An “us against the world” mentality can be a strong one for Montana State when it enters the FCS playoffs against the juggernauts of the FCS.
Following North Dakota State’s 66-3 win over Drake in the first round of the FCS Playoffs, the mighty Bison, winners of nine of the last 12 FCS national titles, will bring their suddenly upstart football team to Bozeman to take on a Bobcat team all of a sudden searching for answers.
A lack of confidence can conversely be a strong deterrent to winning any game, especially a playoff game against an opponent with the track record of NDSU.
Which one the Bobcats will project or manifest is yet to be determined. But both attitudes are strong candidates.
MSU can simply look 200 miles to the West to see an example of what responding to your harsh critics looks like. The Montana Grizzlies were at a crossroads just a couple months ago.
UM slogged through two of its first three games. It started the season by scoring late to make a tight game look like a comfortable 35-20 win against non-scholarship Butler in the Griz home opener. Montana rolled Utah Tech in Week 2, then edged Division II Ferris State 17-10 to finish non-conference 3-0 but without much juice behind its potential.
To open Big Sky Conference play, UM had the unenviable task of traveling to 7,200 feet above sea level to play Northern Arizona at the Walkup Skydome in Flagstaff, Arizona. Montana’s 28-14 loss was like a fire alarm, enforcing, at least for the moment, what many UM faithful were thinking – the Grizzlies were in for a long season. Many wondered if Montana would so much as make the playoffs.
UM appeared to take that as a slap in the face and circled the wagons. Big Sky Conference Coach of the Year-to-be Bobby Hauck made BSC Newcomer of the Year-to-be Clifton McDowell his full-time quarterback and the rest, as they say, is history.
Montana enters the playoffs winners of seven straight, including a huge 23-20 win at Idaho and a 37-7 drubbing of MSU two weeks ago. Now it’s the Grizzlies with the No. 2 seed in the playoffs, not the Bobcats. And instead of the Grizzlies being expected to have an early playoff exit, it’s the Bobcats in that role.
Does MSU become an “us against the world” team because of the sudden regression in respect from media and fans? Do the results of the last month equate to a loss of confidence that won’t allow MSU to reverse its path?
While the Griz had more time to rebuild their season arc than Montana State will, the Bobcats don’t have as big of a rebuild to conduct. The bye week might be enough time to fix what ails them and return to the trajectory of earlier this season when the Bobcats were ranked No. 2 in the FCS and looking like a true national title contender.
Throughout Brent Vigen’s three seasons, MSU has certainly proven the ability to identify a problem and fix it. The Bobcats established a goal of becoming stronger and more physical after ending their 2022 campaign with a convincing, disheartening 39-18 loss at South Dakota State.
MSU was in nearly the same situation after coming out on the wrong end of a 29-10 beat down in Missoula in 2021. Montana State abruptly and brilliantly named freshman Tommy Mellott as its quarterback. The Bobcats surged to the national championship game with three convincing playoff wins, including a 42-19 thrashing of reigning champion and undefeated Sam Houston on the road.
Based on that history, the Bobcats should have the confidence to do something similar again.
“It’s a different year, yes, but we had a lot of guys that were on that 2021 team, a lot of guys who didn’t let their season end with how they felt here today two years ago,” Vigen said following his team’s loss in Missoula. “We have to regroup.
“We have put ourselves in position where we are going to be in the playoffs. You are in the playoffs, you have a shot, whether you are home or away, you have a shot. We have a good enough team where if we play well, I like our chances against anybody. But we have to play well and that’s what’s in front of us.”
MSU looked infallible after dropping Sacramento State 42-30 on the road to move the Bobcats to 6-1 as they held down the No. 2 spot in the nation for the eighth straight week heading into a game at Idaho. The ‘Cats waltzed into the Kibbie Dome to face a Vandal team that had two weeks to prepare after a tough 23-20 loss to Montana.
Whether the Bobcats were overconfident that day is difficult to say. But they were certainly out of sync.
