By Colter Nuanez SKYLINE SPORTS
The Gallatin Valley sky was filled with more smoke and the sun had set hours earlier by the time the dust settled on Montana State’s gut-wrenching loss on Saturday night in Bozeman.
But it was impossible to not compare the parallels of Saturday’s heartbreaker to the last time the Bobcats lost at Bobcat Stadium.
The only time Brent Vigen’s squad had walked off the Bobcat Stadium turf after a defeat came when North Dakota State shocked a sellout crowd by blocking an extra point in overtime to earn a 35-34 victory in the second round of the 2023 playoffs to abruptly end Montana State’s season.
So you could hardly blame any of the 22,000-plus in attendance—a Bobcat Stadium record crowd—for having déjà vu when the officials measured Julius Davis’s fourth down dive about two feet short to stun the hosts on a “Gold Rush” evening filled with enthusiasm and optimism to that point.
No. 2 South Dakota State scored touchdowns in both overtimes, then came up with the game-sealing stop in the second OT on a fourth down try to help seal a 30-24 win over No. 3 Montana State.
“The big difference is that blocked extra point against NDSU, that ended our season,” Montana State fifth-year head coach Brent Vigen said following just the second home loss of his Bobcat career. “But both games ended in that end zone. Ultimately, this one is very early in this campaign. I’m sure there are a lot of positives that we can take away that put us in that position and there’s also a lot of negatives that ultimately landed us in that position.
“Those are our two losses since I’ve been here at home and it’s not a good feeling.”
In the first matchup between two teams ranked in the Top 3 of the national polls to play out at Bobcat Stadium since 1984, the clash between two of the Football Championship Subdivision’s best lived up to its billing as a clash of powerhouse programs.
As has been the case for most of the last decade-plus, South Dakota State continued to own the upper hand over MSU. Saturday marked the sixth matchup between the two programs, and SDSU has now won five of the last six matchups dating back to 2017 and seven of the last eight if you include their 47-40 win in Bozeman in the 2014 playoffs.
“We gotta be able to make that yard,” Montana State fifth-year head coach Brent Vigen said following just the second home loss of his Bobcat career. “I obviously want to run that and we have to get it. We weren’t good enough.”
“A long, long list of woulda, coulda, shouldas in this game. I would guess if we ended up on the other side, [SDSU head coach] Dan Jackson probably says the same thing. Turnovers, punts blocked… a lot of things in that game. I really appreciate our crowd and really made it hard for them but they obviously overcame that and found a way to win.”
Montana State’s defense, particularly its front seven, played lights out against a Jackrabbit squad that won back-to-back FCS titles in 2022 and 2023 before losing to eventual national champion North Dakota State in the semifinals of the playoffs a year ago. SDSU lost 16 players to the transfer portal in the offseason, most of whom went with former head coach Jimmy Rogers when he took the Washington State head coaching job.
Montana State lost a collection of All-Americans—like offensive lineman Marcus Wehr, quarterback Tommy Mellott and defensive end Brody Grebe—to graduation. A slew more transferred to the FBS, like running back Scottre Humphrey (New Mexico), tight end Rohan Jones (Arkansas) and offensive tackle Conner Moore (Michigan State).
Both teams played like teams with plenty to prove despite the recent successes of each program over the last decade or so. Both defensive fronts wore out their opposing offensive lines Saturday night. Both teams struggled to move the ball, particularly on the ground. And both teams forced each other’s veteran quarterback to make plays.
In the end, Chase Mason’s touchdown passes in each of the two overtimes proved to be the difference. He hit Jayden Oliver for a two-yard TD in which Oliver made an impressive one-handed catch for the first go-ahead score. Then Mason hit Brayden Delahoyde on the first play of the second overtime for what proved to be the final score of the evening.
“That’s why we play college football,” Mason told Sioux Falls Live following the win. “This was like the stuff you write a movie about, right? Back and forth the whole game, the ups and downs—they’re a great team and we’ll probably see them again, but it’s great to get a win like this on the road. We talked this week about riding the wave, staying steady, and I think we did a great job of that.”
Montana State is now staring down an 0-2 start that is made even more bitter by the fact that MSU won 15 straight games last year only to come up just short to North Dakota State in the national title game, falling 35-32. Since 2017, Montana State has played either North Dakota State or South Dakota State 11 times. MSU’s only victory against a Dakota State game was in the semifinals of the 2021 FCS playoffs, 31-17, over SDSU. The Bobcats fell 38-10 in the national title game two weeks later to NDSU.
The Bobcats will look to start a new home winning streak on Saturday with San Diego of the Pioneer Football League coming to town.
“Any time you open up against the NO. 7 team in the nation [in Oregon], that’s a hard test and we knew we had to grow up fast throughout this summer,” MSU running back Adam Jones said. “We got punched in the mouth these last few weeks. It’s a big wakeup call. It’s good to get tested early. This is going to help us out in the long run. But it hurts.”
