There are “fire Vigen” posts over on the Bobcat board. These Montana folks take their games quite seriously - and a bit illogically. Look where Vigen has gotten them.

If MSU loses- it’s due to the innumerable number of penalties and mistakes. They are not playing like a confident mature team.

yah. Just a lot of pressure on an inexperienced kicker

I would have gone for it. Of course hindsight.

Gotta love Rittenhouse.

the one thing bobcats aren’t used to are tight games. ISU has that experience. So pressure on MSU more so than Redbirds.

You can tell Rittenhouse has a lot of experience.

What a game.

ISU putting the heat on Lamson. They have the makeup to not panic - gotta wonder if the Bobcats are starting to wonder if they are going to leave the title on the table again.

Dawson over 100 yards. Cats have slight edge in total yards but have the big plays.

Well I guess I was prophetic about scoring fast

Not so fast my friend :-). Illinois State must avoid penalties and other mistakes and milk the clock to have a chance. Don’t think they will panic-too senior of a team, but Montana State does look like the better team. Montana State has the ability to score much more quickly.

I like Spack better too. I always find it a bit ironic when all the Montana schools talk about is “who has more Montana kids” and seem to focus on them
when many of their players are from out of state (CA for example).

the cautionary tale is that the #10 or 20 TV market generally may not be the #10 or 20 market for football interest when you factor demographics.

. Exactly, and college football in California is pretty passé compared to Midwest and South.

I thought Scott Gordon had some good insights and opinions in this recent episode. One….that there has to be some regulations put it place to rein in the Wild West show, and two-recruit kids that are stable. He mentioned the transferring even in high school these days. Teenagers don’t have a longer view of things (my wife maintains males don’t mature until past 30) and I think many think it’s all football or bust and want the easiest path to get want they want (and think they deserve). If things heat up in the kitchen, the grass is greener somewhere else (sorry about 2 metaphors in one sentence). Gordon mentioned Kirk Herbstreit’s path that i had not known about. Certainly a different approach.

I think CFB could now be living through consequences of recruiting covid-era high school kids

Covid was a “get out of jail free” card to the extreme. Maybe it’s a generational thing too. Remember when getting a “C” in college was a decent if not good grade. I wound up my career at a University and a couple of times I had to haul in graduate students for cheating and I could not believe their attitude. “Everybody does it”, “this is going to prevent me from getting a perfect GPA”. So glad I retired before Covid.

Legacy should have nothing to do with a decision on the starter

Agreed.

UNC Chapel Hill had that for students - had never heard of that before, and just seemed wrong to have different entrance standards. Probably due to money and donation considerations. The sad part of this Wild West transfer portal is that the kids are only thinking of themselves as athletes- but in most cases they are probably in academic programs that are not we would call “high level” and their focus is almost 100% on playing the coming Saturday. Maybe that has always been the reality for most college football players.

The weak spot for Montana State. Is their lack of downstream passing game and lack of multiple receiving threats. So if they get behind the chains it throws them a bit off.

Montana State dominating the line of scrimmage. Montana not used to playing in so hostile of an environment with the crowd noise - usually the other way around.

@agalum@BlueGoldAg Ditto to both of your comments