As Holland stood atop the airplane stairs and looked out onto the runway, the throngs of locals waiting to welcome the Bobcats home burst into an ovation.

“I can still see it right now, 40 years later, that exact moment,” Bert Markovich said earlier this week. “That’s the defining memory of that moment, one of the pinnacle moments in all our lives.”

Forty years ago, Holland reached the pinnacle as a coach, replicating a feat he achieved 20 years earlier as a player. With each anniversary, each decade that passes, Bobcats’ run to the 1976 national championship becomes more entrenched in the lore of the Gallatin Valley. As Holland walked off the plane holding the national championship trophy, Mr. Bobcat stood on top of the world.

“The people in Montana like my father who never went to college, they loved Sonny Holland,” Markovich said. “The people of Montana, they loved him because of what he represented with his humility and authenticity. The professors, the farmers, the ranchers, the Butte miners, everyone loved him because he was so sincere. Then you add in the winning and you add in that championship and he is the greatest Bobcat of them all.”

As a four-year starter and three-time All-American, Holland carved out a career as a Bobcat legend, leading Montana State to its first football national championship in 1956. By 1976, he was in his sixth of seven seasons as the most successful head coach in school history, leading MSU to its second national title. But entering the campaign, no one could’ve predicted the success MSU would experience.

Holland led the Bobcats to the Big Sky Conference championship in 1972 in his second season as stars like Bill Kollar and Sam McCullum carved out their own places in MSU history. In 1973, 1974 and 1975, the Bobcats were one of the fiercest defensive units in all of Division II. Linebackers like Dusty Birkenbuel and Ron Ueland and defensive linemen like Kollar and Brad Daws stonewalled opponents with their vaunted 4-4 defense. Holland’s toss sweep offense featuring stud ball carriers like Steve Kracher and Wayne Edwards helped the Bobcats grind teams into the ground.

But MSU always battled new Big Sky member Boise State. Between 1973 and 1975, the Broncos — a former junior college accepted into the NCAA in 1969 — used Tony Knap’s innovative pro-style offense to pile up 29 wins in three seasons, earning Big Sky titles all three years. The Bobcats were the Big Sky runners-up to BSU in 1973 and 1974.

In 1975, Kracher rushed for 218 yards and helped MSU to a 34-28 lead with 37 seconds to play in Boise. On a sweep play, Boise State linebacker Gary Rosolowich stripped Kracher as the Bobcat runner was on his way out of bounds. The Broncos recovered and scored seconds later to lift BSU to a 35-34 victory that dropped MSU top 1-4 and sparked the host’s run to a third straight BSC title.

“We could’ve sacked our bats after that heartbreaker at the gun,” said Daws, an All-American his senior season in 1975. “But we won our next four that year, which gave those guys momentum heading into ’76.”

Still, with the departure of so many great players, from Kracher to all-time leading scorer kicker Pat Bolton to quarterback Mike Holder to a whole collection of physically intimidating defensive players, expectations were tempered entering 1976. The Bobcats were picked to finish fourth in the seven-team Big Sky Conference.

The roster featured just 10 seniors, including four fifth-year players like Marcovich and linebacker Tim Nixon, the team’s captains. Les Leininger returned at defensive end to anchor the defensive line, Vince Dodd returned in the secondary to lead the way from his strong safety position and senior Dave Mueller returned to flank Nixon. Senior Don Ueland provided a senior presence in an offensive backfield otherwise staked with first-year starters at quarterback, running back and fullback.

“You really had this dynamic that the talent, the really best players were sophomores and juniors,” Markovich said. “You had these seniors who played behind these tremendous stars, Bill Kollar, Ron Ueland, Dusty Birkenbuel, Wayne Edwards, Brad Daws. You had this mindset of just happy to be there because of the greatness ahead of us. There was no ego on that team.”

“The big thing was we had great senior leadership,” Rick Vancleeve, an All-Big Sky sophomore defensive tackle on the 1976 team, said. “I don’t think a lot of those guys got all-conference or anything but they were the heart of the team. We returned many players off that team the next two years and never quite ended up in the same position. That was a perfect meld of senior leadership and young punks.”

The Bobcat offensive front featured future NFL talent Jon Bortchardt, a 6-foot-5, 220-pound sophomore, and Bob Lubig, a 6-foot-5, 225-pound junior starting at tackle, the 6-foot-2, 225-pound Markovich playing center, and junior Lee Washburn (6-6, 248) and senior Ken Verlanic (6-3, 234) starting at guard. Junior Ron McCullogh (6-3, 223) was the top team in the Big Sky that season.

The group was tasked with paving the way for Holland’s physical toss sweep offense. Paul Dennehy, a sophomore from Butte Central, had just one season of starting experience as a quarterback for the Maroons because he sat behind record-setting Mark Schulte until his senior year. Dennehy’s athleticism running the option and the quarterback sprint out coupled with Delmar Jones’ athleticism from the fullback spot and Tom Kostrba’s grit at tailback helped the Bobcats establish their identity and punish teams throughout the ’76 season. The Bobcats rushed for nearly 290 yards per outing.

“The key to our championship run was our offensive front,” Dennehy said. “Our offensive front was rock solid. Our running game set the tone for everything we did. I think most people would agree, including Coach Holland, that was the best offensive line in Montana State history.”

The roster contained a distinct number of personalities hailing from all over the West. The Bobcats had 37 Treasure State products on their roster, including nine from Butte, Holland’s hometown. The out of state players mostly hailed from regional cities like Spokane, Seattle and the Twin Cities in Minnesota.

“The best way to describe our team was we had a third of out of state guys, a third of in-state guys and a third Butte guys,” Vancleeve said. “Butte is their own state. And our coaching staff were all Butte, all Butte tough.”

The Bobcats set the tone for their powerful style and resilient attitude right away. Montana State began its season in Grand Forks, North Dakota.

“Every time we went over there to Grand Forks, it would be 85 degrees, humidity like crazy and the wind would be blowing hard,” Markovich said. “They’d win the toss, defer, kick it off to you, you’d go three-and-out, punt it into the wind and they would get the ball on your 40-yard line. They would do that all first quarter, you’d be down 21-0 and it would be over before it began.”

The same scenario played out in the opener. In his first career start, Dennehy struggled to settle in initially and the Bobcats fell behind 14-3. Holland’s staff included Don Christensen, Howard Ross, Cliff Hysell and Sonny Lubick, the latter two future Bobcat head coaches themselves. Each and every one of the coaches talked to Dennehy, galvanizing him to guide the Bobcat offense to 15 unanswered points.

“That was the day Paul grew up as a player and we all believed in him after that,” Markovich said.

On the other side, Montana State’s revamped defense — now running a 5-2 instead of the old 4-4 — smothered the Fighting Sioux in MSU’s 18-14 win. With Vancleeve and junior Dick Lyman, a pair of 250-pound Great Falls products, controlling the interior, Leininger making plays on the end, and Dodd, Jim Mickelson and Ron Muri roaming the back end, the Bobcats ended up giving up 10 points per game the rest of the season.

Following the UND win, in Bozeman, Montana State bludgeoned North Dakota State with its powerful rushing attack in a 34-7 win. Against former head coach Jim Sweeney in Fresno, the Bobcats incurred their first loss, 24-10.

Vancleeve recalls the Fresno State loss being the only one of MSU’s 13 that season in which the Bobcats did not say a prayer. The team never missed another pre-game invocation.Following the defeat, the coaches switched Jones, a talented 200-pound sophomore who would earn All-Big Sky honors in 1977, to fullback to provide a speed option to compliment Kostrba’s power. With conference play beginning, Markovich remembers the coaches using a platoon where backups played every third series on both lines, in the backfield and throughout the second two levels of the defense.

October began with “the test, the team to beat in the Big Sky for the entire 70s,” Dennehy said: Boise State. The Bobcats avenged their heartbreaking loss from the season before, winning 24-20. Confidence began to grow.

Montana State destroyed Weber State 44-0 in Ogden before beating Idaho State 28-7 and Idaho 29-14 at Reno H. Sales Stadium in Bozeman. MSU closed the month with a 21-12 over rival Montana in Missoula, Holland’s ninth in 10 career outings against the Griz. November began with a 33-0 win over Northern Arizona in Bozeman to sew up MSU’s sixth Big Sky title in the league’s 14 years of existence.

The highlight of the Big Sky clincher came Leininger thwarted an NAU drive late in the first half by intercepting a pass and running it the length of the field for a touchdown.

“Les ran about a 5.5 40 and somehow went 85 yards into the end zone,” Vancleeve remembers. “On that play, Hysell was running down the sideline step for step with him and I think Hysell had to jog because he’s way faster than Les. Hysell had the head set on and when Les broke clean, Cliff’s cord got caught around his neck and his feet got pulled right out from under him (laughs).”

Montana State went into its regular-season finale at Division I-A Hawaii with the No. 1 national D-II ranking. Markovich joked the trip marked the first time “ a bunch of us Montana cowboys had ever seen any sun on our legs.” Senior tight end Al Reichow tore up his knee earlier in the year and Holland told him he could not go on the trip unless he intended to play. So the Bobcats rallied a collection of money and bought Reichow a ticket to come along to island paradise.

“That’s the kind of team we had,” Holland said during the unveiling ceremony for a statue of his likeness revealed at Bobcat Stadium on on the eve of MSU’s 2016 Homecoming game. “They loved each other, cared for each other and did whatever we took.

“Plus, the reason they bought him a ticket on the plane is Al had a bachelor party planned on the beach.”

MSU won that one too, rolling to a 28-7 win in Hawaii to move to 9-1 and earn a bid to the playoffs, the school’s sixth postseason berth. On the trip home, the plane had to make several emergency landings due to engine troubles, the first in a season filled with travel issues. Any time the Bobcats encountered an issue at the airport, Holland would take the team back to Brick Breeden Fieldhouse and conduct a practice.

“We would laugh about it and make fun of whoever got the most afraid,” Vancleeve said. “But maybe the games were easier because all we really worried about was getting there and getting back. Once we got to the field, we knew we would win.”

The playoffs began on a crisp, frigid Bozeman afternoon on November 27 against New Hampshire. The Bobcats bolted out to a 17-0 lead over the Wildcats.

“When I woke up that morning, it was nine below,” Dennehy said. “I remember going in at halftime and going back out, wondering if it was even possible to warm back up.”

“That was the coldest football game I’d ever played in in my life,” Markovich, a Butte native himself, said. “My wife, who was my girlfriend at the time, came down and she spent the whole game in the bathroom it was so cold.”

New Hampshire stormed back to cut the Bobcat lead to one but a missed extra point gave MSU a 17-16 win and a bid to the Grantland Rice Bowl for a rematch with NDSU, this time in Fargo. That afternoon proved to be as chilling and NDSU’s Astroturf complicated things even further.

“The coaches decided we needed to get new turf shoes so we got some new shoes from this funny new company called Nike none of us had ever heart of,” Markovich said, who ended up wearing Hysell’s coaching shoes instead.

“We got those shoes and ran on to the field and we weren’t used to it, first time on turf, on national TV, some of us fell right on our face,” Vancleeve said.

The Bobcats scored 10 second-half points, all by freshmen, including a key field goal by Jeff Muri in a stiff wind, to advance to the Division II national championship game with a 10-3 win. Kostrba carried MSU with 32 carries for 106 yards as the ‘Cats survived a minus-21 degree freeze.

