“You may find yourself, in a shotgun shack,
“And you may find yourself in another part of the world,
“And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile,
“And you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife,
“And you may ask yourself, “well, how did I get here?” – Talking Heads (1980)
Montana State running back Julius Davis must’ve been thinking something along those lines this past Saturday afternoon.
No, he wasn’t wondering how he ended up going to MSU to attend school and play football. He was probably wondering how, after seeing his team win its 11th straight game, watching his cousin spin an amazing rendition of the national anthem and after running for a touchdown in the Bobcats’ 21-13 win over Yale, he ended up arguing with his head coach and a teammate in the middle of the field in front of a national audience. And he was probably wondering how a not that uncommon confrontation ended up going viral.
The day most likely started out like any other for Davis. The whole routine of going to the team breakfast, then to the fieldhouse, then the Cat Walk to the Bobcat Athletic Center to get dressed and wrapped by trainers, then out on the field for pregame…pregame? Oh yeah, pregame. That’s actually where the genesis of Davis’s bizarre finish all started.
An hour or more before the Yale-MSU game was set to kickoff, players from both teams were going through their pregame rituals of stretching and doing drills. But this second round playoff game had much more smack talking highlighting the pre game with Yale visiting Bozeman.
Verbal combat at that ferocity isn’t very common in the age of wireless headphones and earbuds being donned by nearly every player during this part of the pregame routine. But somehow the music didn’t drown out the words and regardless of how the trash talk got started…it got started and things began to escalate from there.
One Bobcat’ player was approached by a team captain, then his position coach, then his head coach over about a 15-minute period. The player could be heard shouting from almost anywhere in the stadium. Just what he was saying exactly was hard to discern, but gauging by what the Yale players were saying back to him, it was fairly clear that it wasn’t about meeting after the game for a soda.
The Bobcats and Bulldogs had each other so fired up with the non-stop trash talk session that it carried over to the field during the game and, of course, if it went on from warmups through the game and into the post game ceremonies, where teams are supposed to shake hands, hug and congratulate each other on the effort they put into the game.
Not this time. Not following Montana State’s 21-13 victory over the visitors from New Haven, Connecticut.
Yale and MSU were still talking trash following MSU head coach Brent Vigen’s 9th career playoff win. And not surprisingly Davis, who has a penchant for playing and living with his heart on his sleeve, was in the middle of the amped crowd of players and coaches.
During his first season with the Bobcats (2023), he was running down the Weber State sideline in Ogden blowing kisses to the cheerleaders, who had been razzing him throughout the game. He’s also usually one of the first to rush to the scene when a teammate is hit late. Davis went after a Northern Arizona defensive back in Flagstaff earlier this season when Taco Dowler was thrown to the ground several feet out of bounds, only to be restrained quickly by teammates.
His reputation for being an instigator as well as a defender precedes him greatly, which is why when Vigen saw his team mixing it up with Yale after the game – after having to calm a player down in pregame – followed by watching the teams trash each other throughout the game…and then seeing Davis approach the Yale players after the game, Vigen quickly grabbed Davis only to have him protest mightily.
Vigen and Davis have been seen on the sidelines in heated conversations throughout Davis’s time at MSU. They always seem to get things worked out, albeit a little bit more behind the scenes than last Saturday’s contest, which was aired on ESPN+.
Davis said he was just trying to say ‘hi’ to one of the Yale backup quarterbacks, who happened to be a quarterback at the University of Wisconsin when both players were there. Vigen thought Davis was trying to make a bad situation worse. The two were seen jawing at each other and Davis tried to rip away from Vigen’s and a teammates’ grip. Fans, as they are wont to be, were appalled and gripping their pearls tightly.
Davis had to be thinking, ‘my day started out great…my cousin sang the anthem…I scored a touchdown…we won the game. Well, how did I get here?’
He vented his helplessness about the situation in the only way he knew how. Being in the wrong place at the wrong time can be frustrating and there was a lot more to the story than met the eye.
Davis put out a statement to social media to explain what happened and how he just wanted to talk to his old teammate. Vigen made a statement Monday morning saying, among other things, how much he likes Davis and how he was only trying to get his team through its post-game routine of shaking hands, singing the school fight song to the student section and congregating for a team prayer at midfield before hitting the showers.
The song “Once in a Lifetime” by the Talking Heads is about being on autopilot throughout stretches of your life without questioning how you got there. There might be a message in there for the Bobcats, who had systematically won 10 straight games, going into their fray with Yale.
MSU is set to face Stephen F. Austin this Friday night at 7:00 at Bobcat Stadium.
