Montana State is staring a three-game losing streak to begin Big Sky Conference play square in the face. The skid is accentuated by the fact that MSU has lost four games in 2016 by a total of 14 points. The Bobcats cannot seem to come up in the clutch despite their best efforts during the weeks of practice leading up to Saturday contests.
On Saturday, Montana State possessed the ball trailing visiting Northern Arizona 20-14 with one minute, 46 seconds left. For the third straight week and the fourth time this season, Montana State had a chance to drive the field and tie the game or take the lead. For a fourth straight time, MSU’s two-minute drill did not produce any points and for the third consecutive week, the Bobcats’ last gasp ended with a turnover.
NAU senior Siupeli Anua beat Caleb Gillis around the right side and chased down MSU freshman quarterback Chris Murray from behind, forcing a fumble that Xavier Stephens returned 39 yards to the MSU 19-yards line with 12 seconds to play. NAU took a knee and earned its first Division I win this season.
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“We spent a lot of time — that’s one of the things I told the guys in the huddle when they reviewed that play (a potential diving catch by Kevin Kassis that was ruled out of bounds — we practiced this on Tuesday, we practiced this on Wednesday, and we practiced it twice on Thursday,” MSU head coach Jeff Choate said after the 20-14 loss. “By design, knowing that was a situation we needed to improve in.”
For the first time this fall, MSU went wit Murray instead of junior Tyler Bruggman in the two-minute situation. In Montana State’s 20-17 loss at Idaho to open the season, MSU had three fourth-quarter possessions trailing by a field goal; MSU’s first fourth-quarter possession stalled out at the UI 32-yard line on a failed fourth down conversion. The next two drives never made it past the MSU 16 as the Vandals held on to its 3-point advantage for more than 24 minutes.
In MSU’s 17-15 loss to North Dakota, Brady Oliveira’s 60-yard touchdown with 2:27 left gave UND a 17-9 advantage. MSU scored a touchdown but failed to convert the two-point conversion to remain down two with less than a minute and a half. The Bobcats recovered Gabe Peppenger’s onside kick but Bruggman threw an interception three plays later.
Against Sacramento State, MSU blew a 38-21 fourth-quarter lead yet still had the ball with less than 30 seconds left trailing 41-38. Bruggman, who hadn’t played since early in the second quarter after completing just one of his first eight passes, came in and moved the chains once. But MSU’s last play resulted in a fumble and MSU lost by a close margin once again.
“Ironically enough, every one of our losses, we’ve been in a two-minute situation,” Choate said. “I saw some good things in terms of progress but we didn’t score to win the game. That’s still an area we have to emphasize and improve on.”
On MSU’s two-minute attempt against NAU, the drive started as Murray foolishly scrambled up the middle, forcing Choate to use his second timeout with 1:35 left. On the second play, sophomore center Alex Neale drew a flag for holding, putting MSU into a long-yardage situation on third down.
The penalty in a key moment continued a trend. On MSU’s second-to-last possession with 4:28 left against Sacramento State and the Bobcats clinging to a 38-34 lead, redshirt freshman Mitch Brott was called for a false start and MSU drew a holding flag on the next play.
Against UND right after MSU recovered the onside kick, the Bobcats were flagged for a personal foul. MSU earned one more possession after Bruggman’s third interception of the day with 49 seconds and the Bobcats promptly false started again.
“That’s the same guys and that’s a definitely a problem and if we had some other guys to put in there, we probably would,” Choate said. “We have to grow up, mature in those situations. We had a procedure penalty after an explosive play after the first quarter and then at the end of the game to back us up. That’s just a lack of focus at a critical moment. Those guys don’t intend to do that, I know that, but we have to improve on that.”
Montana State’s offense sputtered once again with Bruggman at the controls. The Bobcats gained just 94 yards in the first half in falling behind 20-0. When Murray entered the game, the Bobcats began to move the ball, partially because of Murray’s threat to run (he rushed for 41 yards) and partially because of MSU’s halftime adjustments.