“We thought we were into the championship, going to Texas, we’d have some good weather,” Dennehy said. “We get to Wichita Falls and it was even colder. The coaches that night went out looking for sweatshirts and long johns because we didn’t pack for it.”

On the way to the title game on December 11, the Montana State again encountered travel issues and again returned to campus to practice. MSU arrived in Wichita Falls late for the welcoming banquet.

The week leading up to the game, the Bobcats heard all about how big, strong, fast and athletic Akron would be. The Zips, after all, were on their way up to Division I two years later and the fertile Ohio recruiting grounds sprinkled talent across their roster.

When Montana State arrived at the banquet hall dressed exactly like you’d expect a group of young men from Montana to be, Akron had already finished eating. But the Zips waited for the Bobcats with other intentions.

“They were cat calling us, making fun of our Montana cowboys,” Holland said. “We had some big ole’ cowboys. Lee Washburn, a big, strong kid from Bozeman, he was pissed off. Our kids were really quiet, didn’t say a thing , but we didn’t forget that. Then we went out and kicked their ass.”

After slugging out the first quarter, Dennehy tossed a five-yard touchdown to McCullough for MSU’s first score. Later in the second quarter, Ueland threw a touchdown to sophomore Butch Damberger on a halfback passes. Ueland, Kostrba and Jones helped MSU piled up 266 rushing yards and Jeff Muri hit a 21-yard field goal as MSU build a 17-0 third-quarter lead.

Akron forced two turnovers that led to 13 quick points and a third takeaway gave Akron one last chance. But the Bobcat defense stiffened and Kostrba punched in a touchdown from eight yards out to seal victory.After Kostrba’s score, he handed the ball to Washburn, who spiked the ball and took the penalty, a completely uncharacteristic display of showboating for a Holland-coached team.

“The most shocked people in the stadium were me and the coaches,” Holland said. “We just didn’t do that stuff. But looking back on it now, it was pretty funny.”

After the game, a sideline reporter for the nationally televised broadcast grabbed Leininger for an interview. The reporter asked how the Westby native’s eight-man football background helped him prepare him for that moment.

“Well,” Leininger replied, “they give you the ball and you run your ass off.”

Following the 1977 season, Holland abruptly retired at the age of 39. Although Sonny Lubick, Doug Graber and Dave Arnold all led MSU to Big Sky titles — Arnold winning a national championship in his second of four seasons in 1984 — the Bobcats have searched to regain the dominance of the Holland era.

 As the ’76 championship fades farther into the past, the reverence for the group grows. On Saturday, Montana State honors the 40^th anniversary of the title at its Homecoming game that doubles as its Big Sky opener against, fittingly, North Dakota. MSU will also honor the 60^th anniversary of the ’56 title team.

Dozens of former Holland players, from the 1976 team and other squads included, attended the unveiling ceremony to see the two-ton bronze memorial of their mentor. Vancleeve, Ueland, Markovich, Dennehy, Jones, Daws and Wayne Edwards spearheaded the construction of the statue.

Markovich emceed the event with Holland receiving praise from all who attended. While Holland is now immortalized forever by the bronze and is widely recognized as the pinnacle figure in the history of Bobcat athletics, the men who went to war for him some 40 years ago have brought him as much pride as anything he accomplished individually.

“That’s really the most spectacular part is to stand back and observe the men they’ve become, the way they’ve raise their families,” Holland said. “They are recognized and remembered as great players but they’ve also been great contributors to the communities they live in around the state and around America. I’m so proud of them all.”

Photos courtesy of Montana State Athletics or noted. All Rights Reserved. 

First and foremost, Jim Sweeney was a son of Butte, America.

“He was all Butte,” says Phil Schneider, a Montana State offensive lineman under Sweeney’s tutelage during the 1957 and 1958 seasons. “Tough. He was tough. And funny.”

Dennis Erickson’s Hall of Fame coaching career nearly interlocks with Sweeney. Erickson played for Sweeney at Montana State, coached as an assistant with him at Washington State and Fresno State, and Erickson’s father Pink coached with Sweeney in Pullman, too.

Erickson sums his mentor up simply. “It was all Butte in him,” he said with a laugh. “He was tough. Everything you hear about him is true.”

Sweeney rose to great heights in the college football world as a head coach of three Division I programs over more than three decades. He spent 19 seasons between 1976 and 1996 leading Fresno State. He helped the Bulldogs’ program transition from the Pacific Coast Athletic Association to the Big West in 1980 and then into the Western Athletic Conference (WAC) in 1992. He led Fresno to eight conference championships, seven bowl games and five bowl game victories.

Sweeney finished his head coaching career with 201 victories, including a program record 144 that still stands as the most ever at Fresno State. He is one of 95 coaches in college football history, any division, to earn 200 career victories.

Although he spent most of his 32 seasons as a college head coach leading teams in the Pac 8 (Washington State, 1968-1975) and along the West Coast, his Montana roots ran deep. And some of his greatest influences, from guiding Montana State into the Big Sky Conference as a charter member to convincing one of the greatest kickers of all time to give that pursuit a try to growing an impressive coaching tree that impacted the Big Sky and college football for so many years,  Sweeney is one of the godfathers of modern football in Montana.

The man from Butte has been a conduit for the heights many who began in the Treasure State, like Erickson, who is now a College Football Hall of Famer.   several of the men from his coaching tree earned reputations as some of the game’s most memorable figures.

Many remember Sweeney, who passed away in 2013 at the age of 83, as one of those unforgettable coaches.

“Jim is a coaching legend. His legacy of success, both here and at other schools, is a very real part of our program’s tradition,” former Montana State head coach Mike Kramer (2000-2006) said in 2002 when Sweeney was inducted into Montana State’s Hall of Fame.

Bill Moos, who played at Washington State under Sweeney before rising through the ranks to become one of the most successful athletic directors in college sports, never forgot the influence Sweeney had on him. Moos was the athletic director at Montana when the Grizzlies won their first football national championship in 1995. Moos was the AD at Oregon (1995-2007) as the Ducks exploded into a West Coast titan. And Moos spent 2017 through 2021 as the athletic director at Nebraska.

“If Jim Sweeney had Woody Hayes’ (former Ohio State coach) players, there wouldn’t even be a debate here,” Moos said during a celebration of life for Sweeney in February of 2013, “because he’s the best football coach ever to coach in this great country, I believe.”

Born in Butte in 1929 to an Irish immigrant who worked as a hard-rock miner, Sweeney followed a stellar athletic career at Butte Central High with three standout seasons (1947-50) at the University of Portland, also a Catholic institution. His coaching career began at Columbia High School in Portland as an assistant in 1950, but the next season he joined the coaching staff at Butte Central. He worked as an assistant in 1951 before taking the reigns as head coach one year later.

In 1955, Sweeney became head coach at Flathead High in Kalispell. During his four seasons there the Braves won two Class AA State Championships and rolled up 18 consecutive victories. Four of his former players welcomed him upon his arrival at Bozeman in 1960 to coach Bobcat linemen.

Sweeney’s success at Flathead had already helped launch the most prolonged period of success in the history of the Montana State football program by the time he took over as head coach in 1963. Montana State had strung together seven straight winning seasons to that point, and Sweeney tacked on two more for a record that stood until 2009. His fingerprints remain visible on the Bobcat program today.

In the fall of 1960, though, he was tasked with developing line play for head coach Herb Agocs’ squads. Montana State featured some of the program’s greatest linemen ever that season. Tackle Bob Biastoch from Butte, is a Bobcat Athletics Hall of Famer, while his bookend Curt Farrier played spent five seasons with the Kansas City Chiefs. Sweeney also mentored All-America Joe Tiller, like Erickson a future collegiate coaching legend, and six other future all-league selections.

Sweeney displayed his penchant for toughness during his first season as Bobcat line coach.

“He had gone downtown to see (the movie) Spartacus, and the next day in practice we had a drill called Spartacus,” said Dick Hueth, then a sophomore offensive linemen. “I’ll never forget it.”

Sweeney created a chalk-lined square around three feet-by-three feet, and a player took his stance in a defensive position within the box. An offensive player got a running start with the defender fending off the play to tackle the oncoming ball carrier. Curt Farrier, at 6-foot-5 and 230 pounds, charged an offensive lineman and rammed into him.

“Farrier knocked him out of the square and knocked his teeth through his lower jaw,” Hueth continued. “There were two other (injuries) right after that, and then Marshall (Cook, the school’s athletic trainer) walked right into the middle (of the drill) and said, ‘That’s it. We’re done with this.’”

Hueth still marvels at Sweeney’s hard-edged enthusiasm. “He really was like a Roman gladiator in the Coliseum.”

Herb Agocs, an assistant under Tony Storti beginning with Montana State’s 1956 national championship season, took the program’s reins in 1958. Two seasons later he brought Sweeney on board as line coach, and in 1963 upon Agocs’ retirement from his football coaching duties Sweeney was elevated by Director of Athletics Gene Bourdet to head football coach.

Two members of Sweeney’s final Flathead High team played for the Cats in 1963, including quarterback Ken Christison. A brilliant prep athlete, Christison threw for 855 yards as a part-time starter in 1962. That included touchdown passes of 80 yards against both Utah State and Fresno State. Christison had earned All-America honors in the javelin in the spring of 1963, and Sweeney promised to throw the ball more that fall to take advantage of Christison’s arm.

While that didn’t exactly pan out, the reason was an improved and complex ground game. Christison ran for 219 yards himself, averaging 5.4 yards a carry, while Dan Sundling starred at halfback. He set a school record with 672 rushing yards, and his 144 yards against the Grizzlies also broke a school record.

That was the first sign of Sweeney’s adaptive nature as a head coach, and part of that was a response to a changing environment. In 1963-64 Montana State University, the University of Montana, Idaho State University, Weber State University, and (on a limited basis at first) the University of Idaho formed the Big Sky Conference. Gonzaga University also joined, but had long since dropped its football program.

After a 7-3 campaign in its final season as an independent in 1962, Montana State finished Sweeney’s first campaign as head coach 6-3 overall, 2-1 in the Big Sky. In 1964 the Cats finished 7-4 but won all three Big Sky games to claim the Big Sky crown. Injuries wiped out the 1965 season (although the Cats beat Montana for the second straight season), but in 1966 Sweeney and MSU were ready to lay claim to the league’s first real dynasty.

“Sweeney was an intense son of a gun, but he had a great, great feel for blending talent – or lack of it – and emotion,” longtime Montana State trainer Chuck Karnop said  years later. “He had an understanding of where a kid was in terms of his spirit, and where his heart was. A lot of people from Butte seem to grow up with that feel. They have a way of appreciating the whole person, and not necessarily just the athletic ability. Jim really had that knack.”

Montana State posted an 8-3 record in 1966 and 7-3 in 1967, winning the Big Sky with 4-0 records each season. The Bobcats had beaten Sacramento State in the 1964 Camellia Bowl, and earned another bid in 1966. The foe awaiting them in their second Camellia Bowl was San Diego State, the nation’s top-ranked small college team. With an offense constructed by head coach Don Coryell and a defense led by coordinator John Madden – both future NFL coaching legends – along with eight players that would be drafted a few short months later, the Aztecs beat Montana State 28-7.

