BOZEMAN, Montana — In mid-October of Jeff Choate’s first season at the helm at Montana State, the Bobcats were off to an 0-3 start in Big Sky Conference play. MSU came to eventual playoff qualifier Weber State with a starting quarterback who had just turned 18 years old the week before.
Everything that could’ve gone wrong that afternoon in Ogden, Utah, did for the visitors. MSU punted five plays into the game, then gave up a commanding 11-play, 79-yard drive. On the ensuing possession, true freshman quarterback Chris Murray fumbled, giving the Wildcats the ball 24 yards from their end-zone. Four plays later, Weber scored.
On the ensuing kickoff, Logan Jones fumbled, Kawika Tupuola recovered and two plays later, Weber scored to go up 21-0. The Bobcats trailed by three scores less than 11 minutes into the game and the visitors had only run eight offensive plays.
Montana State stopped the bleeding for a brief moment when Murray hit Gunnar Brekke for a 39-yard touchdown on a sweet wheel route up the MSU sideline. MSU got on the board again when Murray hit Jayshawn Gates for a score to cut the lead to 28-14. But Weber State scored twice more before halftime, putting MSU in a 42-14 hole. Montana State only gave up three points after halftime and still lost 45-27, the next loss in what would become a six-game Big Sky losing streak to start the Choate era.
In a late September game during Choate’s fourth season at the helm, everything that could go wrong did go wrong for the Bobcats. With All-American quarterback Case Cookus and the Northern Arizona Lumberjacks in town, Montana State committed a penalty on a fake punt, could not down a perfect punt on the one-yard line, instead giving Cookus the ball at the NAU 20, turned the ball over twice including a pick-six thrown by sophomore Tucker Rovig and trailed 21-0 less than 20 minutes into the game.
Montana State still has a complete lack of clarity at the quarterback position. The Bobcats remain largely lopsided in terms of offensive production. But these Bobcats are on a completely different level in terms of gumption, fortitude, maturity and confidence than Choate’s first squad at MSU.
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Jahque Alleyne’s slick 23-yard punt return set up Travis Jonsen’s first touchdown run from 14 yards out to cut the NAU lead to 21-7. Coy Steel’s catch and run despite getting crushed by two Northern Arizona defenders at once showed the former walk-on’s toughness and cut the deficit to a single score.
Montana State gave up a sharp touchdown drive right before halftime, then almost stabbed itself mortally after the break. Trailing 28-14, MSU got a stop and forced a punt but Alleyne bobbled the kick on a cold, windy, moist day that made such a challenging task more so. But the Bobcat defense bowed up, forced a field goal and Montana State never looked back.
MSU scored 35 unanswered points thanks to a punishing rushing attack that piled up 244 yards after halftime and finished with 340 yards on the ground all told. Montana State’s resolve helped the Bobcats post a convincing 49-31 victory that seemed totally unlikely during the first half of action.
“This is my fourth year here and a couple of years ago, I don’t know if we would’ve come back,” MSU junior offensive guard Lewis Kidd said after the team’s fourth win this season. “I really don’t believe we would’ve come back. I think we might’ve gotten a couple of scores. But this shows the maturity of this team, how much we have grown, how much the coaching staff believes in us and how much trust they put into us.
“When we go into halftime, they are not screaming at us. They are not saying anything crazy. They are solidifying us. They are telling us what we already know. They are giving us the tools to trust ourselves to run our offense and our defense. They are really letting us take over the game. That’s really an important factor and I think it’s awesome.”
Montana State is off to a 4-1 start that includes four straight wins against FBS opponents. Dating back to last season, the Bobcats have won eight of their last 10 games, the lone losses coming in the Round of 16 of the FCS playoffs against No. 1 and eventual national champion North Dakota State (59-10) to end last season and at FBS Texas Tech of the Big XII (45-10) to begin this season.
The Bobcats lost seven of their first nine games under Choate. Since then, MSU is 19-12. Montana State won three of its final four Big Sky games to finish the 2017 season and three straight league contests to finish last season, breaking a four-year playoff drought in the process.
Montana State has righted the issue of fading late in the season — Rob Ash’s teams were notorious for their November stumbles — by proving the Bobcats know how to finish games. MSU trailed 22-0 midway through the second quarter in what ended up a 29-25 win over Montana in Missoula. MSU trailed 7-0 and clung to a 12-7 lead in the final minutes of the first half in what ended up a 35-14 victory over No. 24 Incarnate Word in the first round of the playoffs.
“We were down 22-0 last year in a hostile place,” MSU All-Big Sky safety Brayden Konkol said following the NAU win. “We know we are going to win those types of games. We don’t necessarily know how. But we know someone is going to make a play and step up.”
MSU has proven time and again over the second half of last season and the first half of this season that they are a second half team. But being a second-half team also has been accompanied by playing some perplexing first two quarters of football, much like this past Saturday.
The Bobcats shot out to a 10-0 lead in front of a capacity crowd at Bobcat Stadium against No. 12 Southeast Missouri State. But a putrid second quarter sent Montana State to the locker room tied 10-10 with the visitors from the Ohio Valley Conference. MSU scored 28 points in the third quarter to run away with a 38-17 victory.
The following week, Montana State needed a pair of Tristan Bailey field goals from 41 and 47 yards, respectively, to emerge with a 23-14 win at Western Illinois. The Leathernecks are 0-4 after losing 38-24 to Tennessee Tech two weeks ago.
The Bobcats raced to a 56-21 victory over Norfolk State to finish non-conference play. But the Spartans scored first. The score was tied with 2:51 left in the first quarter. And NSU trailed 21-14 with four minutes to play in the first half.
“That’s something we talked about on Sunday as a staff and with the players is ‘why are we so sluggish in the first half,’” Choate said on Monday. “I don’t give a lot of fire and brimstone speeches before the game because I don’t think that lasts more than about five minutes after the opening kickoff. But we’ve got to do a better job of starting faster.
“It’s not like this was a one-time thing. Let’s go back to last year. We started slow against Montana. We started slow against Incarnate Word. We started slow against North Dakota State. We started slow against SEMO. This is a pattern for us now. And the better teams we play, we can’t spot teams 21 points. That’s not going to be effective for us in terms of our long term success.
“I think our guys gain a lot of confidence knowing we are never out of a game and that we play hard and how hard we play in the second half. But certainly on the road. You don’t want to fall asleep.”
Montana State will try to stay wide awake with its first league road trip of the season. MSU takes on Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo, California on Saturday night.
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Photos by Brooks Nuanez. All Rights Reserved.
