Montana
Numbers crunch: Home dominance the new trend in Cat-Griz rivalry. Will it hold true again?
BILLINGS — Last season’s football clash between Montana and Montana State was perhaps the highest-stakes Brawl of them all, with the winner taking home the outright Big Sky Conference title and the league’s automatic bid to the playoffs.
The Grizzlies’ 37-7 blowout victory set them on a course to the FCS national championship game, while the Bobcats dropped their postseason opener at home to North Dakota State.
This year’s matchup doesn’t have quite the same surrounding drama. But it matters. Every year. Always. Regardless of the windfall.
The Cats and Griz — ranked No. 2 and No. 10 respectively entering last week — will kick off the 123rd Brawl of the Wild on Saturday at 12 p.m. at Bobcat Stadium in Bozeman.
Coming in, Montana State (11-0, 7-0 Big Sky) has already wrapped up the league’s automatic bid to the playoffs and clinched at least a share of the conference title thanks to a 30-28 road win at UC Davis. A victory over the Griz this week and MSU will be outright Big Sky champs.
The Bobcats want to stay in position to have the best chance to go where the Grizzlies went last year — Frisco, Texas.
Meanwhile, Montana (8-3, 5-2) has surely played its way into an at-large playoff berth, but a victory in Bozeman would enhance its credentials for positioning within the 24-team bracket, which will be released by the FCS selection committee on Sunday.
When last year’s game ended, Griz coach Bobby Hauck called it an “a** kicking” on live television. He wasn’t wrong. But that’s been the trend in this rivalry for the past five years on both sides.
Montana State dismantled the Griz at home in 2019 (48-14) and 2022 (55-21), an average margin of victory of 34 points in those wins. Montana, meanwhile, blew past the Cats 29-10 in 2021 in Missoula, a game that didn’t seem as close as the score indicated, then dominated last year’s game in Missoula, as Hauck not-so-subtly alluded to.
The Bobcats’ Brent Vigen has put together a glowing resume in four years as MSU’s coach. He’s 43-9 overall (.827) and 28-3 in the Big Sky with two league titles. He has yet to lose a home game to a conference opponent, and has not lost a regular-season home game period.
Vigen is looking to even his record against the Grizzlies at 2-2 on Saturday.
Hauck obviously has a much longer history against the Bobcats — “the neighbors,” as he calls them — in his two separate tenures at Montana.
Hauck is 7-5 all-time versus MSU. Overall, he is 137-39 (.778), 82-21 in Big Sky games and has taken the Grizzlies to four national championship game appearances, including last year’s.
But he doesn’t want to fall to 2-4 against the Bobcats since returning as coach prior to the 2018 season.
From a historical standpoint, Montana has the upper hand in the rivalry with a 74-42-5 series lead, a fact that’s not lost on the Grizzlies or their fans. The primary reasons for that were UM’s 36-3-4 record over the Bobcats from 1909-1955 and a 16-game Griz winning streak from 1986-2001.
But from a more modern perspective, the series sits at 34-32 in favor of UM since 1956. If you drill it down even further, it’s all square at 10-10 since the Bobcats finally got back on the winning side after 16 long seasons in 2002.
That’s what has made this conflict even better in recent years — the fact that both teams are keeping pace with each other head-to-head. That only enhances what is one of the best college football rivalries in the country.
Now it’s a matter of whether the recent trend of home-field advantage rings true again this year. And we’re about to find out.
HELENA — You probably have goals and plans for 2026—the Montana Department of Agriculture does too.
“We’re really focusing on innovative agricultural practices,” Montana Department of Agriculture director Jillien Streit said.
It’s no secret that agriculture—farming and ranching—is not easy. There are long days, planning, monitoring crops and livestock, and other challenges beyond farmers’ and ranchers’ control.
(WATCH: Montana Department of Agriculture focusing on innovation in 2026)
Montana Department of Agriculture focusing on innovation in 2026
“We have very low commodity prices across the board,” Streit said. “We still have very high input prices across the board, and we have really high prices when it comes to our equipment, and so, it’s a really tough year.”