Sweeney tinkered with his offense throughout his time at Montana State, landing on a “belly option” attack spearheaded by Erickson and tailback Don Hass because “he really wanted to run the ball and I couldn’t throw it at all,” Erickson said laughed.

At that point in his career, though, Erickson said X’s and O’s and schemes and offensive concepts were secondary to Sweeney in those years. “The biggest concept he relied on was toughness,” Erickson said. “We ran the football and he was one of the first guys running the I formation back in 1967 and ’68, but more than anything he wanted his teams to be tough.”

Sweeney is also part of a fateful decision to lure a Norwegian ski jumper from the hill to the gridiron, opening the door for one of the greatest careers by a kicker in football history.

In 1962, Jan Stenerud was fresh off a sixth-place finish at the Norwegian Junior National Ski Jumping Championship when a letter from Montana State arrived at his family’s home. Former MSU ski coach Bob Beck was offering a full-ride scholarship to come halfway across the globe.

As a sophomore at Montana State in 1964, Stenerud finished fourth at the NCAA National Championships in the ski jump, earning All-America honors in the process. Then his life took an unexpected twist.

The following spring, Stenerud was running the stairs at Gatton Field with his teammates. After the cardio session, MSU football player Dale Jackson talked Stenerud into cooling down by kicking a few footballs.

It so happened on that afternoon that MSU men’s basketball coach Roger Craft was taking his typical shortcut across Gatton Field back to Brick Breeden Fieldhouse on the Montana State campus. He witnessed the young Norwegian consistently kicking footballs from the opposite 40-yard line “out of the back of the end-zone and beyond.”

The next day, Craft went into Sweeney’s office.

“I said, ‘Jim, have you ever seen Jan Stenerud kick a football?’ and he kind of ignored things,” Craft said in 2016. “So I said, ‘You should get him because he could really be a great asset’. He shrugged his shoulders like we basketball coaches don’t know what the hell we are talking about.”

A few weeks later, Craft saw Stenerud running the Gatton stairs again. Sweeney and his team were also on the field that day, so Craft yelled at Stenerud to come down and show his stuff.

Stenerud was wearing loafers that afternoon, so he had to wear one of Sweeney’s waffle-soled coaching shoes.

“I said, ‘Jim, you are going to watch this guy kick the football’, so Jim lined them up in kicking formation,” Craft said. “The holder was on the hash mark of the 35-yard line. Jan put it right through the uprights. Jim said, ‘Let’s see that again’. So he did it again. Right then, Jim walked over to Jan and patted him on the rear and said, “We have pregame breakfast tomorrow morning at 10 o’clock.”

In that moment, a record-setting football career was born. In 1965, Stenerud forever etched himself in MSU lore and put his name on the national map. In Montana State’s annual rivalry game against the University of Montana, Stenerud hit a 59-yard field goal, the longest in college football history at the time.

By 1966, he was a star. That season, the Bobcats scored 50 touchdowns and won the Big Sky Conference title. Stenerud hit 11 field goals and 49 extra points in scoring an NCAA-record 82 points. He was a consensus All-America selection and was picked by the Atlanta Falcons in the NFL Draft. He’d been drafted by the Chiefs the year before and ultimately decided to play for Hank Strom’s Chiefs. By his fourth season, KC became just the second AFL team to win a fledgling football game known as the Super Bowl.

During his 18-year NFL career, Stenerud essentially wrote the record books. His 373 made field goals and 1,699 points were all-time records when he retired. He earned seven All-Pro selections and was named to four Pro Bowls. He played on the Kansas City Chiefs team that won Super Bowl IV and he’s a member of the Chiefs’, Green Bay Packers’ and Montana State Bobcats’ Hall of Fames. He was also inducted into the Montana Football Hall of Fame’s inaugural class in 2016.

“Sweeney got a hold of me, and Sweeney, he was a dominant individual,” Stenerud said. “He dominated every room he was in. He gave me the chance of a lifetime because I was a sideshow, a circus. I was the only guy on the team who couldn’t play football, didn’t even try to play football, couldn’t play football. He’d never had a guy who had just kicked. Instead of being the sideshow or distraction, he embraced this idea and it was absolutely great.

“I think about him almost every day in my life. There will never be another man like Jim Sweeney.”

Sweeney’s five seasons at Montana State netted 31 wins, three of the first five Big Sky Conference championships ever won in football and a pair of Camellia Bowl appearances, including MSU’s lone bowl victory in 1964. Sweeney’s time at MSU also helped him influence men like Erickson, Tiller and Sonny Holland.

Erickson, who was a senior quarterback for the Bobcats in 1968 and an inductee into the Montana Football Hall of Fame in 2017, came to Bozeman to play for Sweeney. He went on to lead Miami to a pair of national championships and was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2019. Erickson worked for Sweeney at Fresno State and Washington State.

Tiller, an all-conference offensive lineman for the Bobcats after coming to Bozeman from Toledo, Ohio, played for Sweeney his senior season and coached for him four more. In 1971, when Sweeney was four years into his eight-year stretch leading Washington State, Tiller joined the Wazzu staff as the offensive line coach.

After spending nine seasons coaching in the Canadian Football League, Tiller returned to the college ranks as an assistant at Purdue from 1983 to 1986. By 1991 he was the head coach at Wyoming and by 1997 he was the head coach at Purdue. He led the Boilermakers to 10 bowl games, including the 2000 Rose Bowl, in his 12 seasons at the helm.

And Holland, himself a Butte product, stayed long enough in Bozeman to earn the reputation as the Greatest Bobcat of all time. There’s a statue out front of Bobcat Stadium in homage to “The Chief” after he helped guide MSU to the 1956 national championship as a player while leading the Bobcats to the 1976 as head coach 20 years later.

Erickson, Tiller and Holland all worked for Sweeney at multiple stops. Sweeney’s eight seasons at Washington State were more challenging than the rest of his largely charmed coaching career. The Cougars finished with a winning record just once: a 7-4 mark in 1972 that helped Wazzu finish with a No. 19 overall national ranking.

“He had come to Pullman from MSU where he had a really nice run of conference championship teams,” Kramer, who was recruited by Sweeney out of his native Colton, Washington to play at WSU, said years later on ESPN Radio. “The Cougars were sorely lacking in a lot of areas. But Sweeney brought in a brand of enthusiasm that is still around on the Palouse decades later.  The way they celebrate college football in Pullman, that started with Sweeney.

“A lot of ways that I thought you had to act as a coach came from watching Coach Sweeney from afar. For example, at Washington State University, after every win, they would sing the Bobcat fight song. Not the Cougar fight song. The Bobcat fight song (laughs).”

After a 26-59 mark that included a 12-41 Pac 8 record, Sweeney resigned. The following season, he took over at Fresno State, helping build the Bulldog program into the envy of the rest of the small-school college football world.

From Dick Fry’s book “The Crimson and Gray” about Washington State football, it reads about Sweeney:

“Jim Sweeney’s coaching record at Washington State belies his popularity at the school. Sweeney posted an unexceptional 29-59-1 mark at WSU. Yet he could have owned the school — and most of the sportswriters on the Pacific Coast, if he’d wanted ‘em — because of a ready wit and Irish charm that usually disarmed his most severe critics.”

During his run at Fresno State, Sweeney earned six of his staggering 11 conference Coach of the Year awards. He helped the university establish itself among the landscape of competitive West Coast football schools.

“Coach Sweeney awakened our university and Central California to new possibilities and new dreams and he led the way,” former Fresno State president John Welty said during a celebration of life at Fresno State shortly after Sweeney’s passing in 2013.

“Coach Sweeney puts us on the national map and made Fresno State the gold standard for mid-major football,” added Tim DeRuyter, the head coach at Fresno State from 2012 until 2016 who is now the defensive coordinator at Texas Tech. “He made us the envy of everybody else out there.”

Sweeney led the Bulldogs to nine wins and an outright PCAA title in his second season in 1977. He spent the 1978 season with the Oakland Raiders in John Madden’s final season, and the 1979 season with the St. Louis Cardinals under Bud Wilkinson, who was fired before the season’s end.

Sweeney returned to Fresno State as head coach in 1980 for 17 seasons, compiling a 144–74–3 (.658) record and eight conference championships

By 1982, Fresno went 11-1, winning a second conference crown and winning the California Bowl for the first of four times Sweeney led the team to a victory in that particular post-season affair.

The Bulldogs went undefeated in conference play in 1985, 1988 and 1989, winning double-digit games and the California Bowl in each season. Sweeney also led Fresno State to the first two WAC titles ever and bowl appearances each year in 1992 and 1993.

“He understood what made a great football coach and a great leader,” standout Fresno State quarterback Trent Dilfer, the No. 6 overall pick in the 1994 NFL Draft and a Super Bowl champion in the pros, said at Sweeney’s celebration of life in 2013. “You get the most from the least and the best from the best, and I guarantee you that there’s guy 113 on the 1991 team, that I don’t remember his name, but Jim Sweeney got the most out of him.”

He retired from college coaching in 1996 after 32 years, with a combined record of 201 wins, 153 losses and four ties, including five bowl victories. He was named the Pacific Coast Athletic Association’s Coach of the Year on three separate occasions, the Big West Coach of the Year for both 1988 and 1989, and was a finalist for National Coach of the Year honors in 1989. He was inducted into the Fresno State Hall of Fame in 1992 and the Montana State Hall of Fame in 2002. At the conclusion of the 1996 football season, the field at Bulldog Stadium was renamed “Jim Sweeney Field” in his honor.

And now this season, Sweeney joins the illustrious group enshrined in the Montana Football Hall of Fame, so many of whom he helped pave the way for.

“Coach Sweeney, who led Kalispell to the Montana high school state championship over Helena High in 1958 to Montana State where he led the Bobcats to Big Sky titles to Pullman where he got the Cougars in contention to Fresno State, where he had such an outstanding career, to the NFL and back to Fresno State…what a great, outstanding contributor he was to football in the state of Montana, to the Big Sky Conference and around the country,” Kramer said. “He had as much influence as any coach the Big Sky Conference or the West has seen in college football.”

As the current Bobcats file into the newly opened, pristine Bobcat Athletic Complex, most if not all of them make sure to touch the hallowed statue, trying to channel the luck and spirit of a man with peerless accomplishments within the Montana State football program.

Sonny Holland is the greatest Bobcat of them all, although if you asked the icon for most of the last 20 years who he would give such a title, he would say Kane Ioane. And 65 years after Holland helped lead Montana State to its first national football championship as a player, 45 years since he led his alma mater to its second national championship as its head coach, Holland might have a new Bobcat great to compete with given all that Troy Andersen has accomplished.

But only one statue watches over Bobcat Stadium. And that man is still alive. To have Holland still sitting in Montana State athletic director Leon Costello’s suite at each MSU home game is a true testament to the reverence for history that has always trademarked Bobcat football.

And it’s that reverence for the foundation for the house Montana State has built that has consistently influenced the collective mentality of this MSU team, a squad that is into the national title game for the first time since 1984 Saturday against North Dakota State.

“There’s something that has been built here and not by us,” Montana State senior defensive end Daniel Hardy said. “We are standing on the shoulders of giants. We have a duty, a responsibility to uphold that legacy and achieve greatness because of what has come before us.”

During MSU’s 26-7 win over Tennessee Martin in the second round of the FCS Playoffs, Mellott turned a too-close-for-comfort game highlighted by wind and his first career start into a rout sparking MSU with a 74-yard touchdown rip early in the fourth quarter.

