an unholy stir around the Treasure State.
And some blamed Vigen after the revered sixth-year, national championship-winning coach called a timeout with one second to play, providing Idaho’s last-gasp opportunity and helping lead to Joshua Wood’s two-point conversion with zeroes on the clock to secure UI’s first win of the season, 35-34.
To make the smoldering sting of the loss even worse, MSU took its bye the following week, so there was no media availability and no opportunity for the Bobcats to take out their frustrations on another opponent.
“Honestly, we took that on the chin, had a chip on our shoulder, and we went to work these last two weeks,” said Adam Jones, a Bobcat captain who rushed for 84 yards and three touchdowns Saturday.
Montana State didn’t play for 15 days. The Bobcats fell to No. 6 in the FCS poll, then moved up a spot without playing. And when the polls drop Monday, the Bobcats will rise again thanks to a get-the-bad-taste-out-of-your-mouth 56-20 win at Eastern Washington.
When MSU lost, some wondered if more than injuries were holding the Bobcats back in their pursuit of becoming the first Big Sky team to win consecutive national championships.
But the Bobcats looked like their old selves by dismantling an old nemesis that used to own them, especially in Cheney. Questions about the normally stout Bobcat defense stemmed from concerning performances in a 35-30 win over Central Connecticut State and the breakdowns that played a huge role in Moscow.
Over the last two weeks, though, the FCS showed the subdivision is anybody’s to claim. MSU is certainly a leading candidate. Several others — South Dakota State and Tarleton State come to mind — are contemporary powers trying to fill the vacuum left by North Dakota State’s move to the FBS.
NDSU used a rapid rise to establish itself as a juggernaut before dominating the subdivision for 15 years.
Two weeks after Montana State got knocked out of the No. 1 spot, SDSU lost 21-10 at North Dakota. The Fighting Hawks had lost 24-17 as the No. 4 team in the nation at Northern Iowa the week before knocking off the top-ranked Jackrabbits.
UNI has defeated two Top 5 teams this year. The Panthers also beat Illinois State 28-21 two weeks before knocking off UND.
No. 2 Tarleton State moved to 7-0 with a 49-35 win over Central Arkansas. No. 3 Stephen F. Austin, an FCS quarterfinalist a year ago before losing in Bozeman, also moved to 7-0 with a 56-0 win over Nicholls.
Cornell’s 48-38 win over No. 4 Lehigh handed the Mountain Hawks their first loss.
And No. 7 Montana took another step away from that top contender group as the Vandals pulled their second seismic upset in the last three weeks. Idaho went to Missoula and moved the ball at will, scoring on almost every possession in a 42-35 win. The Griz have lost two games in a row for the first time since 2022.
That’s all to say that Montana State’s time off, combined with the return of senior quarterback Justin Lamson, senior running back Adam Jones and senior safety Caden Dowler, helped the Bobcats look like a No. 1 contender again Saturday in Cheney.
And with all the chaos around college football, Montana State just needs a steady hand.
If Jones can pound the ball like he did Saturday during his three-touchdown effort, the run game will be sustainable, if not elite. Jones’ 32-yard touchdown run gave MSU an early 7-3 lead, and the Bobcats never trailed.
If Lamson keeps operating the offense at an efficient, if not elite, level, Montana State will be hard to slow down, even if the fourth missing captain, Taco Dowler, still has a murky timetable for return. Lamson threw for 171 yards and a touchdown and added a 41-yard touchdown scamper in his return after missing three weeks following a knee procedure.
In Taco Dowler’s absence, freshman Carter Dahlke has had three straight 100-yard receiving games.
And with Caden Dowler back, the Bobcats looked more on the same page. It certainly helped senior linebacker Cole Taylor, who snared two interceptions and returned one for a touchdown as MSU won for the fourth straight time in Cheney.
“I think his communication and his leadership is what Caden does so well, and just the energy,” said Taylor, a Great Falls product who leads MSU in tackles this year. “He makes everyone around him better, not just himself.”
EWU has lost only 23 games on its infamous red turf, known as the Inferno. The Bobcats own five of those wins, including four under Vigen, who has never lost there and has more wins in Cheney than any other visiting coach.
“I think this league proves that anybody can do anything on any given Saturday,” Vigen said.
And with nearly his full arsenal back, Montana State looks primed to return to the top of the FCS hierarchy in short order.
“I think we were about to kill each other these last three weeks, because we were around each other so much in the training room and not out there on the field to let anything loose,” Jones said. “So, we were so happy, and we smiled the whole game. Like, this is what we should be like.”
