Stunning Saturday puts Montana State’s win into perspective

BOZEMAN — The Montana State football team’s FCS title hopes received a big boost Saturday.

No. 2-ranked North Dakota State, which has made 10 of the last 12 national championship games, lost to unranked South Dakota 24-19 Saturday in Fargo, North Dakota. That game ended during the second quarter of No. 3 MSU’s homecoming game against Portland State.

NDSU’s loss significantly increased MSU’s odds of earning a top-two seed in this year’s FCS playoffs. The Bobcats weren’t thinking about that when South Dakota completed its upset Saturday. While the Coyotes were celebrating, the Cats were in the middle of a back-and-forth first half. They took a 17-14 lead over PSU into halftime.

MSU (4-1, 2-0 Big Sky) scored 21 straight points after halftime and left Bobcat Stadium with a 38-22 win over the Vikings (2-3, 1-1). The victory will look unremarkable as time passes, but many MSU fans probably will remember the tinge of angst they felt at halftime. The game — along with several upsets and other close finishes Saturday — was a reminder of how hard consistent success can be in the FCS.

“Every game is its own deal, and every game’s not going to be perfect. Every sequence in games is not going to go exactly how you want it to,” MSU head coach Brent Vigen said after the win. “How do you continue to respond when things go well and when things don’t go your way is what we’ve got to be about.”

Since Vigen became MSU’s head coach in 2021, the Cats have often made winning look easy. They won their 23rd straight home game Saturday, extending their program record and FCS-best home winning streak. Their only Big Sky loss since Vigen’s hire was to Montana in 2021, when they were going through quarterback issues against a good Griz team at a deafening Washington-Grizzly Stadium. They’ve suffered three other FCS losses during Vigen’s tenure: to NDSU in the 2021 FCS title game, at eventual national champion South Dakota State in last year’s FCS semifinals and at SDSU three weeks ago.

It’s easy to look at that track record and forget MSU’s 20-13 home win over unranked Idaho in 2021, the 13-7 slugfest at Weber State earlier that season or the pair of three-point wins at Eastern Washington. Few will forget the four safety game against Weber last year or the walk-off at Northern Arizona two weeks later, but they might not recall that the home victory over ranked UC Davis earlier that season was a three-point game in the third quarter.

Portland State took a 7-6 lead in the first quarter Saturday, the first time MSU trailed in the first half this season.

“We’re in a position, with our success, that we’re going to get everybody’s best shot,” Vigen said. “You can tell your guys that all week, and, ‘They’ve got good players, and we’re going to get their best shot,’ but ultimately until things start happening and the game unfolds, you don’t know how the game’s going to play out.”

MSU looked in control for most of Saturday’s game against an unranked team that hasn’t finished above .500 since 2015. The Vikings also looked like an improved team in previous games this season, and they showed playoff potential Saturday with strong performances from players like QB Dante Chachere and running back Quincy Craig. Six MSU penalties certainly helped the Vikings, but they earned all of their 311 total yards. They didn’t look fazed by MSU’s disciplined defense, elite running game or 22,017-person crowd.

“They’ve got some good players, and they compete,” Vigen said. “We took a good shot from them, and that’s what you walk away with — we took a good shot, we opened up a lead in the second half, we prevailed and now we move on.”

NDSU was one of six ranked FCS teams that was defeated by an unranked opponent Saturday. No. 5 William & Mary lost at Elon 14-6, No. 6 Holy Cross lost to Harvard 38-28, No. 14 New Hampshire lost to Towson 54-51, No. 16 Villanova lost at UAlbany 31-10 and No. 23 Youngstown State lost at Northern Iowa 44-41.

In the Big Sky, No. 18 Montana squeaked out a one-score home win over unranked Idaho State, No. 8 Sacramento State nearly fell at home to unranked Northern Arizona and No. 13 Weber State needed a 21-0 fourth quarter to beat winless Northern Colorado.

“Every week, we go in and we try to take the things that we did well the week before, learn from them, take the things we did bad, learn from it, and then flush it,” said MSU defensive end Brody Grebe. “Every week we’re going to be playing a team in the Big Sky that’s pretty talented.”

As Vigen said after his team’s 57-20 win over Stetson two weeks ago, it’s “human nature” for people both inside and outside a program to treat certain opponents less seriously than others. Why should the Cats worry about PSU a week after a 40-0 win at Weber and with bigger games on the horizon?

Saturday’s upsets provided a sobering answer, as did the Griz’s 28-14 loss at previously winless NAU last week. This was NDSU’s first home loss to an unranked team since 2015 (also to South Dakota). MSU fans don’t need to be reminded of UM’s long history of success.

The Cats will lose to a Big Sky team at some point. Their road streak will end eventually too, and they won’t beat unranked teams forever.

“We’re coming off a 40-0 win against Weber. That doesn’t mean anything if we don’t win this game,” said MSU fullback Derryk Snell. “We had to prove ourselves this week.”

Saturday showed why it’s been so long since MSU has suffered a home, conference or upset loss. Talent obviously helped the Cats turn a close game into an easy win, but the mental side played a large role too.

They might end with a top-two seed largely because they won’t be thinking about seeding until the regular season ends.

“Just because we beat Weber State last week doesn’t mean Portland State’s going to come up here and roll over for us,” Grebe said. “We know every week that we’re going to have to bring our best because they know that we’re at the top, and they’re going to want to beat us, take us down, because that’s a good story for them.

“So yeah, just try to get better every week and don’t let the past or future take us off our path.”