Holland, who is 83, doesn’t say much these days, preferring to intently watch the game in peace from his bird’s eye view. But first hand observers said that when Mellott scored that touchdown, Holland simply stood and raised his arms above his head, bellowing just one word: “BUTTE!”

“Coach Holland is a Bobcat legend, a Bobcat great,” MSU All-American senior captain offensive lineman Lewis Kidd said. “To get that perspective, to see and hear his messages, it’s so sweet. To have a legend around like that, it makes you want to create a legacy like him.

“That statue is something we really appreciate and that’s why we touch it every time we hit the field.”

Growing up in Butte in the post World War II era and into the early 1950s, the Mining City had built a reputation as one of the toughest towns in the United States. A diverse community built in large part with settlers from all over the country and the continent seeking wealth in Butte’s infamous copper mines caused the Mining City to become one of the first Western towns to swell to more than 100,000 people.

That boom attracted folks of all different ethnic backgrounds and places of origin. Holland remembers that impacting him as a young man.

Holland grew up in a German-Irish family that valued hard work and respect of one’s elders. His father worked on Butte-Anaconda Pacific, running the ore train from Butte’s thriving copper mine to the smelters in Anaconda. The household was strict, something that stuck with Holland for the duration of his life.

“We were brought up that way,” Holland said in 2017. “We were brought up to be respectful, kids always had to be respectful. We had to work hard from a young age and we learned the value of a dollar quickly.”

Holland’s father also played in an independent football team that featured six local teams. Holland remembers his father bringing home his gear, including a leather helmet with no facemask when Sonny was in the third grade. At that moment, he fell in love with the game and began playing tackle football as an eight-year-old.

Butte High still has the Montana record for state titles by a single school with 15 even though the Bulldogs have only claimed two Class AA state crowns (1991, 2012) in the last 35 years. Butte won 13 state titles between 1924 and 1981, the same number Great Falls C.M. Russell has won since its first its first title in 1975.

“Butte, it’s a fiber, a work ethic, a intrinsic fiber of the people that you aren’t going to put them down and keep them down forever because they will surprise you,” Holland said. “It’s a blue collar type of town. They’ve tried themselves in that. The game of football is something that Butte has hung its hat on.”

When Holland arrived at Montana State as a standout offensive lineman and middle linebacker, he already knew how to mix, mesh and compete alongside teammates from different backgrounds.

His leadership and his demand that MSU stand up against racial injustice set the tone for MSU’s run to the NAIA national title in 1956. When the Bobcats went across the country to Little Rock, Arkansas, the team was informed its three Black players would have to stay in a different hotel. Holland and his teammates refused to let it happen.

That foreshadowed Holland’s transition into coaching. Meanwhile, Jim Sweeney starting putting his finger prints all over Montana State, helping start an era dominated by unforgettable figures from the Mining City hailing from Butte.

Sweeney, the son of a hard-rock miner who emigrated from Ireland, led MSU for five seasons, winning 31 games before taking the head coaching job at Fresno State. The Butte Central alum and former BC head coach, led Montana State into the Big Sky Conference era when the league was formed in 1963 and helped MSU win the title in 1964, 1966 and 1967.

Sweeney also famously talked MSU skier Jan Stenerud into walking onto the football team, sparking a career that culminated in Stenerud becoming the only pure kicker in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Dennis Erickson, a College Football Hall of Famer, also played quarterback for Sweeney.

When Sweeney left for Fresno State, Tom Parac went 9-21 in three seasons before giving way to Holland in 1971. His sevens seasons are littered with accomplishments like the 1972 Big Sky title, or the program’s first No. 1 overall national ranking in 1978 with a roster recruited mostly by Holland. Of course, the 1976 title deified the then 38-year-old Holland. And most remember him both for that national crown and for posting a 10-1 record against the rival Grizzlies.

“Growing up, my dad would bring up Sonny Holland when he would talk about the Bobcats from way back in the day,” Montana State senior tight end Ryan Davis said. “Through his coaching career, my dad used to bring up when everybody in the state was a ‘Cats fan. When all of this was a big gold rush and the Cats would dominate, always, especially the Griz.

“I never heard really much about him after that until we got here and then you see the Sonny Holland End-Zone, you see his picture in our locker room. I love reading his picture. You just hear legends and legends of this guy from Butte, America who made this thing really take off. He influenced the pride of Montana State and turned this into a winning program.

“Then we get to see the statue every day. Sonny still comes into the locker room. The look on his face when he saw it, you could tell he was like, ‘Man, I’m seeing this through.”

During that 1976 title spurt, Paul Dennehy was the quarterback for the Bobcats. The Butte Central product guided MSU to 26 wins, including a 12-1 mark in 1976 when he was s sophomore. That year also included the school’s sixth Big Sky title in 13 years and its second national title in 20. Holland’s Bobcats also had prominent Butte products like Ron Ueland and his brother, Don along with safety Jim Mickelson

“I was always scared of Butte guys growing up,” laughed Dan Davies , Montana State’s senior associate athletic director and a man who has lived a life intertwined with Bobcat football. “You heard all the stories, playing on Naranche Field full of dirt and glass and mud, all that lore.”

Davies was a walk-on receiver from Chinook who “spent most of my time on the meat squad during that championship season.” Davies was also an assistant on Dave Arnold’s staff during MSU’s run to the 1984 national championship. He’s worked in athletic administration and as part of MSU’s radio broadcast team for most of the last four decades.

When Holland abruptly and surprisingly retired at age 39 following the 1977 season, Sonny Lubick took over after serving as an assistant on Holland’s staff. Lubick, of course, also hailed from Butte.

Lubick led MSU to the 1979 Big Sky championship and over the next few seasons, assembled a roster flush with talent, many of whom hailed from Montana. And a collection of those players — Mark Fellows, Tom Mahlum, Doug Kimball, Troy and Kirk Timmer, Tex Sykora, Lonnie Burt — helped lead Montana State to its most recent national title in 1984.

The Bobcat team that will try to derailed the North Dakota State freight train on Saturday in Frisco is also flush with talented and memorable Montanans. All-American Troy Andersen is the ring leader, an uber talented cowboy from Dillon who has played a variety of positions at MSU.

Chase Benson, a silent yet lethal hulking defensive tackle from Helena, is the enforcer, wearing Montana State’s legacy No. 41 number proudly while anchoring the interior of the Bobcat defensive front.

Bozeman native Lance McCutcheon has blossomed into one of the most explosive pass catches in the country during his senior year and has some historic numbers within reach entering his final college game.

And players like Davis, former walk-on redshirt freshman center Justus Perkins (Bozeman), former six-man star tight end Treyton Pickering (Sunburst), hard-hitting junior inside linebacker Callahan O’Reilly, cerebral redshirt freshman safety Rylan Ortt, and, of course, Touchdown Tommy, have had the biggest impacts of any Bobcats this season.

“I think that it’s a sense of work ethic for the people of Montana and even though it’s a giant state, it’s one big, small town and everyone knows each other,” Andersen said. “They really want to see each other do well. Regardless of where you are from, if you see Montana kids playing for the Bobcats, you want them to do well. And we take pride in that.”

Kidd, who hails from Minneapolis, remembers the first time he heard the reference to “Butte, America,” from former Bobcat defensive end Marcus Ferriter, who is also part of the pride Butte Central Catholic. Kidd learned quickly that Montana-made products had a distinct sense of pride for the program. And for those from the Mining City, they love representing for their prideful hometown.

“That kid (Ferriter) was a serious character and he had so many stories to tell about Butte,” Kidd said.

“I remember our freshman year when we all had to stand up and tell stories about ourselves in camp and he stood up and said, “Marcus Ferriter, Butte, America.’ And I was like, what is that, I’ve never heard of that and now it’s become a thing.

“Now to see Tommy, and to see how much everyone has rallied around him and the guys from Butte, it’s amazing.”

Mellott spent time in his hometown over the holiday, posing for several pictures during a Butte High game. MSU head coach Brent Vigen, he of North Dakota State roots, said he thinks all the momentum and attention Mellott has garnered is a good thing. And as has been the case with basically every element of this unbelievable hot streak, Mellott is handling the spotlight with poise.

“We had a drastic change and a lot of guys jumped on board throughout the entire state and believed in me and have given me endless support,” Mellott said. “I have been very thankful for all of that. It’s been quite an experience. Montana, it feels like one big city and everyone roots for their own. I’ve been blessed by this opportunity.”

“You have to appreciate the opportunity you have and very few people have the opportunity we have right now,” Mellott said. “Everyone wishes for this. Everyone dreams about this.”

Although Lubick helped assemble a group that reached its ultimate goal, he was not the head coach for that unforgettable run. Instead, he was surprisingly and controversially fired following the 1981 season after winning seven games in two seasons, giving way to for one season of Doug Graber, then Dave Arnold ahead of the 1983 season.

Those who believe in superstition might tell you the lean years for Bobcat football were part of some sort of Babe Ruth-like curse stemming from Lubick’s firing. Hysell’s inability to beat the Griz or get into the playoffs emphasized that misery.

Following MSU’s historic run to the ’84 title, the Bobcats fell on hard times. The 34-24 comeback win over the Grizzlies in Missoula that regular season would be the secone-to-last rivalry victory for Montana State. In 1986, Montana State lost for the first of 16 straight rivalry games.

The bond between Butte and the Bobcats has always been strong. Arnold’s teams had a tough stretch in 1985 and 1986, winning five total games leading to Arnold’s dismissal. The failed experiment of hiring former North Dakota State head coach Earle Solmonson led Montana State to hire of Helena product as its head coach when Cliff Hysell took the reins before the 1992 season.

From Lulay‘s streak snapper in 2002 to shares of six Big Sky titles between 2002 and 2012, playoff hot streaks of the past seemed to always elude Montana State.

Lulay, DeNarius McGhee, Dakota Prukop; each had postseason opportunities and none advanced past the quarterfinals.

Saturday, nearly half a century since Dennehy led MSU to a 24-13 win over Akron in the Pioneer Bowl, another of Butte’s finest gunslingers will lead the Bobcats for a shot at the national crown.

 “It’s so cool thinking of the connection that goes all the way back to Jim Sweeney,” Davies said. “You talk to Tommy Mellott and how important being from Butte is for him and being the quarterback at Montana State, what a story.”

Photos by Brooks Nuanez or noted. All Rights Reserved.

And an enormous factor in almost every coaching change (save Dave Arnold, ironically) in Bozeman over the last four-plus decades has been Montana State’s ability to beat (or not) rival Montana.

On Saturday at Washington-Grizzly Stadium, Brent Vigen will become the latest ‘Cat coach to be immersed in the fiercest rivalry in the West. Montana State is gunning for a fifth straight rivalry win over Montana, including a fifth win in its last six trips to Missoula.

“Looking forward to this week,” Vigen said on Monday. “Our guys are really excited, and it’s good that we’re within this week. There’s no looking ahead, there’s no looking back. We’re in this week here with a lot to play for.”

Montana State is the No. 3 team in the country in Vigen’s first season. MSU has won nine in a row overall this fall behind one of the top defenses in the country. They take on a suddenly surging Griz team that is on a four-game winning streak and back into the hunt for a playoff seed.

