Montana State has won seven of past nine Cat-Griz matchups
By Colter Nuanez SKYLINE SPORTS
MISSOULA—Consider the boxes checked.
The Great Divide Trophy is returning to Bozeman where it will live for another year after Brent Vigen’s Montana State Bobcats sewed up a third season without a conference loss in the last four years.
Can the Bobcats win in Missoula for the first time since 2018? Check.
Can Justin Lamson settle in when he’s only lived in Montana since last spring? Check. The Stanford transfer completed 90% of his passes and rushed for 105 yards aside from the four times he got sacked.
Can Vigen and his charges win in one of the most hostile environments in college football? Check. It didn’t matter that a record crowd of 27,340 passionately rooted on their first 11-0 team in 16 years—just the fourth Griz team to ever reach that many consecutive wins to start the season. The Bobcats stole back the momentum every time the Griz found it, stealing the lead back on four different occasions in what will go down as one of the hardest-hitting, most violent and most passionately played rivalry games in the 124-year history of the storied clash between neighbors.
Vigen has done pretty much everything a head coach can do since taking over at Montana State ahead of the 2021 season. He’s won three Big Sky Conference championships, tying Rob Ash (2010-2012) and the late Jim Sweeney (1964, 1966, 1967) for the most in school history. He moved to 57-12 in his career, including 37-3 in Big Sky Conference games. He is now 3-2 against the rival and finally has the one regular-season win that eluded him: a victory at Washington-Grizzly Stadium.
“To win here is really challenging,” Vigen said. “I think right now, both programs are at a point where we are both chasing a really high mark. And I don’t know if that’s always been the case in the history of this deal, but it certainly is now.
“This place can swallow you up and it probably has to us the last few times. But this team prepared differently and I appreciate how we executed.”
Montana State repeatedly seized the momentum back every time Montana seemed to swing it in its favor. The Bobcats’ first drive stalled out in the red zone. The Griz answered with a touchdown to take their first lead. But Montana State scored 10 unanswered as quarterback Justin Lamson’s ability to gash the middle of the Griz defense both on designed QB power runs and on scrambles helped spearhead a rushing attack that saw Montana State rush for 241 yards.
The Griz had a pair of commanding drives, one late in the first half and one to open the second half, to help the hosts regain the upper hand. When Michael Wortham pounded in a 5-yard rushing touchdown more than nine game minutes after fumbling—and recovering—the opening kick of the second half, it seemed like the hosts would not relinquish their grip.
Instead, a tipped pass led to a Caden Dowler pick-six, the second in as many weeks for the Big Sky Defensive Player of the Year candidate, helped give the momentum right back to the Bobcats. And Missoula native Zac Crews blocked a Montana field goal attempt, helping MSU carry the momentum.
When Lamson scored on a 23-yard scramble to put MSU up 31-21, Vigen knew his team would be able to salt away the game.
The Griz kept swinging as All-American running back Eli Gillman scored a 52-yard touchdown to cut the lead to three points. But Montana State took over with seven minutes to play and never gave the ball back. Lamson converted a third down with a powerful run that proved pivotal and Julius Davis, who bruised his way to 106 rushing yards, converted a fourth down reminiscent of a play he got stopped on against South Dakota State months earlier, the final play in MSU’s most recent loss.
This time, Davis converted it and Adam Jones, a fellow Missoula native who prepped at Sentinel with Crews, got his chance to slam the door. A few kneels facing the south end-zone and the iconic win was complete.
Vigen emphasized momentum, noting this game was back-and-forth for the first time in the past four rivalry games. “We still had the lead when they cut it to three, but they still had the momentum.”
“In our biggest moment, there was no doubt in our minds.”
The reigning Eddie Robinson Award winner as the national coach of the year helped his football team navigate a string of three straight losses after rolling to 15 straight victories a year ago. The Tommy Mellott era came to a heartbreaking halt when MSU no-showed in the first half of the FCS title game against North Dakota State. Vigen’s Bobcats rallied over the final 40 minutes of action, eventually taking his alma mater down to the wire before losing, 35-32.
A win in last year’s title game and the 2024 Bobcats would be considered the greatest team in school history and arguably one of the best in the history of the league. Both those things are still probably true, but that narrow loss to the juggernaut Bison lingered throughout the off-season. And MSU did not get a chance to wash the bad taste out of its collective mouths until the third week of 2025.
Yet despite an 0-2 start, this Bobcat team stood tall. And when their towering head coach had his first rivalry win to silence most of the record-setting crowd, he ran over the stands to find his wife, Molly. A quick kiss preceded an impassioned postgame speech while Vigen held the Big Sky Conference football trophy as his players burst into celebration again.
The Bobcats earned the No. 2 seed in this year’s FCS playoffs. They will not have to leave Bozeman until they head to Nashville for the FCS title game, if they get to that point. And all that was on the line—an outright Big Sky title, homefield advantage in the playoffs, bragging rights, the Missoula monkey on Vigen’s back being thrown off resoundingly—was secured with Montana State’s steady, tough-minded effort to earn its seventh rivalry win in the last nine.
“You learn through the hard times, and we’ve had a couple hard times over here,” Vigen said after the game. “We hoped to flip the script and we did today.”
Colter Nuanez has covered the Big Sky Conference for 19 seasons and has directly covered Montana State since 2011. His work can be found at skylinesportsmt.com and he can be reached at Colter.Nuanez@gmail.com.