MSU fell behind 10-0 in the first half as the Bobcats failed to earn a meager first down on their first three possessions, equating to the first 27+ minutes of a game that Idaho possessed the ball for more than 42 minutes.
Montana State started the second half looking like any notion it was brought back down to early was a fallacy. MSU took the lead twice only to see the worn-down Bobcat defense falter and kicker Brendan Hall miss a last-second field goal that left MSU on the wrong side of a 24-21 defeat.
Cut to less than a month later and any overconfidence, or confidence for that matter, that may have existed was blasted away. MSU was seemingly rendered incapable of tackling as the attempts to bring down UM ball carriers with big hits instead of wrapping up during the opening two drives caused MSU to fall in a 14-0 hole.
The Bobcats embarrassed themselves with one of the worst meltdowns in team history to end the half as Sean Chambers took a sack instead of throwing the ball downfield to end the half on fourth down to leave one second on the clock. That allowed UM a shot at a long field goal, which it missed….but MSU cornerback Jon Johnson roughed freshman kicker Grant Glasgow and put him on the sidelines as UM brought in senior Nico Ramos to hit a chip shot putting UM up 20-0.
MSU then dribbled away the only momentum it had. The Bobcats started the second half with a touchdown drive while close to half of the record crowd at Washington-Grizzly Stadium continued to matriculate their way back to their seats. Ty McCullouch’s touchdown catch cut the Griz lead to 20-7 with almost 28 minutes left to play.
Visions of the 2018 Cat-Griz game flashed (MSU’s comeback win from down 22-0) but that quickly dissipated after Hall’s short kickoff allow a long return by Junior Bergen that would set up a Grizzly scoring drive, capped by a Bergen 19-yard touchdown catch, to answer and slam the door in Montana State’s face.
That’s not a sequence you’d expect a national championship contender to produce within the scope of a season, let alone within the scope of a single rivalry game.
After a narrow miss against South Dakota State, (20-16 in Brookings on September 9), MSU has gone from be considered one of the two elite teams in the nation to being expected to lose its first playoff game, presumptively to NDSU, by most pundits and fans nationwide. Most betting sites have NDSU with better odds of making the national title game than MSU.
And that might explain why the Bobcats may have an “us against the world” mentality now. But do they?
How you feel about yourself can’t be a lie or fallacy. You can’t just say you have an “us against the world” mentality if you don’t feel like everyone is in some way against you. The Bobcats probably have a lot on their minds after the past four weeks, so just where they are collectively is anyone’s guess.
As the season wore on, particularly in the last month, the Bobcats seemed to lose their mojo. Defensively, MSU experienced a huge shift during the season as it went from holding teams to a stellar 112.6 passer rating and a 55.3 completion percentage over the first seven games to allowing a 155.8 QB rating and a 73.5 completion percentage over the final four games. Montana State went 2-2 in those contests.
Bobcat fans are hoping that the offensive production (seven points, four completions, 280 yards, 13 first downs) in the Cat-Griz game was just an anomaly. MSU entered the game leading the Big Sky in scoring and rushing offense.
Those rivalry numbers – coupled with MSU’s 2-2 record over the last four games – can explain why pundits and fans are considering NDSU the favorite in Bozeman on Saturday.
In his post game in Missoula, Vigen said the Bobcats have a choice. And that’s a fact, as Montana State will now choose to regroup and try to maintain the nation’s longest winning streak (25 straight at Bobcat Stadium) or whither and cap a disappointing ending to a once-promising campaign.
Montana State’s season has ended at the hands of NDSU in 2018 in the second round, 2019 in the semifinals and 2021 in the national championship.
MSU will try to avoid a similar fate on Saturday afternoon with the Bison in Bozeman for the first time since 2010. Last time NDSU came to Bobcat Stadium, the Bison rallied for a 42-17 win over the Big Sky champion Bobcats.
Kickoff between sixth-seeded Montana State and North Dakota State is at 1 p.m. MT.
