The Walkup Skydome in Flagstaff has been unkind to Montana State over the years.
MSU once lost 12 straight road games at Northern Arizona. From 1981 to 2002 the Bobcats would load up their gear, travel south, lose and come back home. You could set your watch to it. It started a saying around Montana that went something like, “the Bobcats just can’t win at Northern Arizona.”
In 2000, MSU hired Mike Kramer as the new head coach and he and the ‘Cats would load up their gear, travel south, lose 32-9 and come back home. It was one of 11 losses against no wins that season. Asked why the Bobcats can’t win at Northern Arizona, Kramer said something like, “because we haven’t been good enough.” In 2002, the Bobcats were good enough but still didn’t get it done as they won five of their last six games to earn their first Big Sky championship and their first trip to the playoffs. The one outlier in those six games: a 20-17 loss to the Lumberjacks in Flagstaff.
The Bobcats, however, continued to improve and in 2004 they broke through with a resounding 60-14 win at the dome, which sits more than 7,000 feet above sea level. The ‘Cats won there again in 2006 and 2008 before bringing arguably their best team since 1984 to Flagstaff in 2010, only to be drubbed, 34-7. The Lumberjacks stopped MSU on its first drive and after Rory Perez’s punt was downed at the 1-yard line NAU went 99 yards on 19 plays to take a 7-0 lead and never look back. MSU won a Big Sky title that year as well, with the blemish of the Skydome as the one loss on the conference docket.
The Lumberjacks would win the next two in 2015 and 2017 albeit against mediocre Bobcat’ teams that probably fit Kramer’s words.
The last trip MSU made was looking like a blowout for the Bobcats as they jumped out to a 17-0 lead in the first quarter of the 2022 fray only to see NAU storm back and take a 35-31 lead in the fourth quarter. MSU reclaimed the lead with about four minutes to go but NAU got into field goal range to tie the game, setting up one of the most dramatic plays in Bobcat history.
MSU’s then-sophomore quarterback Tommy Mellott was facing a third and long from deep in the Bobcat end of the field with under a minute to play. The situation worsened when he was chased out of the pocket to his right. As he was heading toward the sideline, he noticed true freshman receiver Taco Dowler still working to get open in the scramble drill. Mellott dropped the ball into Dowler’s lap near midfield, and he broke for the NAU end zone only to be tracked down inside the Lumberjack’ 20 for a 64-yard gain on his only catch of the day. The play went from the MSU 18 to the NAU 18. A few plays later the Bobcats were lining up for a chip shot field goal and Blake Glessner drilled it for a 41-38 win. Montana State finished the 2022 conference season undefeated, largely because of the comeback win at NAU and a similarly thrilling victory at Eastern Washington.
The play is definitely a fond memory for Dowler, but he’s still critical about one part of it.
“I remember getting caught first of all by the defense and getting tackled,” Dowler said of not being able to get into the end zone during Keaton Gillogly’s Cat Chat show. “I also remember the throw. It was an insane throw. It was probably one of Tommy’s best throws in his career. And I just remember being young and thinking it was really cool. I thought I was really cool and I really wasn’t that cool, I just made one play.”
It was MSU’s fourth win in seven games in the last 20 years at Walkup after snapping the 12-game losing streak. All but two of those seven games have been decided by more than one score. So, while the Bobcats are past the ‘just can’t win at NAU’ phase, they haven’t quit moved on from the ‘it’s tough to win at NAU,’ which is true for just about every team that plays there.
Former MSU safety Mike Rider has taken part in a few games at NAU, and his 2008 team held on for a 25-23 win. He was a team captain there for the rough 2010 loss.
“We went down there in 2010, and we were the No. 4 or No. 5 team in the country, and we got into a buzz saw,” Rider said. “I’ll never forget that first drive it was like 95-yard drive and 18 plays, and I’ve never been so tired in my life. I came off the field whether it’s mental or it’s actual, I do think altitude plays a factor. You can say it doesn’t, but it does.
“It’s interesting from a lighting perspective. You can fly in, but you can’t fly out. You’re in Arizona but you’re in the mountains. I was expecting Phoenix and there was snow, and it was like you were in Missoula. It’s got that vibe, it’s got a granola feel to it. You put it all together and it’s a rather weird, strange place.”
Sitting at 7,000 feet is daunting for most teams around the Big Sky Conference. Only four campuses around the Big Sky are within half the altitude of Flagstaff. Bozeman is the closest at 4,817, while Greeley (Northern Colorado) 4,675, Pocatello (Idaho State) 4,462, and Ogden (Weber State) 4,298.
More than the altitude, the crowd inside Walkup Skydome is probably the biggest issue teams have to deal with. Like most small domes on FCS campuses, the arena at NAU is noisier than outdoor stadiums and it doesn’t take a lot of fans to create a distraction.
“People know when the Montana schools come down there,” Rider said. “Inevitably it’s packed. It’s gonna be a tall task for those guys but coach Vigen will have those boys ready.”
MSU linebackers’ coach Jody Owens has a way to help his players adjust to the setting.
“We work just visualizing things because our mind doesn’t know the difference,” Owens said. “If we’re able to do that we can put ourselves at ease as we’ve already been there before. We know how this going to go and we can always choose our response.
“They have good support so I’m sure the game will have a lot of fans there and whenever you’re not playing at home it breaks up the routine. It’s a little bit different for you. Not that it’s just necessarily Flagstaff, although they do have a great atmosphere. When you’re not in that comfort of your own home, things are just a little bit different. I talk to my guys about visualizing that arena and the fans what happens when things go your way, what happens when things don’t go your way.”
The Bobcats have had their highlights as well.
In 2008, true freshman running back Aaron Mason set the then freshman rushing record at MSU and wide receiver Michael Jefferson set the school record for receiving yards. Mason ran for 198 yards and two touchdowns on just 22 carries and Jefferson caught 12 passes for 239 yards. Quarterback Cory Carpenter threw for 300 yards and two touchdowns. The Bobcats needed all of that as they edged NAU 39-32.
In 2015, quarterback Dakota Prukop threw for 310 yards in the second half alone, but MSU never really got back into the game after trailing 42-14 in the third quarter and scored twice in the final four minutes to make the final score, 49-41, look much closer than it was.
It’s a good bet that if the game doesn’t come down to the wire that something unique will transpire when the Bobcats and Lumberjacks kickoff at 3:00 this Saturday.
