Not many fans or media members were expecting much from the 1984 rendition of the Montana State football team. For good reason. The Bobcats, who went 1-10 in 1983, were coming off their worst season in decades. They were 1-8 in 1969, but that’s not as bad as 1-10, which was the most losses at MSU to date. You need to go all the way back to 1951 when MSU finished at 0-7 to get a worse single season record than MSU’s in 1983.
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.