“This rivalry runs deep not only with our Montana kids but with our team,” Vigen said. “And that’s what you want. You want to be at programs that have rivalries like this. I would suspect that it’s right up there with any rivalry in the country. There is great rivalries at all levels and this is one of the top ones in the country, there’s no doubt about it.”

During the beginning of the Big Sky Conference era from 1963, the Bobcats won 12 of 15 games against the Griz. In 1978, Sonny Lubick led Montana State to the No. 1 ranking in the newly-formed Division I-AA level for the first tie only to lose tow weekends later to Montana, 24-8, in Bozeman.

By 1981, a 27-17 loss to Montana was part of a 3-7 season that ended in Lubick’s termination. Graber led MSU for one year before bolting to the NFL.

Dave Arnold led Montana State to the 1984 national championship, including a 34-24 over Montana. The season before, MSU went 1-10, the lone victory a 28-8 win over the Griz in Bozeman. In 1985, MSU went 2-9 but one win was a 41-18 win over the Griz in Bozeman. That marks the last time the Cats would beat the Griz for 16 years.

Graber’s final season, the ‘Cats went 3-8 including a 59-28 loss at the newly built Washington-Grizzly Stadium. Thus commenced the streak.

Montana State never beat the Grizzlies in Earle Solmonson’s five seasons or Cliff Hysell’s seven seasons leading up to the turn of the 21^st century.

Mike Kramer, the man known as the Big Human, helped a Bobcat squad that went 0-11 in his first season in 2000 end “The Streak” with a 10-7 win over Montana in Missoula behind the bold play of true freshman quarterback Travis Lulay.

By the time Lulay graduated in 2005, Montana State had defeated the Grizzlies three times in four years, sharing Big Sky Conference titles thanks to two of those victories.

But Kramer was relieved of his duties in the spring of 2006 as controversy stemming from a drug ring connected to several MSU athletes and an eventual murder rocked the Gallatin Valley.

Enter Rob Ash. The squeaky clean, cerebral coach led Montana State to 65 victories between 2007 and 2015, including a run of three straight Big Sky titles from 2010 until 2015. The Bobcats made the playoffs four times between in five years. But a 2-7 record against the Griz that included a 36-10 beat down at the hands of the Griz at Bobcat Stadium when MSU was ranked No.  1 in the nation and sealed by a 54-35 home loss to Montana in 2015.

Choate went 28-22 at Montana State, including consecutive losing seasons to begin his tenure. He teams played smash mouth football but struggled to find any consistency passing the ball, in quarterbacks or coaches or coordinators.

Yet Choate is among the most revered coaches in Montana State history. Part of that resounding praise comes from leading MSU on a six-game winning streak in November and December of 2019 that included a 48-14 beat down of Montana in Bozeman and culminated in MSU’s first trip to the semifinals of the FCS playoffs in 1984.

Choate ended his entertaining, passionate tenure as Bobcat head coach with a perfect 4-0 record against Montana. Not even Sonny Holland can claim he never lost to the Grizzlies one time.

“I have absolutely no regrets about my time in Bozeman, Montana,” Choate said when he announced he was leaving for Texas. “It’s been a helluva ride. This place has embraced our family and it’s been awesome. And no matter where I go, what I do, I will always be able to say I never lost to Montana.”

Now Vigen has to navigate the expectations that come with the rivalry game, fair or not.

“It’s the first thing they want to mention and I get it,” Vigen said. “There are many communities that want to be on the right side of that matchup every year. As a competitor this is a game you want to be a part of.”

Montana head coach Bobby Hauck has been immersed in the rivalry since he was a kid growing up in Missoula and Big Timber. He first got into the college coaching world as a graduate assistant on Don Read’s staff in the last 1980s before returning to UM for his first stint as head coach in 2003, a position he held for seven seasons and then returned to again before the 2018 season.

“Our perspective is about us and I don’t remember the first time I coached in this,” Hauck said. “I think it was 1988.

“The thing that stands out is that both sides are passionate about it, people care about the outcome and that’s what makes it what it is. People care here in Missoula and across Montana about how the Griz play every weekend but it’s probably magnified in this one.”

Hauck lost two of his first three games against Lulay and the Bobcats. But from 2006 until 2009, Montana ripped Montana State pretty handily in all four matchups with Hauck drumming up vitriol from around the state with his brash comments and take no prisoners attitude.

“We dropped the last two to these guys so we need a win and that’s what it is,” Hauck said. “I think they are good up front on both sides of the ball on both sides of the ball. That’s where it starts. It should be a heck of a game.”

Choate built a roster flush with veteran talent that has made this season’s success seem easy. When Vigen was first hired, he had to endure a vetting process from a hiring committee that included several Bobcat football players, including the team’s current team captains.

Senior offensive tackle Lewis Kidd was originally committed to Montana before flipping to the Bobcats. He’s in his fourth year as a starter on the offensive line and looking to move to 5-0 against Montana during his five seasons and six years on the MSU campus.

In other words, he is much more versed in the rivalry than most of his coaches, including new offensive coordinator Taylor Housewright and first-year wide receivers coach Justin Udy. But the rest of the Bobcat offensive staff, from running backs coach Jimmy Beal who played at Montana State to fifth-year offensive line coach Brian Armstrong to third-year tight ends coach Nate Potter have some experience in the game.

Defensively, coordinator Freddie Banks has never coached in the game nor has defensive line coach Shawn Howe. But linebackers coach Bobby Daly was an all-time great player for the Cats and has been on staff since 2019. And Kyle Risinger has been in Bozeman since Choate first took the job.

“All these coaches are great coaches and they understand rivalries,” Kidd said. “They understand football and they understand how intense it it. And they feed off our intensity. And them just staying consistent like they have all season, this is a big game for us and they know that.”

When Vigen was first hired, he proclaimed one of his goals was to lead Montana State to its first national championship since 1984. The first response he got on social media? Well, what about beating the Griz?

It’s neat when you talk to different coaches from different eras and you study the history of the rivalry, when the Bobcats have had the upper hand, when the Griz have had the upper hand, why that’s come about, where it’s at right now, that’s what is so neat,” Vigen said. “There is so much history to it. And I’ve probably just scratched the surface as far as what I’ve learned.”

Amandre Wililams, a senior captain defensive end, transferred to Montana State from Washington before the 2019 season. Last year’s beat down of the Grizzlies in Bozeman was his first rivalry game experience. But it’s not tough to quickly get acclimated to the omnipresent rivalry once you step foot in the Treasure State.

“If you come anywhere near Bozeman or anywhere Missoula for that fact, you will know how big of a game it is,” Williams said. “You really don’t have to spend too much time describing to the guys, the guys on this team. The coaches will do a great job preparing and we understand how much this game means to us.”

Photos by Brooks Nuanez or noted. All Rights Reserved.

Before Brian Salonen could live a dream wearing the star of America’s team, he helped the Montana Grizzlies turn the tide and lay a foundation for a generation of success. 

Between 1986 and 2016, Montana dominated its fierce rivalry with Montana State, posting 25 wins over the Bobcats in 30 contests (the Bobcats have not lost since, earning the advantage in the last decade and making the docket since the ‘Cats snapped a 16-game losing streak in 2002 at nine wins for each side).

Since 1993, Montana has won 15 Big Sky Conference titles, played for seven FCS national titles and claimed two national championships (1995, 2001). 

But when Salonen, a versatile star out of Great Falls High and one of the state’s top prospects, was making his college decision back in 1980, the climate was entirely different. 

“The Bobcats were good and Sonny Holland had created a program there where it seemed like every kid out of Montana was going to play for the ‘Cats,” Salonen said 36 years later. “Holland passed that on to Sonny Lubick. I remember Larry Donovan sitting in my house and saying, ‘Hey, make a difference. You come here and there will be guys who follow. Let’s turn this thing around.’”

Donovan had just been hired to replace Gene Carlson, who resigned after a 3-7 campaign that included a 38-21 loss to the Bobcats in 1979. UM’s loss in Bozeman was the seventh in eight seasons to the Grizzlies while the Bobcats won the Big Sky title that season.

Under Holland between 1971 and 1977, Montana State won three Big Sky championships, the 1976 Division II national championship and lost to the rival Griz just once (1971). Lubick, who would go on to fame as the defensive coordinator under Dennis Erickson at Miami and then the longtime head coach at Colorado State, continued the domination, defeating Montana in two of his first three seasons and leading MSU to the Big Sky crown in his second season. 

With Salonen waiting in the wings, it seemed Montana State had an opportunity to only get stronger. Bill Salonen, Brian’s father, was a two-time All-Rocky Mountain Conference selection in basketball and a member of MSU’s sports Hall of Fame during his time playing hoops at Montana State. It seemed Brian was a surefire Bobcat. 

“I had been a Bobcat for my entire life,” Brian Salonen said. “I was a Bobcat at heart until Larry Donovan and Bob Lowry came to Great Falls. They sold me a vision.”

Salonen shocked the Treasure State and picked the Grizzlies. The decision sparked a domino effect that culminated in back-to-back wins over UM and the 1982 Big Sky title, Montana’s first league crown since 1970 and just the third in program history. 

“Everyone in the state back then thought Brian was for sure going to the Bobcats,” said Mike Van Diest, Donovan’s defensive line coach who is now the head coach at Carroll College in Helena. “The Bobcats have Sonny Lubick on the tails of Sonny Holland; that’s two of the greatest coaches in the history of the Big Sky Conference. Those two guys had the state on stronghold. Great Falls, Helena, Butte were all Bobcat Land. To get somebody like Brian Salonen, a kid who’s dad was in the Hall of Fame at Montana State, it turned the heads of everybody.”

Salonen went on to become one of the greatest pass-catching tight ends the Big Sky has ever seen. His 150 catches and 1,882 yards are still the most ever by a Grizzly tight end and each total ranks in the top 18 in school history overall. After his senior season, he earned an invite to the East-West Shrine game before being drafted in the 10th round of the 1984 NFL Draft. He spent four seasons with the Dallas Cowboys, accomplishing the rare feat of playing both sides of the ball professionally. 

Salonen has since been inducted into the UM Hall of Fame and has been named to various lists as one of the top 100 athletes in the state’s history, including a nod from Sports Illustrated in 1999. In August of 2016, Salonen was among the first 13 legends inducted into the newly created Montana Football Hall of Fame. 

The 6-foot-3, 229-pounder broke into the lineup right away as a true freshman in 1980. By 1981, Montana had its first winning record in six seasons, including a 27-17 win over Montana State. By 1982, the Griz had a winning streak over the Bobcats and a Big Sky banner to hang. 

“Back then, winning a Big Sky Conference title was huge,” Salonen said. “Nowadays, everyone in Missoula has expectations that you are going to go win a national title. That certainly wasn’t the case when I played. To win a Big Sky championship was pretty darn neat. I certainly think that helped to change things at Montana.”

In Salonen’s senior season in 1983, Montana started 4-0 before starting quarterback Marty Mornhinweg and his backup each were lost for the season against Idaho. UM lost six straight down the stretch to miss the playoffs. But Salonen was a primary security blanket for the offense, putting up prolific numbers unmatched by a UM tight end even 33 years later. 

As a senior, Salonen caught 68 passes for 832 yards, each single-season UM records at the time. UM’s sprint-draw offense catered to Salonen, a smooth runner blessed with soft hands who’s 1983 catch total is still among the top 10 in Griz annals. The prolific season helped Salonen get a call from Tom Landry to play for one of the NFL’s most storied franchises. 