“He’s fast and we knew that but it’s impossible to practice against it when you don’t have somebody like that so we had issues with it,” NAU head coach Jerome Souers said. “He executed the plays well when he had him but we did a better job late to continue to rush him and keeping him contained.”
Kevin Kassis fumbled the opening kickoff of the second half, leading to an NAU field goal, Northern Arizona’s last score of the evening. The following drive, MSU finally moved the ball. Junior Jayshawn Gates sprinted to a 32-yard gain on a jet sweep play and Chad Newell ripped off a 19-yard run to set up his nine-yard touchdown, MSU’s first score.
The following drive, senior Gunnar Brekke set the table with a 28-yard burst to set up Murray’s 19-yard touchdown run.
“We made some adjustments at halftime,” Newell said. “We went gap scheme on the, tried to get that going. I wanted to get gap schemes going, coaches wanted to get gap schemes going. Gunnar broke a big run, I was able to get loose on a gap scheme play. It ended up working out for us and we were able to do some big things on the back side.”
Despite an offensive line battling injuries — junior left tackle Dylan Mahoney did not dress and wore a walking boot on his foot while senior Patrick Carroll did not finish the game — Montana State averaged 4.2 yards per carry and rushed for 154 yards. But NAU notched three sacks, all three by Anua, including two that resulted in fumbles, one by Bruggman, the other by Murray on the final play of the game. Brott and Carroll both tried their hand at left tackle while Gillis played both spots on the right side of the line as MSU shuffled its offensive front throughout the night.
“The shuffle wasn’t by design,” Choate said. “We had two guys who got injured. We had to make some changes. Those kids battled their tails off in there and I’m really, really pleased with the job those guys did to establish the run game.”
Montana State’s defense kept the Bobcats in the game but one surprise came in NAU true freshman running back Joe Logan. After not playing a single snap in NAU’s 21-18 loss at Northern Colorado the week before, Logan rushed for 147 yards on 21 carries, including a 65-yard touchdown run to crack a scoreless tie and a 5-yard scoring spurt to give NAU a 20-0 advantage.
“We made the conscious decision to up his reps,” Souers said. “He’s been running really well and he’s starting to understand our offensive concepts really well. That allows him to show his talent.”
“We saw him on film against Eastern Washington but not last week,” Choate said. “He’s a very good player.”
John Walker has been a key to MSU’s improvements defensively all season long. The graduate transfer from Colorado shadowed NAU junior All-America Emmanuel Butler on Saturday, holding him to 68 yards on seven receptions. On the other side of the secondary, redshirt freshman Chris Harris made his first career start. Sophomore Tre’Von Strong, junior Bryce Alley and sophomore Tavon Dodd all took turns at the spot opposite Walker but not Harris, a 6-foot-3 raw but intriguing prospect who battled injuries earlier this season.
“His length helps against some of these gifted wide receivers,” Choate said. “One thing we were concerned about was him just throwing those jump balls up, those 50/50 balls, particularly to Butler. We felt like even if we were going to track him with John Walker, we felt like that probably gave us the best opportunity to compete with the shot throws they like.”
Harris gave up a 16-yard gain to Elijah Marks on a quick slant early but junior safety Bryson McCabe smacked Marks later in the first half. The speedy NAU junior spent the rest of the game on the sideline in a sling.
NAU quarterback Blake Kemp completed 25-of-40 passes for 195 yards, averaging just 7.8 yards per completion for Northern Arizona’s normally explosive offense. Part of the stout performance was the play of Harris.
“Chris, it started at practice,” Walker said. “He came in with Coach GA (Gerald Alexander) like every day and made sure he was polished on play calls and watched a lot of film. That showed and that helped him a lot coming in and going against their recievers for his first start. That could’ve been tough for him but he held it down.”
“He didn’t seem scared at all. I take my hat off to him.”
Montana State will try to snap its three-game losing skid with a game at Weber State on Saturday.
[/restrict]Photos by Brooks Nuanez. All Rights Reserved.