But innovation, including new practices, partnerships and technology use, can help navigate some of those challenges.
“We can’t make more time and we can’t make more land, so we need to start putting together innovative practices that help us maximize what our time and land can do,” Streit said.
Practices range from using technology like autonomous tractors and virtual fencing—allowing rangers to contain and move cattle right from their phones—to regenerative farming and ranching.
“It is bringing cattle back into farming operations to be able to work with cover cropping practices to invigorate the soil for new soil health benefits,” Streit said.
The Montana Department of Agriculture is working to help producers learn, share, and collaborate on new ideas to work in their operations.
The department will share stories of practices that work from farms and ranches across the state. Also, within the next year or so, Streit said the department is hoping to roll out technology to help producers collaborate.
“(It’s) providing a communication platform where people can get together and really help each other out by utilizing each other’s assets,” she said.
While not easy, agriculture is still one of Montana’s largest industries, and Streit said innovating and sharing ideas across the state can keep it going long into the future.
Montana
Frontier Conference women: MSU-Northern, Montana Western pull upsets to advance to semifinal round
BUTTE — MSU-Northern and Montana Western pulled a pair of upsets Saturday at the Butte Civic Center to wrap up the quarterfinal round of the Frontier Conference women’s basketball postseason tournament.
The fifth-seeded Skylights started the day with a red-hot shooting performance to down No. 4 Rocky Mountain College 82-74. Western, the sixth seed, used a third-quarter surge to defeat No. 3 Carroll College 65-56.
MSU-Northern (17-11) and Western (14-13) now advance to Sunday’s semifinal round, where the Skylights will play No. 1 seed Dakota State at noon and the Bulldogs will face No. 2 Montana Tech at 2:30 p.m.
MSU-Northern 82, Rocky Mountain College 74
MSU-Northern sizzled in the first quarter, making seven 3-pointers to take a double-digit lead, and put together a crucial third-quarter run to get past Rocky and advance to the semifinal round.
Becky Melcher splashed four 3s in the first 10 minutes, and Taya Trottier, Canzas HisBadHorse and Shania Moananu added one apiece as the Skylights built a 29-13 lead. Melcher scored 14 first-quarter points and finished with a game-high 30 on 10-of-19 shooting (7 of 15 from 3-point range). She added 11 rebounds, a blocked shot and three steals to her stat line.
Rocky battled back to tie the game at 36-36 in the second quarter on a Brenna Linse basket, but MSUN responded with consecutive triples from Trottier and Melcher and took a 44-38 lead into halftime. The Bears eventually stole the lead back in the third quarter following a 9-0 run capped be an Isabelle Heggem bucket.
But the Skylights again answered — this time with a 13-2 run to take a 60-51 lead. MSUN led 66-59 going to the fourth and wouldn’t trail the rest of the way. The Skylights trailed for less than two total minutes of the game.
As a team, MSUN made 14 of 26 3s in the game. Ciera Agasiva was 3 for 3 from behind the arc, and Trottier was 2 for 3. Trottier had 18 points, eight rebounds and six assists, while Agasiva had 13 points.
Paige Wasson led Rocky (20-9) with 29 points but was 0 for 10 on 3-point attempts. Heggem had a double-double of 21 points and 12 rebounds.
Montana Western 65, Carroll 56
After neither team led by more than five points in the first half, Western broke open a 25-25 tie game by outscoring Carroll 20-9 in the third quarter.
Bailee Sayler scored 10 points in the quarter, including making two 3-pointers, to help the Bulldogs take control. They led 45-34 going to the fourth, and Carroll wouldn’t get closer than six points the rest of the way.
The Fighting Saints were just 18-of-65 shooting (27.7%) for the game.
Sayler scored an efficient 22 points on 7-of-8 shooting. She was 2 for 3 from 3-point range and 6 for 7 at the free throw line. The Missoula native also had nine rebounds.
Isabella Lund added 16 points for the Bulldogs, and Keke Davis had 11 points and 11 rebounds.
Carroll (19-10) was led by Kenzie Allen with 12 points. Willa Albrecht and Meagan Karstetter scored 11 points apiece for the Saints.
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