“That opportunity is never going to happen if I don’t have the coaching staff and players around me at the University of Montana,” Salonen said. “I’m just an average white guy out of Great Falls, Montana. I’m not exceptionally fast or quick. I’m not exceptionally strong. I was blessed with great hands and I worked really, really hard on footwork, speed and strength. 

“If I don’t catch 68 passes my senior year, I don’t think I go anywhere.”

When Salonen joined the Cowboys in 1984, Dallas was in the midst of a run that included 17 playoff appearances in 18 seasons. Dallas had won the NFC five times since 1970, including claiming Super Bowl titles in 1971 and 1977. Even with the prestige of the franchise combined with the pressure of beating out at least 80 other rookies, Salonen managed to make the active roster. 

“I remember being on the practice field and someone telling us that Brian Salonen made the cut and it was unbelievable,” Van Diest said. “I remember the exact hash I was standing on at Dornblaser. It was just awesome, a great feather in the University of Montana’s cap.”

Salonen had very little chance to show his skills as a tight end in Dallas. In 1985, Landry moved him to outside linebacker. He was able to carve out a niche as a special teams player for the next three seasons before a shoulder injury forced him to retire in May of 1988. 

“I’m not sure how many guys can say they had a chance to play on both sides of the ball in the NFL,” Salonen said. “And to play for the Cowboys? The marketing and promotion of that star is one of the greatest things America has ever seen. I don’t know if they did it on purpose, but from the America’s team to the cheerleaders to Tom Landry to the wins to the respect and discipline they embodied, there’s nothing like it.”

These days, Salonen works as a financial advisor in Missoula. He attends Griz games as often as he can and is awestruck by the majesty of Washington-Grizzly Stadium, a 26,000-seat palace. One of the crown jewels of small school football is a venue Salonen helped build the foundation for. 

“Brian was that bell cow,” Van Diest said. “When people saw he was coming to UM, it was a domino effect for the other players in the state. It’s a decision that still has an impact to this day.”

Photos courtesy of Salonen family. All Rights Reserved.

Skyline Sports‘ senior writer Colter Nuanez is on the board of directors for the Montana Football Hall of Fame and is a writer of inductee bios. Former Montana State standout Bill Kollar was inducted into the Hall in 2017.

Before he was coaching some of the most physically talented players to ever grace a football field, Bill Kollar was blowing past jaw-dropped offensive linemen himself. 

These days, Kollar is a coveted mastermind who has coached two of the NFL’s top position groups over the last eight seasons. Kollar spent six seasons (2009-2014) as the defensive line coach for the Houston Texans, helping mentor All-Pros like J.J. Watt and Mario Williams. In 2012, the Montana State alum helped mold Watt into the NFL’s Defensive Player of the Year. During the 2014 season, the Texans wracked up 44 sacks, setting a franchise record.  

Kollar spent an off-season mentoring one of the most polarizing yet talented players to enter the NFL in recent memory. Houston drafted South Carolina phenom Jadaveon Clowney with the No. 1 overall pick in the 2014 NFL Draft. 

Before the 2015 season, Kollar reunited with longtime colleague Gary Kubiak, taking a similar position with the Denver Broncos. In the Mile High City, he helped mentor future Hall of Famer DeMarcus Ware while also working with menacing rush linebacker Von Miller as the Broncos surged all the way to the Super Bowl title. 

“I wish I could spend more time with him because he’s a guru,” former MSU defensive line coach Bo Beck, who spent a few weeks learning from the Texans coaching staff during the spring of 2012, said in an interview in 2014. “He has worked with the best of the best and he has clout because he was the best.”

Kollar was once nearly as dominant as the men he mentors. Back in the early 1970s, former Montana State and current Idaho State head coach Mike Kramer was an offensive linemen for the Idaho Vandals. As a sophomore in 1972, Kramer tried to prepare himself to stop Kollar, one of the most disruptive forces in the Big Sky Conference. As he walked to practice on the week the Vandals were preparing to face the Bobcats, a pro scout told one of Idaho’s assistant coaches that he’d timed Kollar at 4.63 seconds in the 40-yard dash at 267 pounds.  

“I thought, ‘Oh no’.  Then, that Saturday, I never touched him,” Kramer said. “He had absolute raw speed. He was so darn fast.”

The legendary Montana State defensive linemen is still considered to be one of the best players in school history. His No. 77 is hung near the top of Bobcat Stadium, one of four retired numbers in school history. In 1973, Kollar earned All-America accolades and was selected for the Senior Bowl and the East-West Shrine Game. In 2014, he was enshrined in the Senior Bowl Hall of Fame, commemorating his 1974 MVP performance. 

“He was so athletic,” said Dennis Erickson, an assistant coach at Montana State during Kollar’s playing days who went on to coach Miami to two national titles. “He created havoc along the line at all levels. He penetrated on seemingly every down and made plays all over the football field. In those days, he reminded me of Warren Sapp that I had at Miami. It was different times, but that’s how dominant he was.”

Kollar came to Montana State from Warren, Ohio. Joe Tiller, a former Montana State assistant who went on to have great success at Purdue, brought Kollar, Leon Potkay and a handful of other Ohio natives west to become Bobcats in 1970. 

“I really love Montana, the openness, the mountains, the whole deal,” Kollar said. “People in Montana are really easy to get along with. The university is a great university. The people downtown, the small-town feel of it, that’s a great thing for a lot of guys that go out there and not only play football, but to be a student and grow as a man.”

His first year in Bozeman, Kollar cut his teeth on the freshmen team. He watched MSU senior Gary Gustafson earn first-team All-America honors. The Cincinnati Bengals drafted Gustafson in 1971. 

“Deep down inside, I thought to myself, ‘I’d love to end up doing that someday,’” Kollar said.

By 1972, Kollar was a starter and a standout for Sonny Holland’s Bobcats. He helped lead the Bobcats to the Big Sky Conference title that season, then earned All-America honors the next. 

“He had an amazing physical ability that was so far advanced from the players of that era,” said Brad Daws, an All-American selection himself for MSU in 1975. “We ran a 4-4, so I was down as much as I was up. He was right next to me. I can remember my hand coming out of my stance and Kollar already having two strides on me. And I wasn’t a slow guy. I was pretty athletic. But he had that amazing combination of quickness for his size.

“It was comical how quick he was. I could literally just play Rover because he could contain for two positions at once and still make plays.”

Kollar made enough plays to earn invites to the Senior Bowl and the East-West Shrine game, the two most prestigious post-season all-star games in the country. Both were right before the NFL Draft, so his outstanding performances helped his draft stock rise. 

Two weeks before the NFL Draft, the upstart World Football League held its draft. The Chicago Fire picked Kollar in the first round. 

Kollar was projected to be a high NFL draft pick. Because of the upstart league, the entrenched NFL sent scouts to the cities of all the picks. On the night the NFL draft, Kollar and Holland sat in a Bozeman hotel room with a scout from the Dallas Cowboys. When the 13th pick came up, the Detroit Lions called and told Kollar they would pick him. It didn’t happen. When the Bengals got on the clock at No. 27, Kollar was their guy. 

“I was elated,” Kollar said. “The funny thing is they wanted me to fly out of Bozeman that night so the World team didn’t come in and sign me. There were no flights going back to Cincinnati that night, so I flew to Seattle and spent the night, then flew to Cincinnati in the morning. I signed two days later. They really pushed us to sign so they didn’t get in a bidding war with the new league.”

In Cincinnati, Kollar played next two All-Pro defensive tackle Mike Reid, a former Penn State standout who retired abruptly to pursue a country music career. Foot surgery hindered Kollar’s first years playing back in his home state. 

In 1977, the Bengals traded Kollar to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers where he played his final five seasons. He went to war next to Lee Roy Selmon, a Hall of Famer who passed away in 2011. 

In 1981, Kollar blew out his knee, essentially ending his playing career. The strong relationship he’d forged with Tampa Bay head coach John McKay paid dividends and kept him in football.

After finishing his degree and helping out on Dave Arnold’s staff at MSU, Kollar coached special teams and helped with the defensive line on McKay’s staff in 1984. When McKay resigned, Kollar returned to the college ranks. He spent two seasons on Mike White’s at Illinois and two more on Fred Akers’ staff at Purdue. 

In 1990, Jerry Glanville hired Kollar to coach the defensive line for the Atlanta Falcons. He’s been in the NFL ever since. 

“The staff at MSU when I was there — Dennis Erickson, Sonny Lubick, Cliff Hysell, Don Christianson, Coach Holland — those guys, they all really worked well with the players,” Kollar said. “You’d pick up a little thing here and there that you’d like that kept going on every year. They all influenced me. Then I tried to mold myself using all the things that I really enjoyed from those guys and try to take it into my career.”

Montana State’s defensive line has a rich tradition. Gustafson was the first in a long line of All-Americans that includes Daws, Mark Fellows, Dane Fletcher and Zach Minter. Caleb Schreibeis and Brad Daly won the Buck Buchanan Award earlier this decade, setting the bar even higher. But if you ask those who saw Kollar play, the bar was set long ago. 

“I don’t know if anyone touches him,” Erickson said. “He was so great at Montana State, then he dominated the Senior Bowl, then he dominated the league. He is, without question, the best defensive lineman who has played at Montana State. He was special.”

Photos by Brooks Nuanez or courtesy of MSU athletics. All Rights Reserved.

When Sam McCullum hauled in the first touchdown in the history of the Seattle Seahawks more than 40 years ago, it was just the next in a series of firsts in a life that has seen the influential former Montana State Bobcat always set the pace.

McCullum was the first athlete to play high school football in Montana and go on to play in the Super Bowl. The Kalispell Flathead alum was one of the first former Bobcats to get drafted into the NFL after becoming one of the first Black standouts in Northwest Montana.

And the polished, articulate former stud wide receiver has been one of the leaders on the forefront fighting for rights for NFL players, both current and former, as a respected NFL Trustee, a role he still thrives in today.

In a life of firsts that now includes being the first skill player who played college football at Montana State to be induced into the Montana Football Hall of Fame, McCullum has spent the latter portion of his life not concentrated on finishing in the lead. Instead, he’s concentrated on helping fellow former football players into finding ways to flourish after their days staring on the gridiron are finished.

“Gale Sayers probably said it the best when he left the game,” McCullum said in an interview in February of 2018. “He said, ‘the hardest thing is to fill that void after the applause stop.’ Once the applause stop coming in – every time you do something good when you play, they applaud you. You give a nice speech, they applaud you. You give an autograph, they applaud you.

“When you are done, there is no more applause. What happens? Who fills that void?”

McCullum received plenty of applause during his charmed football career. He was a first-team All-Big Sky Conference selection after a record-setting junior year in 1972. He led MSU as the school’s all-time leader in touchdown catches with 16, an impressive number given MSU’s dedication to running the football.

After being selected in the 1974 NFL Draft, McCullum became the second former Bobcat — along with fellow Montana Football Hall of Fame member Jan Stenerud — and the sixth MSU alum to play in the Super Bowl when the Vikings fell to the Pittsburgh Steelers in January of 1975.

