CEDAR CITY, Utah — A week after a Halloween bye, the same demons continue haunting Montana State.
For the fourth time in six Big Sky Conference outings, the Bobcats hung tough for the first half against a superior opponent. For the sixth consecutive league outing, Montana State saw a plague of turnovers ravage any hope it harbored for a breakthrough victory in Jeff Choate’s first season.
Despite two first half interceptions — one each by freshman Chris Murray and junior Tyler Bruggman — the Bobcats went toe to toe at Eccles Coliseum against the defending Big Sky champions from Southern Utah for the first 30 minutes. After halftime, two more Murray interceptions and a turnover on downs with Bruggman at the helm combined with a rising tide of missed tackles resulted in Montana State folding like a deck of cards to remain in the Big Sky cellar.
Montana State has now turned the ball over at least four times in five of its six Big Sky games. The Bobcats have 24 total turnovers and a negative-20 turnover margin. The sum after Saturday afternoon’s 38-21 loss here is an 0-6 mark in conference play and just two wins in nine outings thus far in 2016.
MSU head coach Jeff Choate
The six-game losing streak is Montana State’s first since 2000, a stark fall from grace for a program that won three straight Big Sky crowns to start the decade and made the FCS playoffs as recently as 2014, its eighth postseason appearance since 2002.
“A lot of frustration across the board,” Montana State first-year head coach Jeff Choate said. “Opening drive of the game, you have pretty good mojo, I’m not so sure we don’t go down the field and score but we throw a pick. It’s maddening. I don’t know really any other way to describe it.
“There was some things in the second half that were uncharacteristic of us on defense. We didn’t tackle very well. Ty (Gregorak) is calling pressures right into what they are doing and we are not making plays. You try to give your kids an opportunity to be in a position to play well and execute. When you do that, somebody has to step up and make a play.”
Montana State took the final week of October off for a much needed bye. Entering the first week of November, goals had been reevaluated for a suddenly rebuilding program as the young Bobcats try to build momentum upon any semblance of success they can salvage.
The rallying cry: go 1-0 three consecutive weeks to take a three-game winning streak into the off-season. Instead, poor quarterback play, untimely missed tackles and a lackluster effort down the stretch resulted in a fourth straight road loss. MSU has now lost eight of its last nine road games, the lone road win a 44-20 win over Idaho State last year. MSU has lost 12 of its last 15 away from Bobcat Stadium dating back to 2014.
“It fell apart when we started missing tackles,” said senior captain middle linebacker Fletcher Collins after notching 11 tackles and 2.5 tackles for loss for a Bobcat defense that allowed 349 yards of total offense.
SUU wide receiver Cameron Chambers (82) jukes MSU safety Bryson McCabe (10) on his way to a 18-yard TD
“We were shooting ourselves in the foot. We were gassed and I thought our fundamentals went down the drain.”
The win boosts the reigning Big Sky champions above .500 in league play. SUU is now 4-3 in league play, 5-4 overall with a non-conference game at BYU next week and a game at surging Northern Arizona (4-2, 5-4) remaining. Montana State has two chances left to notch its first league win: a home date with UC Davis and the 115th version of the fiercest rivalry in the West against the Montana Grizzlies in Missoula on November 19.
“We had a tough one last time we were on this field (a 37-36 loss to Weber State in which SUU led 36-14 entering the fourth quarter) so we wanted to make sure we finished it off for our seniors,” Southern Utah first-year head coach Demario Warren said after his team’s final home game this season. “With it 14-14 at half, didn’t play our best half of football in the first half but came out in the second half and took over.”
The visiting Bobcats dominated the first half despite Murray throwing an interception on his second of 17 attempts on Saturday. The Bobcat defense held, the first of three times MSU’s offense made a miscue only to see the defense bail out the Bobcats.
On MSU’s second possession, Murray orchestrated perhaps his best drive in his young career. The Bobcats marched 80 yards in 11 plays, including three first down runs by Murray and two more by senior Chad Newell. Murray’s 7-yard run staked Montana State to a 7-0 lead. Murray rushed for 84 of his 106 yards before halftime.
Southern Utah finished the first quarter with negative-12 yards rushing and managed just 11 yards on 12 rushes in the first half. But the Thunderbirds evened the score early in the second frame. SUU junior quarterback Patrick Tyler orchestrated a 10-play, 63-yard drive of his own capped by a 12-yard back-shoulder touchdown pass to Logan Parker, who beat Bryson McCabe, the first of three touchdowns directly involving the MSU junior safety.
MSU wide receiver Mitch Herbert (82) catches a 38-yard TD
Montana State junior Mitch Herbert has been a shadow of the All-Big Sky form he attained last fall. He entered the game with just nine catches for 138 yards in five Big Sky games. But Saturday, Herbert was more involved.
