Seemingly, every Saturday another player emerges from the depth chart for Montana State. In wide receiver Jabez Woods’ case, that’s two straight Saturdays. This past Saturday, however, he made a key play to spark his team to a 34-10 win on the road against No. 13 Northern Arizona.
The Bobcats didn’t get out of the gate quickly and were staring at a 7-0 deficit and the game was tied when Woods made his presence felt.
The 5-foot-11, 180-pound redshirt freshman has been on the receiving end of two perfect throws from quarterback Justin Lamson, and both have resulted in touchdowns. He has caught four passes for 128 yards in the last two weeks. The first was a 28-yard strike that got to him just as he made his cut in the end zone in the final seconds of the first half in MSU’s 57-3 win over Eastern Washington. This past Saturday, he had his first 100-yard game of his college career with three grabs for 100 yards and a very unique touchdown that put the Bobcats up 14-7, a lead they wouldn’t relinquish.
“We didn’t start off like we wanted to but I think Taco’s (Dowler) punt return was the spark for us,” Woods said.
Then it was Woods’ turn.
On the third-and-14 play, Woods’ fellow wideout Taco Dowler told Woods to switch spots with him as he thought the defense would follow him and allow Woods to get open. That it did and Woods was about 25 yards downfield when he hauled in the pass from Lamson, who was about to be hit. All Woods had to do from there was outrun the Northern Arizona secondary, which he did with ease for a 79-yard touchdown.
“In practice, we don’t really throw that,” Woods said of the EWU touchdown. “It’s kind of like an occupy route. Coach Mix always tells us, just run as fast as we can and make sure it’s not a dead route because (Lamson) could throw it and the one and only time he actually throws the route was when I scored. I seen it and at first, I really wasn’t ready and I had to adjust, then I adjusted to the ball and caught it. I seen I was in the end zone for the first time ever and I was so hyped.
“Taco is usually playing the 3-spot so when it came to (NAU) game time he just told me to switch because he knew the secondary was going to follow with him,” Woods said. “When I ran across the middle, I looked right over my shoulder and Lamson just trusted me and threw it to me and then I had to finish the play from there. Coach Mix talks about him being the spark for us, for him to get us started, so for Taco to do that it just all hyped and we knew we had to get it done from there, seal it away so from that explosive we keep stacking plays no matter what. The defense didn’t take no plays off. The defense was flying around everywhere, so that also played a really big part in getting us started, too. For them to hold it done and for us offense players to get things rolling it came together perfectly.”
While those kinds of plays are new for Bobcat’ fans, they’re right in line with what Woods did throughout his prolific high school career at one of the top prep programs in Washington – Graham-Kapowsin in Spanaway just south of Tacoma.
“Where we saw him out of high school, definitely the hope in year two, is we could find ways to get him the ball,” MSU head coach Brent Vigen said. “Maybe not move him all around but find ways to get him the ball because he played at a pretty high level in Washington at a pretty good program. When the ball was in his hands whether it was jet sweeps, bubble screens, any kind of screens, down the field, he was hard to handle. When you can possess that skill, you can find your way to the field a little quicker than some. There wasn’t this crazy amount of development to get that piece done.
“Now that we’re in midseason, I think he’s in a different place than he was this spring but he’s still not this guy we’re going to move all over the place. We want to put him in a position to be successful, and I credit the offensive staff for doing that. I think we need to continue to find ways to get all our guys the ball. That’s a good thing because the ball can find where it’s supposed to go and not need to find a specific target. The more we can spread the ball around the better this offense will be.”
The transition from high school to college wasn’t as smooth as Woods anticipated, although he adjusted eventually.
“In the beginning I wasn’t really getting plays down, so I was playing slower and timid,” Woods said. “Now that I actually got things rolling, I can actually play fast and play at the speed I’m used to playing at.
“It was a big piece of growing up for me. Last season I was kind of in a dark spot. I didn’t really think I’d be playing but coach (Sam) Mix being the new wide receivers coach in our room made it known to me that, yeah I’m a young guy, but he wants me to think like I’m a vet. He wants me to play like I’ve been here before and just been instilling a bunch of confidence in me to play like I used to play. He makes me feel like I’m playing high school ball again. “
Woods caught 192 passes for 2,594 yards and 26 touchdowns in his three seasons as a starter at Graham-Kapowsin.
“I started out my freshman year going over (to Spanaway),” Woods said. “Our old head coach over there, coach (Eric) Kurle, he was a really good coach and he made it known that hard work is the only way we can get to where we want to be. Just being in a hard-nosed program like that and getting used to the big plays really helped me a lot.”
Woods and all the receivers benefited from the arrival of Lamson, who transferred from Stanford. Lamson’s competitiveness and desire have rubbed off on all his teammates and Woods recognizes that.
“It started from the jump when (Lamson) first got here,” Woods said. “He couldn’t play spring ball with us, so he just made sure he was in all the film sessions. Every time after practice he would want to do some extra throwing just to build some chemistry and get some timing down, so once fall camp hit it was kind of clicking with everybody. He had timing down with a lot of the guys. It was really just trying to build the chemistry because we didn’t know who was going to be our quarterback after Tommy left. He came in here with a competitor’s heart and he’s just been a baller since. I love having him on the team. He’s a great addition.”
Woods also acknowledges the defense that has stood out this season. When he’s not too busy consulting with coaches and teammates he makes sure to check out and root on his teammates on the other side of the ball.
“It’s fiery,” Woods said. “If we’re not watching the iPad and what plays we can fix, we’re definitely trying to watch the defense make some plays like (defensive tackle) Paul (Brott) and (defensive end) Kenny (Eiden IV) , day in and day out they make it known that they have to be hardest players on the team. The way that our line moves and the way it operates throughout the whole week it shows on Saturday’s why they’re like that.”
That defense has sparked the Bobcats after its tough 0-2 start with losses to FBS No. 2 Oregon and FCS No. 2 South Dakota State.
“The two losses at the beginning of the season they weren’t ideal,” Woods said. “I think they’re really good learning lessons for our team, especially for us being so young. We were so used to having the great guys last year make all the plays and take us really far but there was bunch of people on the team that haven’t even stepped foot on the field. We just have to wake up and really grow up as a team and get those lessons out of the way so we can really get out minds right and get back to Montana State football.”
The Bozeman area immediately caught Woods’ eye and that is a big reason why he chose to attend MSU.
“It was the scenery,” Woods said. “It was getting away from all the traffic and all the noise. For it being so quiet out here, so beautiful in terms of seeing all the mountains and then the fan base and the culture out here is honestly one of one in my opinion. It can’t get no better than Montana State. The fans love it, the fans are die-hard, they’ll support you no matter what. I love it out here.”
Next up for the Bobcats is Idaho State, which has struggled to a 2-4 start, but has had close losses to two FBS schools – UNLV and New Mexico – along with FCS No. 4 Montana.
“We know they’re going to be a good team to play,” Woods said. “We can’t take it lightly on anybody, so we just gotta worry about getting all our assignments fixed from NAU and then get it rolling and get our minds right for Idaho State. We’ve obviously seen that their record doesn’t speak for that but when you watch the film, you can see that they’re a hard-nosed team so we’re going to lock in and have everybody do their 1/11th so we can get things accomplished.”
The Bengals roll into Bobcat Stadium Saturday afternoon at 1:00.
