Kolpack: Five Things to watch in the Bison-Montana game

FARGO — When it comes to North Dakota State at the University of Montana, the first order of business for Five Things was to figure out tickets. So taking cue from last week when some Bison fans figured out the password to restricted USD seats — “playoffs” — he decided to try and do the same thing.

Five Things, after all, is all about finding the locals good places to watch the Bison.

The first attempt — “wideright2003” — didn’t work. Not sure why.

That was followed by the ensuing password tries:

• ”WhereisBobStitt?”
• “FlySweep!!*”
• “WeKilledBobcats23!”
• “Bobcatssuck!!!!!!!!”

All failed, maybe the last one didn’t have enough exclamation points. Sorry Bison fans, you’re on your own to figure out a way into Washington-Grizzly Stadium, one of the favorite venues in all of college football for Five Things. In September, there is nothing like a haze of smoke that greets the opening month of college football.
In December, it is a thing of beauty to see the snow on the neighboring Bitterroot Mountains and a game that really matters to two of the blue-blood programs in Division I FCS football.

Montana is 12-1 and the No. 2 seed in the playoffs, but Vegas doesn’t seem to care that NDSU, 11-3 and on the road for the third straight week, is unseeded. The game is a tossup by the offshore betting site 5Dimes.

It wasn’t a tossup in 2003 when the Division II Bison upset the Griz, thanks to a last-second missed field goal. It was a tossup in 2015 when first-year head coach Bob Stitt beat NDSU 38-35 in the season opener, in which in the postgame press conference he declared Montana’s swagger was back.

Chris Klieman, then the head Bison coach, took exception after NDSU’s 37-6 playoff victory later that year when he declared, “You don’t win national championships in August, you win those suckers in December.”

In a tossup game, this is a challenge for Five Things to come up with five factors that will make a difference Saturday, especially for loyal readers of this column knowing that the backup quarterback is writing it instead of The Forum’s columnist.

But here it goes:

Montana started the season like a team destined for the middle of the pack in the Big Sky Conference. A 35-20 season-opening win over non-scholarship Butler University (Ind.) of the Pioneer Football League wasn’t impressive. Most top teams in the FCS beat a Pioneer team by 40-something or 50-something to less than 10.

You know, like NDSU beating Drake 66-3 in the first round of the playoffs.

The Grizzlies went on the road and handled Utah Tech, formerly junior college Dixie State which is trying to make a go of it in the FCS. Then came Ferris State, a very good Division II team, but still Division II.

Ferris led 10-3 at halftime before the Grizzlies rallied with two touchdowns in the second half to win 17-10. The Griz had to stop a late Ferris drive via turnover on downs to secure the win.

There were two more meh performances in September: A 28-14 loss at Northern Arizona, a team that finished 5-6, and a less-than-impressive 28-20 win over Idaho State, a team that finished 3-8. That required a fourth-quarter touchdown run from running back Eli Gillman to secure that win.

That was Montana quarterback Clifton McDowell’s first game as a starter. That was the start of the resurgence of the season that has the Grizzlies playing into the semifinals.

McDowell’s dual-threat running and passing ability has been tough on opponents. It’s not his first rodeo, either. He’s on his fourth school starting with FBS Louisiana for two years, Kilgore College (Texas) for one, Central Arkansas for one before settling on a home in Missoula.

He has looked at home at quarterback.

NDSU will have to contain at least one of his threats, most likely the run game. Whereas NDSU’s Cam Miller leads the FCS in completion percentage, McDowell is completing 122 of 205 passes for 59.5%.

Somebody flipped a switch somewhere with the Bison, perhaps starting with a 34-10 win at home against nationally ranked Southern Illinois. It came one week after another defeat at South Dakota State, when the NDSU season was already at a rare three-loss mark.

But the Bison have won five straight and never looked better this season than in last weeks’ 45-17 win at South Dakota in the quarterfinals.

“It’s been great to be on a little win streak here,” said senior wide receiver Zach Mathis. “No better time to have it than at this time of the year. Most of the national championship teams I was a part of were undefeated teams that just kind of swept through everyone. To have a season like this, one, it was different, it was a shock early on but we’re making the most of it and it’s been amazing to be a part of it.”

In that regard, NDSU and Montana mirrored each other: Slow starts, questionable season outlooks but strong when it’s counted.

It’s the second trip back to the state of Montana in three weeks for the Bison, who at least got a home game and layup against Drake University (Iowa) in the first round. That was on Nov. 25, but it seems longer ago than that.

The trip to Montana State was not only on the road, it was exhausting with a 35-34 overtime win thanks to a blocked extra point in OT by Hunter Poncius. Last week, the Bison got on the bus for a 3-1/2-hour drive to Sioux Falls on Friday and the 45-minute drive to Vermillion on Saturday morning for the quarterfinal game.

On Friday, it’s back on the plane for the charter to Missoula.

Too much travel? Five Things will note that South Dakota State hit the road in 2021 for playoff games at Sacramento State, Villanova and Montana State, with the Jackrabbits clearly running out of gas in the second half at MSU. The Bobcats owned the final two quarters in a 31-17 win.

NDSU linebacker Luke Weerts said the team is taking a “road dog” mentality.

“Most of the time you see comments and tweets that the playoffs have to go through the Fargodome,” Mathis said. “I kind of feel like the playoffs have to go through the Bison no matter what, home or away. We’re making that impact at whatever stadium or venue we’re playing at.”

NDSU has gone years without needing a silent count on offense. I mean, years. Five Things can count on two fingers the number of stadiums in the Missouri Valley Football Conference where the crowd makes a difference: the University of North Dakota and South Dakota State. The University of South Dakota and Northern Iowa have their moments, but it’s not a consistent thing.

Otherwise, the Bison quarterback sometimes doesn’t have to raise his voice.

Not in Missoula. Washington-Grizzly fans are close to the field and when it’s cold, the best way to warm up is to yell and be loud. Five Things expects those who participate in mind-enhancing drinks will double their recipes in the tailgate lot and be ready to go.

So do the Bison players and coaches.

“It’s something different to experience that I haven’t experienced before,” Mathis said.

For the first half of the season, NDSU backup quarterback Cole Payton was his team’s leading rusher. Then came a silent stretch where he hardly got the ball and on a couple occasions when he did, he looked hesitant.

No longer.

Perhaps starting with a 65-yard touchdown run against Northern Iowa in the last regular season game, Payton’s roar has been restored. He had two touchdowns and 104 yards rushing against Drake. He had a key completion to get the Bison out of the shadow of their end zone against Montana State, a game in which the Bobcats keyed on the NDSU QB running game paving the way for TaMerik Williams’ 162 yards and two touchdowns.

Last week, Payton smashed USD with two key touchdown runs.

Jeff would like to dispel the notion he was around when Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press, but he is on his third decade of reporting with Forum Communications. The son of a reporter and an English teacher, and the brother of a reporter, Jeff has worked at the Jamestown Sun, Bismarck Tribune and since 1990 The Forum, where he’s covered North Dakota State athletics since 1995.
Jeff has covered all nine of NDSU’s Division I FCS national football titles and has written three books: “Horns Up,” “North Dakota Tough” and “Covid Kids.” He is the radio host of “The Golf Show with Jeff Kolpack” April through August.