POCATELLO — When the game ended, the scoreboard at the ICCU Dome showed Montana State 37, Idaho State 17.
But for the 6,894 fans in attendance and those watching on television they realized the final score didn’t indicate how close this game really was.
The Bobcats came in ranked No. 3 in the nation and with the Bengals suffering even more injuries to key players, may have expected the game to be an easy one, especially when they jumped out to a 17-0 lead.
But it was 17-10 early in the fourth quarter, ISU had just kicked a field goal and suddenly nervousness set in among the MSU faithful who made the trip to Pocatello.
Montana State though is a championship caliber team and championship caliber teams make championship caliber plays when the game is on the line and that is exactly what the Bobcats did which is why they moved their record to 5-0, 1-0 in league play.
On the first play from scrimmage after ISU’s kickoff following the field goal, MSU quarterback Tommy Mellott used play action, saw the Bengal defense make a mistake, fired a strike to the outside to receiver Rohan Jones and he was off to the races.
Literally no Bengal defender was near him and he went untouched 70 yards for what turned out to be a back-breaking play.
Bengal head coach Cody Hawkins was asked about the play and what went wrong.
He said, “We had a ‘cloud’ cover called, we were supposed to have a safety back there and the player who was supposed to be in that spot, he got excited and he wanted to come up and stop the run and that’s not his responsibility. In cloud coverage the safety is supposed to stay deep, that was the call and it was pretty standard but you know guys get excited, guys get in the moment and we just blew coverage.”
The Bobcats wound up scoring 20 fourth quarter points and actually scored a touchdown on the last play of the game, which didn’t go over very well with some of the ISU players after all was said and done. “It was bush,” one Bengal player said.
But the loss didn’t take away from the fact that ISU, now 2-3, 0-1 in the Big Sky, for a large part of the game went toe-to-toe with a tremendous program and Hawkins was justifiably proud of the effort.
He said, “We had just gone through a really physical stretch of football and I’m really proud of our football team. You know I’m not happy with how we played but I’m proud to be a Bengal and I love them.”
He continued, “I told them tonight we’ve got to reflect but tomorrow when we come in to watch film I want nothing but enthusiasm and energy and a fantastic attitude. We’re going into the meat of the Big Sky schedule and we understand that playing the No. 3 team in the country is tough. But we can’t let the momentum of one game carry into the next one.”
But Hawkins definitely hoped the outcome on Saturday would have been different.
He said, “I was really bummed that we couldn’t catch fire right there at the end. You kind of felt things were starting to go our way. I thought we had an opportunity a few times but we just couldn’t get it over the hump. Physically I know our guys can hang with anybody and I really appreciated the way they responded the entire week. We knew it was going to be a great challenge.”
The game turned out to be a memorable one for Idaho State's Michael Shulikov. The 6-6 wide receiver, who also is the Big Sky high-jump champion, snagged three balls in spectacular fashion including a 26-yarder and a leaping back-of-the-end zone grab on fourth down right before halftime to put the Bengals on the board as they cut into MSU’s 17-point lead.
Shulikov talked about the game afterward and what he and his team tried to do on the field.
“It’s the little details, I mean, we know what we are capable of doing, we show glimpses of it every week," he said. “I think, overall, once we click all together we’re going to be able to go up against anyone.”
ISU was put through the ringer for most of the first half of the season schedule having to open at Oregon State and play a pair of top-10 ranked FBS schools in North Dakota and Montana State.
On paper things should get easier the rest of the way but the big question starting next week at Cal-Poly is the overall health of the club.
Two starting offensive linemen are already out for the season, a third suffered an injury in practice Thursday and ISU played the game Saturday without two of the best defensive players in the Big Sky in defensive lineman Cortland Horton and strong safety Calvin Pitcher. Their status for next week is unknown.
The Mustangs will go into that game 2-2 on the year and 1-0 in league play having blown out Northern Colorado 28-7 on Saturday in Greeley. Cal-Poly ran for 290 yards led by redshirt freshman Aiden Ramos who rushed for 120 of those by himself.
Given ISU's inability to stop the run, Montana State gashed them for 254 yards Saturday. Plus the injuries, it will be another challenge for Hawkins and his team at Cal-Poly.
The game in California will kick off at 6 p.m. Mountain Time this coming Saturday.
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