In 1976, McCullum helped Seattle usher in its second professional sports franchise. He caught a Jim Zorn pass for the first touchdown in Seahawks’ history, one of 26 touchdowns he would catch in an NFL career that spanned 10 seasons, 129 games and 85 starts. McCullum caught 274 passes for 4,017 yards in career that included six seasons in Seattle and four seasons in Minnesota — he returned to the Vikings for the final two years of his career in 1982 and 1983.

“I really didn’t expect him to do what he did in the NFL,” legendary Montana State trainer Chuck Karnop said in February. “If there are still alive, there are two or three pro scouts that would say they were lukewarm on him as a pro player. The important thing about that to me is that he went on that he did so darn well.

“That’s the part I’m not surprised about because he is one of those guys who really had presence and knew how to fit into a situation. For him to be able to go to Seattle or Minnesota and fit in with the other players and the talents they had and carve out a niche for himself, that was not a surprise at all.”

After blossoming as a senior at Flathead, McCullum could have gone to Colorado State, Colorado, Washington, Washington State or either in-state Big Sky Conference school. He eventually chose MSU so he could be close to his family – his father had recently retired from the United States Air Force and had a job as an electrician with the Anaconda Copper Company.

Even though his family moved back to Minnesota when his dad got a job with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), McCullum stayed to help lay the foundation for upcoming greatness for the Bobcats. McCullum set Montana State’s single-season record for touchdown catches with 12 in 1972 during MSU’s run to the first of two Big Sky titles it would win under Sonny Holland.

“He was one of the best athletes I’ve ever been around,” former Montana State quarterback and assistant coach Dennis Erickson, McCullum’s primary recruiter, said in February of 2018. “He was fast, caught the football and had great feet. He was a great kid who athletically was special in my opinion as far as running, jumping, catching, things like that.

“He was special, boy. We ran the football pretty well. We had some tailbacks but they brought guys up to stop the run game and he was one-on-one and the matchups were good. He just ran by people that (1972) season.”

MSU went 7-4 in McCullum’s senior year, three seasons prior to Holland leading the Bobcats to their second national championship, the first as an NCAA Division II member. Former MSU defensive tackle Bill Kollar, himself a member of the Montana Football Hall of Fame, was selected with the 23^rd pick in the 1974 draft. McCullum was selected by the Minnesota Vikings 209 picks later in the 9^th round. It marked the first time since 1957 and the second time in school history two Bobcats were selected in the same NFL Draft. It would happen one more time – in the spring of 1976 just months before MSU’s historic run.

“He not only could run – and he had the height – but he was a strong, physical kid,” Karnop said. “He had the strength and the presence to do that.”

“He wasn’t just a guy who could catch the ball. He was a football player.”

When the McCullum family packed up their station wagon, all seven kids in tow, to move from Mississippi in the segregated south of 1967 to the Air Force radar base in Lakeside of Northwest Montana, Sam wasn’t much of a football player at all. In fact, the 6-foot-2 teenager had never played organized football one time during a nomad childhood that had included moving to eight different states.

In Lakeside, McCullum felt like an outsider, not only because his family was one of only two black families in town but also because he did not know how to swim or ski, two popular activities within the picturesque Crown of the Continent near Flathead Lake.

“All of us, the transitioning we did from so many areas influenced us,” McCullum said. “Drinking fountains for blacks and whites only, getting in fights with people on the street for being black, people shooting guns at your house just because you are black and you have a house, that was our world before we moved to Montana

“All of a sudden, you are living in a lovely place like Kalispell, Montana. People were so nice to you and you still found yourself looking over your shoulder waiting for the other shoe to drop.”

In Kalispell and on the base in Lakeside, “we had a conclave of people” from all different backgrounds. Buth when he would go into town in Lakeside or Kalispell, McCullum received similar acceptance.

“People did not treat me like a pariah like they did in the South,” McCullum said. “In the South, they hated you because of the color of your skin. In the North, they treated you great. Unfortunately at that time, the Native Americans were the hated population up there because of all the issues going. The Native Americans were a hated people, hated and they were everywhere. People talked bad about them the whole time.

“There were only a few of us, only two black families in the school system there. We were a novelty and people treated us like normal people. A lot of people stayed away from us but they didn’t go out of their way to harass you. Native American people, they did and it was pretty bad.”

During McCullum’s first fall playing football as a sophomore, he broke his hand in the very first practice. He did not have transportation to and from athletics events so he would tag along with Jeff Epperly, a teammate and friend. B the time he was a senior though, McCullum was an all-state athlete who also starred as a defensive specialist on Flathead’s state championship basketball team and a standout track jumper as well.

Colleges from across the West lobbied for McCullum’s talents. His father retired from the military in 1970 and landed the electrician job in Anaconda. McCullum’s closest brother was attending the University of Montana. Sam chose MSU so he could be close to his family. But then they moved.

In 1971, McCullum’s sophomore year, Montana State posted a 2-7-1 record that included Holland’s lone loss to the rival Montana in 11 total matchups between his playing and coaching careers. McCullum remembers getting together with Kollar, Ron Ueland and other standout Bobcats to talk about changing the culture into one of success and championships.

“The thing I learned the most was about adversity,” McCullum said. “Even being in the program I was in, I suffered a lot of abuse at people’s hands. There was a lot of racial stuff that came my way all the time.

“When we played against the University of Idaho, Idaho State, North Dakota, North Dakota State, schools where there were no other minorities, I got a lot of catcalls, a lot of harassment. You come back to your neighborhood of people in your program and these guys were always there for me.

“I joined a fraternity and it was great. These guys always taught me that no matter what happens in life, you have to persevere and the people around you, your neighborhood of people is exactly where you want to be. I always fell back into that.

“Montana State always gave me that sense that no matter what happened outside of this place, this is where I find my best peace and I would always find that.”

Holland’s coaching staff is well-recognized for its success after MSU. Erickson went on to win national championships at Miami. Joe Tiller went on to thrive at Wyoming and Purdue. Sonny Lubick was Erickson’s defensive coordinator at Miami before coaching at Colorado State, where he left as the school’s all-time leader in head coaching wins.

Those coaches weren’t afraid to swallow their pride and bring in outside help, McCullum said. He remembers Erickson telling him he could only teach him so much, so the staff elected to bring Hall of Fame wide receiver Raymond Berry to campus for a week to work with McCullum.

“It taught me so much about perseverance,” McCullum said. “Nothing comes easy. If you want it, you have to go get it. That’s what carried over most when I left the game. My kids, if it’s easy, anybody can do it. You have to make sure it works that way and you have to make sure it works because you have to work at it.”

When he got to the NFL, McCullum was instantly surrounded by legends. He played for Bud Grant while catching passes from Fran Tarkenton. Hall of Famers like Carl Eller, Jim Marshall and Alan Page anchored Minnesota’s “Purple People Eaters” defense.

“Going to the Super Bowl was a great feeling and I thought we’d go every year,” McCullum said. “It was so easy the first time out. Playing with those guys I did in 1974 as a rookie and going to the Super Bowl, there was a tremendous amount of people on that team that were so good at what they did.”

He also experienced a reemergence of those close to him. He remembers getting his first bonus checks for winning the NFC championship and playing in the Super Bowl.

“Before long, every relative, every friend, every guy who had bought me a beer in college wanted something from me,” McCullum said. “They wanted a ticket for the game, they wanted a loan, they wanted this, they wanted that. My brothers and sisters came at me at different levels, my cousins, aunts and uncles. They all knew I made money and they knew how much because it was in the newspaper. I couldn’t say I didn’t have the money. Consequently, I ended up giving money to people I never saw again. Before long, I was broke.”

He had to move back in with his parents in Minnesota, a hard lesson for a 22-year-old that eventually changed McCullum’s life in a positive fashion.

McCullum experienced the opposite side of the coin as one of the first members of the Seahawks. There were more than 300 players through training camp and the first season because “we never knew who was going to show up”, McCullum said. The players had their names written on tape on the front of their helmets until the 14^th week of the season to remind the coaches who was who.

“I come to the Seahawks and we are starting a new franchise, wow,” McCullum said. “And talk about frightening. It was very frightening.”

In Seattle, McCullum got his first taste as an activist promoting players’ rights. In 1982, McCullum led a pre-game handshake demonstration, planned by the NFLPA, before each preseason. This display was a league-wide gesture of solidarity in support of the Percentage of Gross Proposal and a likely strike during the regular season.

In response to the demonstration, then-Seahawks head coach Jack Patera threatened any player who participated with a hefty fine equivalent to a full regular season game check.  However, under McCullum’s leadership, the Seahawks participated in the handshake anyway.

The NFLPA asked the National Labor Relations Board to intervene. Patera was forced to rescind the fine. But the embarrassment caused by the incident led to Patera to cut McCullum before the 1982 season, sparking a return to Minnesota, where he became an active leader for his former team once the strike began that September.

Meanwhile, the NFLPA and McCullum filed an unfair labor practice charge against the Seahawks for illegally cutting McCullum from the team because of his union activity.  After a ten-year court battle, McCullum came out victorious and received the largest back pay award in the history of the NLRB at the time. 

McCullum now serves as a trustee on the Bert Bell/Pete Rozelle NFL Player Retirement Board and has been active in the NFLPA Former Players organization since his retirement in 1983.

His primary goal has been to help fellow retirees get retirement benefits, gain access to physical, mental and dental care, manage 401K and retirement plans, make sure those who suffer from dementia, Alzheimer’s, ALS or other physical ailments receive benefits and much more.

“We want to make sure these guys have the help they need to cope with life outside of football,” McCullum said. “Most guys don’t understand what it’s like to transition away from something you’ve done so well for so long, a level most people don’t understand and doing back to be a regular citizen.

“What’s it like to be a regular citizen? Most guys don’t know that because when you look at when they started, from grade school to high school to college, they were stars. They were treated special, they were given special privileges, people wanted to be around them, they had access to special things a lot of other people will never have access to. And they were given opportunities for a second or third chance most people don’t get.”

McCullum himself has embraced all the change, adversity and challenges he’s faced in his life to forge a legacy as a trailblazer. He has transitioned into a position of influence after his playing days ended and also recently sold a successful restaurant franchise in Seattle, where he’s lived since 1976. His experience at Montana State and his football roots cultivated first in the Flathead have resonated throughout his life.

“Nothing is ever the way you want it to be,” McCullum said. “You better adjust as you go along. Life in general, we want to think everything is laid out in front of us, follow this yellow brick road and you will be fine. But business is not like that, personal business is not like that so sports as a group, you learn to work and deal with people you don’t know and some people you don’t like. And you find a way.

“When you get together on a football team, there’s a whole bunch of personalities. Some clash, some don’t. But we always have one thing in common: we want to win. We want to find a way to be successful as a team. That’s what makes football beautiful.”

Photos courtesy of Montana State sports information.

The Butte Central senior and recent University of Montana signee is the grandson of Mick Delaney. For most of his youth, Ossello had an affinity for Colorado State because Delaney was the running backs coach there on Sonny Lubick’s staff.

When Delaney returned to the Treasure State to serve as the running backs coach on Bobby Hauck’s staff in 2008, Ossello got his initial first-hand taste of Mariani and the Grizzlies. And that’s when he first found a hero in Mariana, a UM All-American and former walk-on from Havre who went on to earn Pro Bowl honors for the Tennessee Titans of the NFL.

A mile high and a mile deep – it’s a symbolic and fitting way to describe one of those favorite sons and his career at Montana State.