Murray threw a pretty pass as Herbert beat man coverage for a 49-yard gain on MSU’s ensuing possession The long reception put MSU in field goal range when the drive stalled out. Instead of taking points, Choate instead called a fake from the SUU 30. Bruggman, a junior who has struggled mightily this season, threw into double coverage and SUU junior Mitch Dalley came down with an interception.
“It’s something we’ve had for awhile and I felt at that particular moment, that would be something to provide us with some momentum,” Choate said. “They sniffed it out and made a good play. Tyler threw a ball that hey, the guy intercepts and they go backward, we get a 3-and-out. It could’ve been a three-point swing for us but what do we have to lose at this point?”
Still, the Bobcats refused to relinquish the momentum. The MSU defense again forced a punt. Soon after, Herbert lined up in the slot, beat a safety in man coverage and scored a 38-yard touchdown, his first in conference play and his third overall this season.
“All week, we knew they were going to play man-to-man in the slot with the safeties,” said Herbert, who finished with three catches for 106 yards as MSU managed just 10 receptions and 157 passing yards. “We knew we could take advantage of that and we did early on.”
Herbert’s touchdown put Montana State up 14-7 and the Bobcats forced another punt. But the Bobcat offense sputtered the rest of the afternoon. A Jered Padmos punt gave SUU the ball on its 30 with two minutes, five seconds until halftime. The Thunderbirds marched 70 yards in six plays and 1:03, capped by Cameron Chambers’ 18-yard touchdown catch. Chambers beat McCabe one on one out of the slot. The score gave SUU the momentum going into halftime as MSU ran out the last 72 seconds of the first half.
MSU quarterback Chris Murray (8) looks for space against the SUU defense
“We give up the touchdown to make it a tie game at the half and they have the momentum going into half,” Choate said. “I thought we were going to compete a little more in the second half.”
Following intermission, SUU senior running back Malik Brown got going, rushing for 64 yards on eight carries in the third quarter after managing zero yards on his first eight. Brown ripped off runs of 18 and 20 yards to set up a 47-yard Keita Calhoun field goal to give SUU its first lead, 17-14, with eight minutes left in the third. Then Southern Utah buried the Bobcats.
Fesi Va’aivaka, a 31-year-old who graduated high school in 2004 but didn’t come to SUU until 2014, sacked Murray to bring up a third and long. Murray threw into coverage on the next play and right to Josh Thornton, who intercepted the pass, sparking the T-Birds and leading Choate to bench Murray in favor of Bruggman. Four plays later, Tyler hit towering 6-foot-7 tight end Steven Wroblewski for a seven-yard touchdown, Tyler’s third scoring toss of the day. All of a sudden, a tie game had turned into a runaway as SUU led 24-14.
Montana State’s next possession, with Bruggman at the helm, resulted in a turnover on downs but the Bobcat defense again held. Bruggman’s third possession ended in a Junior Tufuga sack and ended the third quarter. SUU executed a nine-play, 53-yard drive capped by an 18-yard Raysean Pringle scoring run in which the senior broke a McCabe tackle.
“I don’t think our offense did their part, bottom line,” Choate said. “We have to put some drives together and we can’t continue to send those guys out there. And defensively, we are better tacklers than what we showed in the second half. That’s frustrating.”
Southern Utah again had a long drive capped by a 16-yard touchdown run by Brown to cap its scoring. During the fourth quarter, Montana State’s defense looked dispirited and downright lackluster. With eight minutes left, MSU defensive coordinator Ty Gregorak exited his spot in the press box and came to the sideline to give his defense a talk.
MSU quarterback Tyler Bruggman (11) sacked by SUU linebacker Junior Tufuga (55)
“I told Ty to come down to the sideline,” Choate said. “The message was we have to compete, this is unacceptable. Regardless of the competitive situation, the scoreboard was meaningless. What’s on the line here was us going and doing what we do. I told him he had to get down there.”
Just like it did in a 45-27 loss at Weber State, Montana State kept taking shots into the final minute. Murray capped a nine-play, 84-yard drive with a 31-yard touchdown toss to Keon Stephens, the first career scoring reception for the redshirt freshman with 55 seconds left.
“My job is to coach these guys and love these guys,” Choate said. “I’m going to go back to work and the sun is going to come up. My dog is still going to like me. We will get through it. I owe it to these young men to keep a positive approach and make this enjoyable for them.
“You don’t work football, you play football. Even though so much of the kids’ self esteem and our self esteem as coaches is tied up into this, this is something we do. It’s not who we are. I’m never going to let this game define me as a person and I’m not going to allow it to define my kids as players and as people. We will be ok.”
Photos by Brooks Nuanez. All Rights Reserved.