Ferriter chose Montana State over Montana coming out of Butte Central High School despite his family ties to the Griz. Growing up in a blue-collar town that sits a mile above sea level — a place defined by its altitude and its attitude as much as the mile deep Berkley Pitt — helped shape Ferriter from an early age.

As a senior in high school, Ferriter earned Class A Defensive Player of the Year by leading Butte’s Catholic school to the state title game. He led the state in sacks while also standing out on the basketball court. Although his cousin, Mike Ferriter, was an All-Big Sky wide receiver for the Griz, Marcus instead chose to follow his older brother Sean, a standout thrower for the Montana State track and field team, to Bozeman.

By his redshirt freshman season, the athletic, powerful defensive end was a starter on a young and upcoming Bobcat defensive front. Ferriter felt a mile high, just like the iconic Mining City he grew up in.

For the next two years, Ferriter felt like he was buried a mile deep. Montana State head coach Jeff Choate, a defensive line guru who coached the position at Florida and Washington before landing at MSU, put a high priority on stockpiling talent on the defensive front. Ferriter found himself struggling to find a defined role or elevated repetitions during games in a group filled with talented transfers and holdovers.. Ferriter never fell out of favor or lost faith.

“It’s been weird for me,” Ferriter said. “Freshman year, a lot of injuries went down and I’m playing even as an undersized dude (220 pounds).

What has kept me through is what Choate and (MSU defensive line coach Byron) Hout always say: Just stick through, good things will happen in the long run.”

Ferriter would not have earned the ultimate compliment from Choate as “Butte tough” if he would have walked away. And he would not have been able to live with himself if he quit.

So today, as the No. 6 Bobcats embark on a trip to San Luis Obispo, California to take on Cal Poly, no longer is Marcus Ferriter a mile high or a mile deep. The fifth-year defensive lineman is simply content.

“Now my senior year, I’m excited no matter what. If I get plays on the field, I’m excited,” Ferriter said. “If I’m with my teammates, I’m excited. I’m just proud to make it to this point.”

Being from Butte is like being from a different country in some ways.  The Richest Hill on Earth has produced a variety of sayings and slang, characters and identities that remain unique even if the former boomtown’s heyday is decades in the past.

Butte was founded in 1864 as a mining camp in the Northern Rocky Mountains along the Continental Divide. When miners found copper, Silverbow County exploded, attracting pioneers, settlers, immigrants and the like from around the country and around the world.

Significant numbers of Asian, Eastern European and Irish immigrants descended up a town that turned into a booming city. At one point at the turn of the 20^th century, Butte had more than 100,000 residents, making it one of the most populous Western city in the United States.

The Mining City became the site of various historical event centered upon the mining industry, including the infamous labor riot of 1914. The city also has some dark history, including the 1917 Speculator Mine disaster, the largest hard rock mining disaster in world history. And of course, the controversy of the Berkley Pit, one of the world’s largest and most unsightly open pit mines.

Because of the melting pot of cultures — at one point, the city had a significant Chinese population and still is home to more residents of Irish descent per capita, like Ferriter, than any city in America — Butte has developed and maintained an identity that centers upon a tireless work ethic, strong values of family and community and, of course, toughness. So strong is that identity that many still refer to the town simply as “Butte, America.”

The story of Montana State football has many influencers that have come from the Mining City. Jim Sweeney led the Bobcats into the Big Sky Conference era in the 1960s. Sonny Holland, a standout player on Montana State’s 1956 NAIA national title team, then coached Montana State from 1971 to 1977, leading MSU to the 1976 Division II national title and six wins in seven tries against the hated Montana Grizzlies.

Sonny Lubick, who rose to great fame as the defensive coordinator at the University of Miami during two national title runs before becoming the head coach at Colorado State, followed Holland as the Bobcat head coach. All three hail from Butte.

“Butte, it’s a fiber, a work ethic, a intrinsic fiber of the people that you aren’t going to put them down and keep them down forever because they will surprise you,” he said. “We always rise again. It’s a blue collar type of town. Butte has tried themselves in that. The game of football is something that Butte has hung its hat on.”

Butte has also gifted Montana State with standout players like Paul Dennehy, the quarterback of the 1976 national title team and three Ueland brothers.

During the modern era, Butte shifted to aligning with the Griz after the breakout career of Todd Erickson in the early 1990s, one of the first Griz to wearn Montana’s vaunted No. 37. Then Colt Anderson went from a walk-on to an All-American for the Griz between 2004 to 2008, setting the stage for a nine-year NFL veteran over the last decade.

Montana State’s roster featured offensive lineman Casey Dennehy earlier this decade. Nick Haynes and Jake Dallaserra are among the Butte players to letter for the Griz in recent years. But it’s been several years since a Butte Central alum made it to his fifth and final year with either program.

Ferriter has held a steady goal to not stop playing football until he has no eligibility remaining.

“He’s Butte Tough,” Choate said. “He’s a Central Catholic boy, so he’s got that edge to him, too. He’s very proud of where he comes from, like most Butte people are. We do have an unbelievable following there in Butte now.

“Butte is an interesting place. It’s a very loyal sports town. It’s completely unique. There’s that divide between the Bobcats and the Grizzlies that exist in that community, having a guy like Satch (Ferriter) that can bring that in and help people understand how important it is is crucial.”

Dan and LeAnn Ferriter moved to Butte from Gillette, Wyoming in 1996 when Dan took a job at Arco as an environmental engineer. Dan grew up in Butte and the Ferriter name is a recognizable one in Montana. Dan’s father, Dan Sr., was a standout handball player who won many championships over the years. And Mike, Marcus’ cousin and now the offensive coordinator at Idaho State, was one of 11 Griz ever to surpass 2,000 yards receiving in his career during his time with the Griz from 2004 until 2008.

Marcus’s older brothers Steven and Sean were both standout athletes at Butte Central before Marcus reached high school. Sean went on to earn All-Big Sky honors in the hammer throw at Montana State.

Sports and a pride in place were part of Marcus’ life from early on. Those values have stuck with him. When the Bobcats have to introduce themselves to each other before each season, Ferriter always says he’s from Butte, America. Now that the rest of his teammates get the reference, it brings laughs from all around.

“Butte is like the Cleveland of Montana,” Ferriter said. “Pennsylvania has Pittsburgh. Montana has Butte. Hard work is how you survive. I didn’t have to do any of that, no mining or any of that but the culture in Butte is tough people survive.

“Growing up playing tough football at Butte Central, we have always prided ourselves on that. It got me here and I think it’s gotten me on the field.

“I definitely take pride in being from Butte. Choate definitely loves that too, the Butte pride I have and I’ve definitely worn that on my sleeve.”

During the 2016 season, Ferriter piled up 19 tackles, four tackles for loss and a sack in his debut college football season. He started most every one of MSU’s 11 games. The following season, he played in 10 games but had a hard time finding consistent snaps on MSU’s suddenly formidable unit. He finished with 10 tackles and half a sack.

Last season, Ferriter played in nine games and made two tackles. But he never faltered in his commitment to his teammates, even when individual doubt crept in. And that dedication does not go unnoticed.

“These are the guys who make up the program,” MSU senior captain Kevin Kassis said. “They are the backbone of our team, the guys who stick it out for the greater good.

“And now look at him. He’s going to be a big contributor on that defensive line. It just shows – I don’t know if it’s millennial these days, but if you don’t get what you want right away, they look to abandoned or run or do something different, go to a different school, think the grass is greener. But look at Marcus – he stuck it out and now he’s a respected part of our team.”

Although Montana State’s roster features three former transfers from the University of Washington — seniors Bryce Sterk and Jason Scrempos along with junior Amandre Williams — along with four-year starter Derek Marks and prodigiously strong junior Chase Benson, Ferriter has found more playing time in his final year.

“I tell our guys, that’s the No. 1 quality that you have to have for success in Division 1 Football is perseverance…. I think Marcus is another great example of a guy that kept getting better and better, appreciated and enjoyed the things that this program gave him, beyond the opportunity to run out of the tunnel,” Choate said.

He has learned how to play each position on MSU’s defensive line. He is consistently getting more snaps behind Marks at MSU’s defensive tackle position. Hout praised him earlier this week as “a really good football player who knows how to use his hands and get off blocks.”

“My role has moved more toward the inside, which I like,” said Ferriter, who now weights 262 pounds. “College football is definitely a lot faster and my style on the interior, not having to worry about contain too much but more physical play suits me.”

“Football is just a lot faster. Offensive linemen even now, some of them are dudes who used to play tight end. The game is a lot faster and it’s a lot different. I might not be the typical size interior linemen but using your quickness can be to your advantage.”

So far this fall, the 6-foot-4, now 262-pounder has played in all five games, notching seven tackles and a sack as MSU is off to its best start since 2012.

“The kid is amazing,” Hout said. “He comes from a great family. His parents are amazing people. He is the guy in our room who is a glue guy. He’s amazing to be around. He’s articulate. He is going to be very successful in whatever he chooses to do in life.

“He can play multiple positions for us. I’m really glad that he was able to stick with us. He was thinking of moving on and not coming back but we had the discussion that kept him here. He came up and told me the other day that the best decision he ever made was coming back. I’m really happy for him to see him have some success.”

Through it all, the redhead his teammates call Satch — Steven nicknamed Marcus that as a small boy because of Marcus’ love of legendary trumpet player Louis Armstrong, who’s nickname was ‘Satch’ or ‘Satchmo’ — Ferriter has never lost sight of where he comes from. And even when the electrical engineering major was a mile high or a mile deep, Ferriter never lost sight of where he is going.

“Friendships are the biggest thing,” Ferriter said. “Wherever I go after this, making bonds will help me get through everything. Friendships are huge and setting goals are huge. All these core values Coach Choate talks about, having character, being accountable, bringing toughness, having pride in whatever you do, those are huge.

“I’ve definitely matured through this whole experience. Looking back as a freshman, I’ve matured through all of it. I just think it’s taught me a lot. I could’ve graduated last spring but the love of this game, the love of this culture, I know I’m going to miss this more than anything when I’m done with it. All the values it’s taught me, I’ve grown to love it.”

Photos by Brooks Nuanez or noted. All Rights Reserved.

In the first matchup against the Idaho Vandals in nearly 25 years, Montana State eked out a 24-23 win at Bobcat Stadium. Despite winning by one point, MSU physically dominated the football game, allowing the Vandals less than four yards per play even though Idaho possessed the football for more than 37 minutes. Montana State won at the point of attack, in the trenches and on the perimeter when it came to the battle of blows.

The following week, Montana State punched Weber State in the mouth and went swing for swing with a team widely considered one of the most violent and hard-hitting teams in the FCS. MSU and the No. 2 Wildcats went into the fourth quarter in Ogden, Utah tied 24-24 before MSU faded in a 34-24 WSU win.

From that point in the 2018 season on, Montana State’s physicality has been its biggest advantage. The Bobcats have used a bruising, bulldozing mentality along its offensive line to rush for more than 310 yards per game the last five contests. MSU has used a frenzy of takeaways to set up its once-anemic offense to help the unit evolve into one that has averaged 33 points per game over that same stretch.

The physical football that Choate, MSU’s third-year head coach, has favored since his time as a linebacker at Montana Western is finally starting to take form in his current Bobcats.

Brooks Nuanez contributed to the reporting of this story. Photos by Brooks Nuanez. All Rights Reserved.